03 - Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
History and Condition of Sodom -- The five Kings in the Vale of Siddim defeated in Battle -- Sodom and Gomorrah plundered -- Lot taken Prisoner -- Rescued by Abraham near Damascus -- Remarks on Lot -- His character -- His treatment by Abraham -- His employment in Sodom -- Did he set up public Worship? At the time of Lot’s removal to Sodom, the region where the Dead Sea is situated, and which, instead of being overflowed, was then a rich interval, was called the vale of Siddim. In it, as I have already told you, stood the five cities of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Zoar; or as it was then called, Bela.
These five cities were ruled by as many kings; for in those days and in that country, the territory of a king, in many instances, was very small, sometimes consisting of only a single city, and that a very small one, too. Indeed, a king, then, was little more than a magistrate over a city or village. In those days too, as it now often is, when one king was stronger than others, he overcame them, and made them pay tribute to him; and this yearly tribute sometimes amounted to an immense sum, in money, goods, cattle, &c.
Well, as I was going to tell you, the five kings in the vale of Siddim, at the time Lot removed into their country, were paying tribute to Chedorlaomer, a powerful king at the north-east; and had been doing so about four years. -- Eight years after Lot’s arrival they rebelled, however, resolving to govern their own country in their own way. The next year after their rebellion, King Chedorlaomer, and three other kings who were in alliance with him, having heard of the rebellion of the five kings in the vale of Siddim, and of their refusal, probably, to pay tribute, came to make war upon and reduce them again to their subjection. This was the first war of which we have any account in the Bible, or indeed in any other history. Nimrod indeed had already been a might hunter, and the founder of a great kingdom; and it is by no means improbable that he had been engaged in wars, but we have no particular account of them. A great battle between the four eastern kings and the five kings, in the vale of Siddim, was now fought, and it ended in the total overthrow of the latter. Some of them were destroyed, but others fled to the mountains.
Then followed a scene at which all reflecting people must shudder. Houses were pillaged of everything valuable, and even, to some extent, of provisions; and scenes of cruelty and carnage took place, of which they have but a faint conception, who never witnessed the ravages of a victorious army; nor even they, since the rules of modern warfare do not allow the conquerors to lay their hands on private property, though it is sometimes done. Nor did the victorious soldiers at the vale of Siddim content themselves with merely plundering the inhabitants: some of them were carried away as captives. Among the prisoners was Lot, the friend of Abraham, and his family. The news of the capture of Lot and his family soon reached Abraham, who was living at this time near Hebron, a day’s journey westward of the vale of Siddim. Abraham was at this time in an alliance with several distinguished chiefs of the country where he resided, and who appears to have been powerful. With their aid, and three hundred and eighteen servants of his own, he immediately set out in pursuit of the conquerors. When he approached the victorious but retreating army, he had recourse to strategem. The Bible does not mention all the particulars, however. It only says "he divided himself against them, he and his servants by night." But he was successful. He "smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah," which was not far from Damascus. The battle began at the city of Dan, near Mount Lebanon.
Abraham and his troops were not only victorious, but they succeeded in recovering the prisoners and the spoil which had been carried away, and among the rest, Lot and all his effects.
I have spoken of Lot’s family, because it is said in speaking of Abraham’s success, that he brought back "Lot and his goods, and the women, also, and the people;" which seems to me to imply -- though it does not prove it -- that some of them were members of his family. Besides, he certainly had a family a few years afterwards, and of such an age that it is highly probably he was married before his captivity. And if married at this time, it is probably that his wife was among the captives.
If you ask how they came to single out Lot and his family, and take them prisoners, I reply that it is not certain they did single them out. The language of the Bible, which I have just quoted, indeed, plainly shows that other "people" besides Lot and his family were taken; and the seizure of Lot among the rest might have been wholly accidental.
Lot’s capture, I say, might have been accidental; but I do not think it was; and I will give my reasons. I suppose he was a man of considerable distinction in Sodom. Wealth is very apt to give a person distinction, though it ought not to; and Lot was wealthy when he went to Sodom, and probably still more so when he was taken captive. Besides, we are told that when the messenger of God, some years afterward, came to visit him, just before the destruction of Sodom, they found him siting in the "gate" of the city. Now it sometimes happens, that, when a person is spoken of in the Bible as sitting in the gate of a king or a city, it implies that he possesses authority. Such authority I am inclined to think Lot possessed in Sodom, and that this was a reason why he was taken prisoner.
I am the more inclined to think that Lot was a magistrate, or some other officer in Sodom, from the fact that he was an ambitious man, seeking for distinction of some kind or other. And in general, when men of wealth and talents -- and Lot had talents, too, as well as wealth -- set their hearts on being great and distinguished, they succeed. As a general rule, too, people may become what they please. If they set their hearts on getting rich, they can become so; if, on getting office, they can obtain that, especially if they have wealth into the bargain; if they are desirous of being good, rather than great, this, too, is within their power. Oh, how few set goodness before them as the great object of pursuit; and how many, on the contrary, spend their lives in seeking wealth and distinction!
It is by no means improbable that Lot had married, too, with a reference to his main object, -- that of being distinguished. This is very often done. Men marry into wealthy and honorable families, in order to secure to themselves their wealth and influence. But when they do so, they usually reap the consequence of their folly; and we shall see, in the sequel, that Lot did.
It must not be denied that men may marry wives from wicked families, for much nobler objects than those which I have mentioned. They may have a strong desire of reforming the people over whom such a marriage will be likely to give them influence; and they may seek this as their grand aim in marriage. And such may, possibly, have been the intention of Lot; but I do not believe it was so. I believe that, though he was a good man, compared with the people of Sodom -- so good, indeed, that he is once called "just," possessing many excellent traits of character, and securing, wherever he went, the love and esteem of all those who knew him, yet he was by no means a reformer. On the contrary, he seems to me to have been a man of passive character; more solicitous to aggrandize himself, as I have already repeatedly said, than to benefit others. The more I reflect on it, the more I am surprised that Lot should ever have so connected himself with this wicked and abominable people. In the first place, how could any body avoid preferring the healthy, pure air, and the delightful hill and dale, of middle Palestine, to the less healthy and less pure air of a low interval?
Secondly, how strange it is that he should have been willing not only to leave the worship of the true God, which Abraham kept up in his house -- for that were privation enough -- but to go and settle down among gross idolaters, for such the Sodomites undoubtedly were! In the third place, why is it that men, who are happy in pastoral and agricultural employments, will leave them for the cares and vexations of mercantile life, especially in a crowded city?
And, fourthly, why not seek an alliance, by marriage, with some of the families of Canaan -- the relatives or friends, I mean, of Abraham? It was but a little way from Sodom to the plain of Mamre, near Hebron, where Abraham, as I have already told you, now resided.
I am surprised at another thing,--the goodness and forbearance of Abraham. We have already seen that he gave Lot his choice, and allowed him to go to Sodom, if he chose, bad as the place was; though there can be no doubt that he greatly disapproved of his choice. But now that he had got into trouble, does Abraham reproach him with it? Not a word of reproach was uttered, that we can find. He does not so much as say, "I told you so." More than this, he helps him out of his difficulties. He arms his servants, and collects an army -- much as he hated war -- and goes off a hundred miles and attacks, with a small force, a powerful and triumphant enemy, and overcomes them, and brings back his erring, self aggrandizing nephew.
Whether he gave him any advice in regard to leaving the city, after his return, we do not know. But it is not surprising that his misfortunes had not cured him of his desire of remaining there? Is it not surprising that he did not sell his property -- what he could not remove -- and regarding his misfortunes as the righteous judgments of Heaven upon him for going there, quit the place and its inhabitants for ever? By no means. Men of the spirit and temper of Lot are not so easily reclaimed. Who does not know how unhealthy a place New Orleans is, especially to northern people? And yet they continue to go there. Though thousands die around them every year, yet the love of property induces them to stay a little longer: till, at length, they are swept away with the rest. The danger seldom drives them away; neither does the sickness of themselves, their friends, or their neighbors, often reclaim them.
There is one difference between Abraham and Lot, which must have struck the minds of many Bible readers --and very properly -- with great force. Abraham, as we have already seen, at least in part, though a man of great wealth, was accustomed to wander from place to place, even after he arrived in Canaan. Sometimes he was at Shechem; sometimes between Bethel and Ai. Again we find him in Egypt; again in the land of the Philistines. Now he is in Gerar; now in Beersheba; now at Hebron or Jerusalem. But wherever Abraham went, he always erected an altar to the true God, on his arrival in the place, and there worshipped with his family. This was drawing at once a broad line of demarcation between himself and the surrounding idolatrous nations. I say he always did this, though the Bible does not say quite so much. But it speaks so often of his doing so, that there is reason for believing that he did it uniformly. But how was it with Lot, when he settled in Sodom? Did he erect an alter at once? Did he thus show the idolatrous and sensual inhabitants that, in spiritual concerns, he had "no part with them?" Abraham would have done this, most undoubtedly. Our modern missionaries would have done this.
I do not mean to say that our modern missionaries, with the light we now have under the gospel, would have set up alters, literally, and sacrificed animals on them. But I mean that they would have set up religious worship, in some form or other -- public worship, too. It is not sufficient that they pray in their families, and in their closets, and read the Bible and sermons* at home; there must be churches and public preaching and prayer in every attempt of good men to settle down among wicked or idolatrous nations, with the hope of reclaiming them.
[footnote: Many people in every country--and especially among us in New England--say it is of no use to go to church and hear sermons and prayers, on the Sabbath, when they can read the Bible and good sermons at home, and pray there too. But Abraham did not reason so. Abraham could pray and read at home; and undoubtedly he kept up the worship of God in his family; and yet this did not prevent his attending to public worship.] Not a word is said, however, about Lot’s setting up any altar in Sodom; and I think we may fairly infer that he did not do it. But if he neglected it, situation as the world then was, and with Abraham’s example before him, was he not exceedingly culpable?
Perhaps he reasoned as many do now. Perhaps he said to himself, "If I set up the worship of God here, the people will think I am superstitious. On the contrary, if I do nothing that gives them occasion to make any remarks of the kind, they will consider me liberal; not as saying, Stand by, for I am a little holier. I can worship God at home in my family, without any ridicule, and without any loss of reputation." But alas! if he did indeed reason thus -- if, for the sake of gain, he was willing thus to temporize, how deserving was he of the woes that fell upon him! And when, at least, he was driven out, as it were by fire and brimstone with the loss of all or nearly all his property, and many of his friends, how little was he to be pitied!
Abraham lost not the respect even of the idolatrous people among whom he lived, by his open acknowledgment of a spiritual Diety, and by practically rejecting their idol worship. On the contrary, as every one may see, he everywhere won their esteem. He was truly liberal, and truly polite, and yet he did not hesitate boldly to declare his religious faith publically, and without much regard to consequences. Had Lot done this, we do not know but, instead of the Dead sea, we might perhaps now see in its stead the beautiful vale of Siddim, and instead of a large tract of country comparatively wasted, a delightful region thickly populated.
I have spoken of the folly of men, in leaving a pastoral and agricultural life, for the mercantile pursuits of a crowded city; and have intimated that Lot did so. Of this, however, we have no certain evidence. He may have continued his former employment, and no other. Though the vale of Siddim was not exactly the place for his flocks and herds, yet they might have been scattered under the care of his numerous herdsman over the adjacent hills. Or, perhaps he continued his former occupation, in the manner I have now mentioed, and added mercantile pursuits to it. When he was taken prisoner, it is said that "they took all his goods;" and when he was retaken by Abraham, we are again told that "his goods" were brought back. Would there be so much said about his goods unless he had been a large dealer? This is a question that I cannot answer; though it is my own belief that he was a merchant; and for those days, a trader on a very extensive scale. If the river Jordan did, as I have elsewhere supposed, actually empty itself, at that time, into the Red sea, it might have been navigable as far as Sodom; and if so, I see no reason why the latter might not have been a place of considerable trade, and Lot one of the principle wholesale traders. Indeed, it is somewhat difficult to account for such a rapid sinking of the cities of the vale of Siddim into corruption, without supposing that they were greatly engaged in merchandizing.