Some questions about Lot's wife

[hilarycotter]

Is there any significance to Lot’s wife being changed into a pillar of salt for looking back?

Is there any accepted reason for her looking back? IE curiosity, willful disobedience, sympathy for those who where incinerated?

TIA

Hilary

 

[Joe_Kelley]

I recall hearing at one time that she looked back in longing for the life she was leaving. She was punished for clinging to the sinful life there. I don’t remember where I got that. It was a respectable source, but probably not an authoritative one.

There may be a message there for us not to look back to what is vanishing with the falling economy. Just my :twocents:

 

[Cachonga]

Luke 9:62 says, “And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” Seems to be an appropriate reason for what happened to Lot’s wife. Why a pillar of salt? Maybe because “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” (Matt 5:13), and she became salt that lost it’s savour.

 

[Todd_Easton]

She seems to have been an unbelieving soul:
Wisdom rescued a righteous man when the ungodly were perishing;
he escaped the fire that descended on the Five Cities.
Evidence of their wickedness still remains:
a continually smoking wasteland,
plants bearing fruit that does not ripen,
and a pillar of salt standing as a monument to an unbelieving soul. (Wisdom 10:6-7)

 

[patrick457]

In a bit of off-topicness, there are a few Jewish myths which explain the reason why Lot’s wife turned into a salt pillar:

1.) Curiosity coupled with disobedience. Lot’s wife turned back to see if her daughters - married to men of Sodom - were coming after her. She also wanted to know what would ultimately happen to her father’s house. Instead she saw God, who had descended from heaven to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Because “no one could see God and live” she turned into a pillar of salt.

2.) Lot’s wife sinned with salt. When the two angels came to Lot’s house, he offered a feast for them (cf. Genesis 19:3) and asked his wife to give them a little salt. The wife was angry at this (“Do you want to introduce that evil practice of giving people salt?”) and went around the neighborhood asking for salt, prompting the people of Sodom to the presence of Lot’s guests (cf. Genesis 19:4-11).

The legend adds that all day oxen come and lick the salt pillar, leaving nothing but the bottom part at the end of the day, only for it to regrow the next day.

 

[ericanthony]

Perhaps we should ask “was she transformed?”. The change of a mass of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen and many other elements, into a mass of sodium and chloride ions seems dubious to say the least. In addition, since Lot had just offered his daughters to the mob, perhaps he was the one who should have undergone this massive elemental transmutation.