Genesis 19:27

And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the LORD:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(27) Abraham gat up early in the morning.—This was necessary, because he had a walk of some miles before he reached “the place where he stood before Jehovah” on the previous evening; and probably the mighty forces which overthrew the cities had been some hours at work when he reached the head of the ravine through which the terrible scene became visible. Naturally his anxiety to know the result of his intercession, and the fate of his brother’s son, would urge him to be on foot at the early dawn.

Benson Commentary

Genesis 19:27-29. And Abraham gat up early — To see what was become of his prayers, he went to the very place where he had stood before the Lord. And he looked toward Sodom — Not as Lot’s wife did, tacitly reflecting upon the divine severity, but humbly adoring it, and acquiescing in it. Here is God’s favourable regard to Abraham. As before, when Abraham prayed for Ishmael, God heard him for Isaac; so now, when he prayed for Sodom, he heard him for Lot. God remembered Abraham, and for his sake sent Lot out of the overthrow — God will certainly give an answer of peace to the prayer of faith in his own way and time.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

19:1-29 Lot was good, but there was not one more of the same character in the city. All the people of Sodom were very wicked and vile. Care was therefore taken for saving Lot and his family. Lot lingered; he trifled. Thus many who are under convictions about their spiritual state, and the necessity of a change, defer that needful work. The salvation of the most righteous men is of God's mercy, not by their own merit. We are saved by grace. God's power also must be acknowledged in bringing souls out of a sinful state If God had not been merciful to us, our lingering had been our ruin. Lot must flee for his life. He must not hanker after Sodom. Such commands as these are given to those who, through grace, are delivered out of a sinful state and condition. Return not to sin and Satan. Rest not in self and the world. Reach toward Christ and heaven, for that is escaping to the mountain, short of which we must not stop. Concerning this destruction, observe that it is a revelation of the wrath of God against sin and sinners of all ages. Let us learn from hence the evil of sin, and its hurtful nature; it leads to ruin.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Abraham rises early on the following morning, to see what had become of the city for which he had interceded so earnestly, and views from afar the scene of smoking desolation. Remembering Abraham, who was Lot's uncle, and had him probably in mind in his importunate pleading, God delivered Lot from this awful overthrow. The Eternal is here designated by the name Elohim, the Everlasting, because in the war of elements in which the cities were overwhelmed, the eternal potencies of his nature were signally displayed.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

27. Abraham gat up early in the morning, &c.—Abraham was at this time in Mamre, near Hebron, and a traveller last year verified the truth of this passage. "From the height which overlooks Hebron, where the patriarch stood, the observer at the present day has an extensive view spread out before him towards the Dead Sea. A cloud of smoke rising from the plain would be visible to a person at Hebron now, and could have been, therefore, to Abraham as he looked toward Sodom on the morning of its destruction by God" [Hackett]. It must have been an awful sight, and is frequently alluded to in Scripture (De 29:23; Isa 13:19; Jude 7). "The plain which is now covered by the Salt or Dead Sea shows in the great difference of level between the bottoms of the northern and southern ends of the lake—the latter being thirteen feet and the former thirteen hundred—that the southern end was of recent formation, and submerged at the time of the fall of the cities" [Lynch].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And Abraham got up early in the morning,.... Perhaps he had had but little sleep the whole night, his thoughts being taken up with what was to befall the cities of the plain; and especially being in great concern for Lot and his family:

to the place where he stood before the Lord; Genesis 18:22; to the very spot of ground where he had stood the day before in the presence of the Lord, and had conversed with him, and prayed unto him; and so the Targum of Jonathan,"to the place where he ministered in prayer before the Lord;''here he came and stood waiting for an answer to his prayers; and perhaps this place was an eminence, from whence he could have a view of the plain of Jordan and the cities on it; and so it appears from Genesis 19:28.

Geneva Study Bible

And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the LORD:

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

27. gat up early] No emphasis is here laid in the Hebrew upon the earliness of the rise. The idiom amounts to saying “in the morning Abraham arose and went to the place.”

stood before the Lord] See Genesis 18:12.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 27. - And Abraham gat up early in the morning (of the catastrophe) to the place (i.e. and went to the place) where he stood before the Lord (vide on Genesis 18:22). Genesis 19:27

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

On the way, Lot's wife, notwithstanding the divine command, looked "behind him away," - i.e., went behind her husband and looked backwards, probably from a longing for the house and the earthly possessions she had left with reluctance (cf. Luke 17:31-32), - and "became a pillar of salt." We are not to suppose that she was actually turned into one, but having been killed by the fiery and sulphureous vapour with which the air was filled, and afterwards encrusted with salt, she resembled an actual statue of salt; just as even now, from the saline exhalation of the Dead Sea, objects near it are quickly covered with a crust of salt, so that the fact, to which Christ refers in Luke 17:32, may be understood without supposing a miracle.

(Note: But when this pillar of salt is mentioned in Wis. 11:7 and Clemens ad Cor. xi. as still in existence, and Josephus professes to have seen it, this legend is probably based upon the pillar-like lumps of salt, which are still to be seen at Mount Usdum (Sodom), on the south-western side of the Dead Sea.)

- In Genesis 19:27, Genesis 19:28, the account closes with a remark which points back to Genesis 18:17., viz., that Abraham went in the morning to the place where he had stood the day before, interceding with the Lord for Sodom, and saw how the judgment had fallen upon the entire plain, since the smoke of the country went up like the smoke of a furnace. Yet his intercession had not been in vain.