Luke 17:32

Remember Lot's wife.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(32) Remember Lot’s wife.—The reference to this, as to the history of Lot generally, is peculiar to St. Luke, and speaks strongly for the independence of his Gospel. The account of Lot’s wife had, however, already been used, or was used shortly afterwards (the date of the Wisdom of Solomon being an unsettled problem), to point a like moral, and the “standing pillar of salt” had become “a monument of an unbelieving soul” (Wisdom Of Solomon 10:7). She had looked back, as the disciples were told not to look, and the glance had been fatal (Genesis 19:26).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

17:20-37 The kingdom of God was among the Jews, or rather within some of them. It was a spiritual kingdom, set up in the heart by the power of Divine grace. Observe how it had been with sinners formerly, and in what state the judgments of God, which they had been warned of, found them. Here is shown what a dreadful surprise this destruction will be to the secure and sensual. Thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. When Christ came to destroy the Jewish nation by the Roman armies, that nation was found in such a state of false security as is here spoken of. In like manner, when Jesus Christ shall come to judge the world, sinners will be found altogether regardless; for in like manner the sinners of every age go on securely in their evil ways, and remember not their latter end. But wherever the wicked are, who are marked for eternal ruin, they shall be found by the judgments of God.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Remember Lot's wife - See Genesis 19:26. "She" looked back - she delayed - perhaps she "desired" to take something with her, and God made her a monument of his displeasure. Jesus directed his disciples, when they saw the calamities coming upon the Jews, to flee to the mountains, Matthew 24:16. He here charges them to be in haste - not to look back - not to delay - but to escape quickly, and to remember that by delaying the wife of Lot lost her life.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

32. Lot's wife—her "look back," for that is all that is said of her, and her recorded doom. Her heart was in Sodom still, and the "look" just said, "And must I bid it adieu?"

Matthew Poole's Commentary

We have the story Genesis 19:26. She looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. Lot and his family leaving Sodom, she either looked back as not believing what the angel had said, or as moved with the miserable condition of the place, or as loath to leave her estate and goods; however, in disobedience to the command of God, Luke 17:17, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. God turneth her into a pillar of salt. It is a dreadful caution against unbelief, disobedience, worldly mindedness, contempt of God’s threatenings, and keeping a love for the forbidden society of lewd and wicked persons.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Remember Lot's wife. Whose name by the Jews, is said to be Adith, as some (s); or Irith, as others (t): and who, they also say, was a native of Sodom; and that the reason of her looking, was either to see what would be the end of her father's house and family (u); or as others (w), because her heart yearned after her daughters, and she looked back to see if they followed her; upon which she became a pillar of salt, Genesis 19:26 They say (x), that her bones were burnt with the brimstone, and along with which was salt, into which she was turned, according to Deuteronomy 29:23. They often speak of , "salt of Sodom" (y); where the gloss says, it is thick and hard, as a stone; and to which they sometimes (z) ascribe this virtue, that it blinds the eyes: and there is a sort of salt, which they call (a) Galilaean salt, of like hardness; and Pliny (b) speaks of salt in the Indies, which they cut out, as stones out of quarries; and that, at Carthis, a town in Arabia, is salt with which they build houses and walls: of a very durable nature it is certain, was this pillar of "salt", Lot's wife became; for Josephus reports (c), that he saw this pillar of salt in his time; and Irenaeus asserts (d), that it was in being when he lived; and modern writers, as Burchardus and Adrichomius, speak of it as still existing; and the Jerusalem "paraphrast" on Genesis 19:26 says it shall endure till the time the resurrection comes, in which the dead shall live: the reason of her becoming a pillar of salt, the Jews say, is, that she sinned by salt, and so was punished by salt; and which is differently related, and in a very fanciful way: one writer (f) reports, that when the angels came, Lot said to her, give me a little salt for these travellers; she replied to him, truly this is a bad custom, which thou bringest to be used in this place; and elsewhere (g) it is said, that upon their coming, she went to all her neighbours, and said to them, give me some salt, for we have travellers; but her intention was, that the men of the city might know them: but leaving those things, our Lord's design in these words, is to instruct his followers by this instance, not to look back in their flight, or to turn back to their houses, to save their goods, when the desolation of Jerusalem was coming on, lest they should suffer in it; and to warn all professors of religion, in all ages, against looking back to things that are behind, or turning their backs on him, in a time of distress and persecution; since such are not fit for the kingdom of God; and in these God has no delight and pleasure.

(s) Pirke Eliezer, c. 25. (t) Baal Hatturim in Genesis 19.26. (u) Targum Jon. & Hieros. in ib. (w) Pirke Eliezer ib. (x) Aben Ezra in Genesis 19.26. (y) T. Bab. Bava Bathra, fol. 20. 2. & Menachot, fol. 21. 1.((z) Bartenora in Misna Erubin, c. 1. sect. 10. (a) T. Bab Kiddushin, fol. 62. 1.((b) Nat. Hist. l. 31. c. 7. (c) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 12. (d) Adv. Haeres. l. 4. c. 51. (f) Jarchi in Genesis 19.26. (g) Bereshit Rabba, sect. 51. fol. 46. 1.

Geneva Study Bible

Remember Lot's wife.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Expositor's Greek Testament

Luke 17:32. μνημονεύετε, etc.: the allusion to Lot’s wife is prepared for by the comparison in Luke 17:28. It is not in Mt. and Mk., being inappropriate to the flight they had in view. No fear of looking back when an invading army was at the gates. Lk. has in view the spiritual application, as is shown by the next ver., which reproduces in somewhat altered form the word spoken at Caesarea Philippi concerning losing and saving life (Luke 9:24).—ζωογονήσει, will preserve alive, used literally in this sense in Acts 7:19.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

32. Remember Lot’s wife] Genesis 19:26; Wis 10:7, “and a standing pillar of salt is a monument of an unbelieving soul.” The warning is the same as in Luke 9:62. Turn no regretful gaze on a guilty and forsaken world.

Bengel's Gnomen

Luke 17:32. Τῆς γυναικὸς Λὼτ, the wife of Lot) who did not do what is enjoined in Luke 17:31. If you weigh well the strict meaning of the words, Genesis 19:26, and the variety of the interpretations, which are carefully enumerated by Wolf on this passage, the substance of the facts will amount to this: Lot’s wife looked back, and fled more slowly than her husband; and so, not reaching Zoar, she involved herself in that calamity of which the angels had warned her, and perished by a death nearly the same as befell the people of Sodom: for the extreme outskirts of the miraculous and fearful shower that rained on Sodom seized on the wretched woman, and deprived her of life, and suddenly scorched, covered over, discoloured, smote, and utterly changed [the state and look of] her body; so that she, who had not run as she ought, stopped altogether still. For her corpse, in that state, standing upright, and preserved from decomposition, is called a statue [pillar]: and that statue [pillar] was one, not of sulphur, but of that which is milder and yet akin to sulphur, viz. salt. Comp. Deuteronomy 29:22; Mark 9:49. The Asphaltic Lake, being a sea of salt, was similar. Had she fallen into the midst of the shower, she would have been at once wholly consumed; but whilst the fire was lightly playing about her, she became stiffened. However, there is no doubt but that either her dead body was buried a short while after (as is usually the case with bodies which have been both overwhelmed with, and afterwards drawn out from, snows, waters, and sands, or which have been killed by Divine interposition, Leviticus 10:5 [as was done in the case of Nadab and Abihu, Aaron’s sons]), or else, when the salt melted, the body passed into decomposition. At all events, neither in the time of Moses nor in that of Christ, is that statue (pillar) said to have been in existence: and accordingly here He says, Remember, not, Look upon, Fix your eyes on.

Luke 17:32