In our not infrequent endeavors to impose predetermined intent upon various accounts and exhortations of Scripture we sometimes tend to miss not only the intended thrust of the passage, but additional implications of meaning and insight as well.
This is commonly seen, for example, in expositions as to how, in fleeing Sodom (Gen. 19:26), Lot's wife, to her own doom, looked back in anguished longing for the excitement, glamour and "bright lights" of a debauched city and culture. Logic would indicate otherwise.
In relocating to Sodom, Lot had grievously miscalculated. For while not totally untainted by the cultural concepts of the times (Gen. 19:6-8), the city's values and character at large were nonetheless much to his disliking (II Pet. 2:8). Nor is there reason to assume his wife's reaction to the situation as being otherwise - particularly in an era wherein the husband's values normally prevailed.
Lot's primary loss lay in his children's having adolpted the mores and morals of Sodom. To his sons-in-law (and most likely, daughters to whom they were married), Lot's response to the angels' urging that he flee the city provided occasion for derision (Gen. 19:14). His younger daughters who, by coercion (vs. 16), fled with Lot and his wife, were similarly committed to a corrupted sense of values (vv. 30-38).
As Lot, his wife and daughters made their escape, the city was subjected to a violent holocaust. In such times of crisis, glamour, excitement, material wealth and societal recognition typically mean little. Why then did Lot's wife look back?
Why? She had a mother's heart - and children dying in the fire.
One should here note that Jesus' exhortation to "Remember Lot's wife" (Luke 17:32) bore immediate reference to an A.D. 70 flight of believers from Jerusalem (vv. 29-31; space here precluding his words' end time implication). As history would prove, the window of opportunity for this escape would be very narrow as well; hence the danger of hesitation as seen in the tragic consequences attendant Lot's wife's having paused in a final backward glance.
At the same time, the foregoing role of maternal instinct in the light of parental failure offers occasion for serious, meaningful thought as well.
Burl Ratzsch
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We shall grant only scant attention to the story of the Sunday School teacher who, in sharing how that Lot's wife had looked back and turned into a pillar of salt, elicited this response from Johnny: "When my mother was driving the other day, she looked back and turned into a telephone pole." As old Hans would say, "Enough, already."
