Genesis 19:26 - Meaning and Application

This warning is written for our own instruction. Our Savior refers to it in (Luke 17:32): “Remember Lot’s wife.” Just as the example of Sodom warns the wicked to turn from their evil ways, so the example of Lot’s wife warns the righteous not to turn back from the path of righteousness. See (Ezekiel 3:18, 20).

Here is the sin of Lot’s wife: she looked back from behind him. This may seem like a small thing, but her punishment shows it was a serious sin. First, she broke a direct command, and so she sinned like Adam did, whose transgression brought ruin on us all. Second, unbelief lay underneath it. She seemed to doubt that Sodom would really be destroyed, and she may have thought she could still have been safe there. Third, she looked back with too much concern for the neighbors she had left behind. Their time for mercy was over, and God’s justice was being honored in their destruction. See (Isaiah 66:24). Fourth, she likely longed for her home and possessions in Sodom and hated to leave them. Christ points to this as part of her sin in (Luke 17:31-32), where she cared too much about her belongings. Fifth, her looking back showed a heart that was turning back, and that is why our Savior uses her as a warning against falling away from our Christian profession.

We have all given up the world and the flesh, and we have set our faces toward heaven. We are still on the road, still being tested, and it is dangerous to go back to what we said we had left behind. Turning back leads to ruin, and even looking back is a step in that direction. So let us be afraid of that danger (Hebrews 4:1).

Here is the punishment Lot’s wife received for this sin. She was struck dead where she stood, and her body did not fall, but remained fixed and upright like a pillar, or monument. It did not decay like ordinary human bodies exposed to the air, but was changed into a lasting, stone-like substance. “See the kindness and the severity of God” (Romans 11:22): kindness toward Lot, who kept going, and severity toward his wife, who looked back.

Though she was closely related to a righteous man, though she was better than her neighbors, and though she had already received great mercy by being brought out of Sodom, God still did not overlook her disobedience. Great privileges cannot keep us safe from God’s wrath if we do not use them carefully and faithfully. This pillar of salt should teach us wisdom. Since looking back is so dangerous, let us keep pressing forward (Philippians 3:13-14).