Genesis 19:22

Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(22) Zoar.—This town is identified by Dr. Tristram (Land of Moab, p. 330) with Zi’ara, at the northern end of the Dead Sea. It is described as lying upon the borders of the Moabite territory, in Isaiah 15:5; Jeremiah 48:34. Eusebius says that a Roman garrison was posted there, but he probably accepted the current tradition which placed the five cities at the southern extremity of the lake.

Benson Commentary

Genesis 19:22. I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither — The very presence of good men in a place helps to keep off judgments. See what care God takes for the preservation of his people!

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

The visitors now take steps for the deliverance of Lot and his kindred before the destruction of the cities. All that are related to him are included in the offer of deliverance. There is a blessing in being connected with the righteous, if men will but avail themselves of it. Lot seems bewildered by the contemptuous refusal of his connections to leave the place. His early choice and his growing habits have attached him to the place, notwithstanding its temptations. His married daughters, or at least the intended husbands of the two who were at home ("who are here"), are to be left behind. But though these thoughts make him linger, the mercy of the Lord prevails. The angels use a little violence to hasten their escape. The mountain was preserved by its elevation from the flood of rain, sulphur, and fire which descended on the low ground on which the cities were built. Lot begs for a small town to which he may retreat, as he shrinks from the perils of a mountain dwelling, and his request is mercifully granted.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

22. Haste … for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither—The ruin of Sodom was suspended till he was secure. What care God does take of His people (Re 7:3)! What a proof of the love which God bore to a good though weak man!

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither, because of God’s decree and promise to save thee from the general destruction.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Haste thee, escape thither,.... Seeing he had granted him his request, he is urgent upon him to be gone, and not to delay upon any account, or make other excuses:

for I cannot do anything till thou be come thither; that is, consistent with the decree of God, that Lot and his family should be delivered and preserved, and with his promise made to him, that he would not overthrow that city; and therefore the catastrophe which would befall all the cities at once could not begin until he was safely arrived there:

therefore the name of the city was called Zoar; in later times, and probably first by Lot, from his use of the word "little", which was his request, which Zoar signifies; it before was called Bela, see Genesis 14:2.

Geneva Study Bible

Haste thee, escape thither; for I {l} cannot do any thing till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called {m} Zoar.

(l) Because God's commandment was to destroy the city and to save Lot.

(m) Which before was called Belah, in Ge 14:2.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

22. I cannot do any thing] Mercy limits the exercise of Divine Justice. “The righteous” is not to be consumed “with the wicked” (Genesis 18:23).

Zoar] See note on Genesis 14:2. Zoar is identified by tradition with a spot on the S.E. of the Dead Sea, where a peninsula projects from the coast. Cf. Genesis 13:10; Deuteronomy 34:3; Isaiah 15:5; Jeremiah 48:34. The name in the LXX Σηγώρ, Lat. Segor, gave the Dead Sea the name of the Sea of Zugar in the Middle Ages.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 22. - Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do anything till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. I.e. "The Little;" obviously from Lot's remark concerning it (Ver. 20); Σηγώρ (LXX.). The original name of the city was Bela (Genesis 14:2, q.v.). It has been sought for in the Wady Zuweirah, a pass leading down from Hebron to the Dead Sea, on the west side of the lake (De Sancey); in the Ghor-el-Mezraa, i.e. upon the southern peninsula, Which projects a long way into the Dead Sea (Robinson); and in the Ghor-el-Szaphia, at the south-eastern end of the see, at the opening of the Wady-el-Raumer (Keil); but has now been identified with Zi'ara, at the northern extremity of the lake (Tristram, 'Land of Moab,' p. 330; vide infra, Ver. 28, on the site of cities of the plain). Genesis 19:22

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

When they left him here (הנּיח, to let loose, and leave, to leave to one's self), the Lord commanded him, for the sake of his life, not to look behind him, and not to stand still in all the plain (כּכּר, Genesis 13:10), but to flee to the mountains (afterwards called the mountains of Moab). In Genesis 19:17 we are struck by the change from the plural to the singular: "when they brought them forth, he said." To think of one of the two angels - the one, for example, who led the conversation - seems out of place, not only because Lot addressed him by the name of God, "Adonai" (Genesis 19:18), but also because the speaker attributed to himself the judgment upon the cities (Genesis 19:21, Genesis 19:22), which is described in Genesis 19:24 as executed by Jehovah. Yet there is nothing to indicate that Jehovah suddenly joined the angels. The only supposition that remains, therefore, is that Lot recognised in the two angels a manifestation of God, and so addressed them (Genesis 19:18) as Adonai (my Lord), and that the angel who spoke addressed him as the messenger of Jehovah in the name of God, without its following from this, that Jehovah was present in the two angels. Lot, instead of cheerfully obeying the commandment of the Lord, appealed to the great mercy shown to him in the preservation of his life, and to the impossibility of his escaping to the mountains, without the evil overtaking him, and entreated therefore that he might be allowed to take refuge in the small and neighbouring city, i.e., in Bela, which received the name of Zoar (Genesis 14:2) on account of Lot's calling it little. Zoar, the Σηγώρ of the lxx, and Segor of the crusaders, is hardly to be sought for on the peninsula which projects a long way into the southern half of the Dead Sea, in the Ghor of el Mezraa, as Irby and Robinson (Pal. iii. p. 481) suppose; it is much more probably to be found on the south-eastern point of the Dead Sea, in the Ghor of el Szaphia, at the opening of the Wady el Ahsa (vid., v. Raumer, Pal. p. 273, Anm. 14).