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Genesis 19

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1 The two angels came to Sodom at evening. Lot sat in the gate of Sodom. Lot saw them, and rose up to meet them. He bowed himself with his face to the earth,

2 and he said, "See now, my lords, please turn aside into your servant's house, stay all night, wash your feet, and you can rise up early, and go on your way." They said, "No, but we will stay in the street all night."

3 He urged them greatly, and they came in with him, and entered into his house. He made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.

4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter.

5 They called to Lot, and said to him, "Where are the men who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may have sex with them."

6 Lot went out to them to the door, and shut the door after him.

7 He said, "Please, my brothers, don't act so wickedly.

8 See now, I have two virgin daughters. Please let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them what seems good to you. Only don't do anything to these men, because they have come under the shadow of my roof."

9 They said, "Stand back!" Then they said, "This one fellow came in to live as a foreigner, and he appoints himself a judge. Now will we deal worse with you, than with them!" They pressed hard on the man Lot, and drew near to break the door.

10 But the men put forth their hand, and brought Lot into the house to them, and shut the door.

11 They struck the men who were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door.

12 The men said to Lot, "Do you have anybody else here? Sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whoever you have in the city, bring them out of the place:

13 for we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown great before Yahweh that Yahweh has sent us to destroy it."

14 Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters, and said, "Get up! Get out of this place, for Yahweh will destroy the city." But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be joking.

15 When the morning came, then the angels hurried Lot, saying, "Get up! Take your wife, and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the iniquity of the city."

16 But he lingered; and the men grabbed his hand, his wife's hand, and his two daughters' hands, Yahweh being merciful to him; and they took him out, and set him outside of the city.

17 It came to pass, when they had taken them out, that he said, "Escape for your life! Don't look behind you, and don't stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be consumed!"

18 Lot said to them, "Oh, not so, my lord.

19 See now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your loving kindness, which you have shown to me in saving my life. I can't escape to the mountain, lest evil overtake me, and I die.

20 See now, this city is near to flee to, and it is a little one. Oh let me escape there (isn't it a little one?), and my soul will live."

21 He said to him, "Behold, I have granted your request concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken.

22 Hurry, escape there, for I can't do anything until you get there." Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.

23 The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar.

24 Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from Yahweh out of the sky.

25 He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground.

26 But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

27 Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before Yahweh.

28 He looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and looked, and saw that the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace.

29 It happened, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the middle of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.

30 Lot went up out of Zoar, and lived in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to live in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his two daughters.

31 The firstborn said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in to us in the way of all the earth.

32 Come, let's make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve our father's seed."

33 They made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father. He didn't know when she lay down, nor when she arose.

34 It came to pass on the next day, that the firstborn said to the younger, "Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine again, tonight. You go in, and lie with him, that we may preserve our father's seed."

35 They made their father drink wine that night also. The younger went and lay with him. He didn't know when she lay down, nor when she got up.

36 Thus both of Lot's daughters were with child by their father.

37 The firstborn bore a son, and named him Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day.

38 The younger also bore a son, and called his name Ben Ammi. He is the father of the children of Ammon to this day.

   

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Arcana Coelestia #2240

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2240. That a “cry” denotes falsity, and “sin” evil, is evident from the signification in the Word of a “cry.” That a “cry” signifies falsity, can be evident to no one unless he knows the internal sense of the Word. The word sometimes occurs in the Prophets, and when vastation and desolation are there treated of, it is said that men “howl and cry,” by which is signified that goods and truths have been vastated; and a term is there made use of by which in the internal sense falsity is described; as in Jeremiah:

A voice of the cry of the shepherds, and the howling of the powerful ones of the flock because Jehovah layeth waste their pasture (Jeremiah 25:36),

where the “cry of the shepherds” denotes that they are in falsity, from which there comes vastation.

[2] In the same:

Behold, waters rise up from the north, and shall become an overflowing stream, and shall overflow the land and the fullness thereof, the city and them that dwell therein and the men shall cry, and every inhabitant of the land shall howl, because of the day that cometh to lay waste (Jeremiah 47:2, 4),

where the desolation of faith is treated of, which is brought about by falsities; the “overflowing stream” is falsity (as shown in Part First, n. 705, 790

[3] In Zephaniah:

The voice of a cry from the fish gate, and a howling from the second, and a great shattering from the hills, and their wealth shall become a spoil, and their houses a desolation (Zeph. 1:10, 13),

where also a “cry” is predicated of the falsities which lay waste.

[4] In Isaiah:

In the way of Horonaim they shall rouse up a cry of shattering, for the waters of Nimrim shall be desolations, for the grass has dried up, the herb is consumed, there is no green thing (Isaiah 15:5-6; Jeremiah 48:3), where the desolation of faith and its consummation is described by a “cry.”

[5] In Jeremiah:

Judah hath mourned, and her gates languish, they have been blackened upon the earth, and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up; and their illustrious ones have sent their younger ones to the waters; they came to the pits, they found no waters, they returned with their vessels empty (Jeremiah 14:2-3),

where the “cry of Jerusalem” denotes falsities; for by their “finding no waters” is signified that there were no knowledges of truth, which are “waters” (as shown in Part First,n. 28, 680, 739).

[6] In Isaiah:

I will exult in Jerusalem and be glad in My people, and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying (Isaiah 65:19),

where there “not being heard the voice of weeping” denotes that there shall not be evil; “nor the voice of crying” denotes that there shall not be falsity. Very many of these things cannot be understood from the sense of the letter, but only from the internal sense, and this is the case with a “cry.”

[7] In the same:

Jehovah looked for judgment, but behold a scab; for righteousness, but behold a cry (Jeremiah 5:7),

where also the vastation of good and truth is treated of. There is in this passage a kind of reciprocation, such as is occasionally found in the Prophets, and which is of such a nature that in the place of truth there is found evil, which is meant by there being “a scab instead of judgment;” and falsity in place of good, which is meant by there being “a cry instead of righteousness” (for that “judgment” is truth, and “righteousness” good, was shown above, n. 2235).

[8] There is a like reciprocation in Moses, where Sodom and Gomorrah are treated of:

Of the vine of Sodom is their vine, and of the fields of Gomorrah are their grapes; they have grapes of gall, clusters of bitternesses. (Deuteronomy 32:32),

where there is a similar mode of speaking; for the “vine” is predicated of truths and falsities, and the “fields” and “grapes,” of goods and evils; so that “the vine of Sodom” is falsity from evil, and “the fields and grapes of Gomorrah” are evils from falsities; for there are two kinds of falsity (see Part First,n. 1212); and so also there are two kinds of evil. Both kinds of falsity and evil are signified in this verse by the “cry of Sodom and Gomorrah having become great, and their sin having become exceeding grievous;” as is evident from the fact that “cry” is named in the first place, and “sin” in the second; and yet “Sodom,” which is evil from the love of self, is mentioned first; and “Gomorrah,” which is the derivative falsity, second.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for the permission to use this translation.