Genesis 19:26-28

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

²⁶But [Lot’s] wife looked back from behind him, and she ^[a]became a pillar of salt.

²⁷Abraham went up early the next morning to the place where he [only the day before] had stood before the Lord.

²⁸And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the valley, and saw, and behold, the smoke of ^[b]the country went up like the smoke of a furnace.

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Footnotes

Genesis 19:26 Lot’s wife not only “looked back” to where her heart’s interests were, but she lingered behind; and probably overtaken by the fire and brimstone, her dead body became incrusted with salt, which, in that salt-packed area now the Dead Sea, grew larger with more incrustations—a veritable “pillar of salt.” In fact, at the southern end of the Dead Sea there is a mountain of table salt called Jebel Usdum, “Mount of Sodom.” It is about six miles long, three miles wide, and 1,000 feet high. It is covered with a crust of earth several feet thick, but the rest of the mountain is said to be solid salt (George T. B. Davis, Rebuilding Palestine According to Prophecy). Somewhere in this area Lot’s wife looked back to where her treasures and her heart were, and “she became a pillar of salt.” Jesus said, “Remember Lot’s wife” (Luke 17:32).
Genesis 19:28 Not only were Sodom and Gomorrah blazing ruins, but also Admah and Zeboiim (Deut. 29:23; Hos. 11:8), as well as all the towns in the Valley of Siddim; Zoar was the lone exception.