Genesis Chapter 19 verse 26 Holy Bible
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
read chapter 19 in ASV
But Lot's wife, looking back, became a pillar of salt.
read chapter 19 in BBE
And his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
read chapter 19 in DARBY
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
read chapter 19 in KJV
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
read chapter 19 in WBT
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
read chapter 19 in WEB
And his wife looketh expectingly from behind him, and she is -- a pillar of salt!
read chapter 19 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 26. - But his wife looked back from behind him, - i.e. went behind him and looked back; ἑπέβλεψεν (LXX.), implying wistful regard-; respiciens (Vulgate); an act expressly forbidden by the angel (ver 17) - and she became (literally, she was, conveying an idea of complete and instantaneous judgment) a pillar of salt. נְעִיב מֵלַח; στήλη ἀλός (LXX.); a statue or column of fossil salt, such as exists in the neighborhood of the Dead Sea. That she was literally transformed into a pillar of salt (Josephus, Calvin, Rosenmüller, Kalisch, Wordsworth), though not impossible, is scarcely likely. A more probable interpretation is that she was killed by the fiery and sulphurous vapor with which the atmosphere was impregnated, and afterwards became encrusted with salt (Aben Ezra, Keil, Lange, Murphy, Quarry), though against this it has been urged (1) that the air was not filled with "salt sulphurous rain," but with fire and brimstone; and (2) that the heaven-sent tempest did not operate in the way described on the other inhabitants of Sodom (Inglis). A third explanation regards the expression as allegorical, and intimating that the fate of Lot's wife was an everlasting monument of the danger of disregarding the word of the Lord, either as a covenant of salt signifies a perpetual covenant (Clark), or with reference to the salt pillars which, in a similar manner, attest the destruction of the cities (Inglis). The notion that Lot's wife, returning to the city, stuck fast in terra salsuginosa, like a salt pillar (Dathius), and that she perished in the flames, having afterwards erected to her memory a monument of the salt stone of the region (Michaelis), may be disregarded.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(26) His wife looked back from behind him.--In Oriental countries it is still the rule for the wife to walk behind her husband. As regards the method of her transformation, some think that she was stifled by sulphureous vapours, and her body subsequently encrusted with salt. More probably, the earthquake heaped up a mighty mass of the rock-salt, which lies in solid strata round the Dead Sea, and Lot's wife was entangled in the convulsion and perished, leaving the hill of salt, in which she was enclosed, as her memorial. Salt cones are not uncommon in this neighbourhood, and the American Expedition found one, about forty feet high, near Usdum (Lynch, Report, pp. 183 et seq.). Entombed in this salt pillar, she became a "monument of an unbelieving soul" (Wisdom Of Solomon 10:7).
