LOT

LOT. — Son of Aran, of the Tharcite lineage, Abramo (v.), together with whom he emigrated from Haran in Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan, taking with him his family and a considerable number of servants and herds (Gen. 12, 4 ff.). After accompanying his uncle Abramo to Egypt, he returned to Canaan, near the locality of Bethel (ibid. 13, 1 ff.). But when a dispute arose between the shepherds of L. and those of Abramo, the latter, in order to remove every cause of dissension, decided to separate the two groups, leaving his nephew the choice of territory. L. chose the more fertile region, the area of the Jordan near the Dead Sea, and settled with his family in Sodom (v. ibid. 13, 5-13). In the conflict that took place in the Valley of Siddim between the four eastern kings and the five kings or chiefs of the Palestinian Pentapolis, L. too was captured and deported with his family; Abramo, with a band of brave men, pursued the invaders as far as Dan on the northern borders of Palestine, and after a successful night attack drove them back beyond Damascus, thus liberating L. and recovering his possessions (ibid. 14, 1-16). Although living among sinful people, L. remained righteous and deserved, also through the prayers of Abramo, to escape the destruction of Sodom (cf. Sap. 10, 6; II Pt. 2, 6-8).

Warned by two angels in the guise of pilgrims, whom he welcomed into his house and defended against the attacks of the Sodomites, he saved himself with his family by fleeing from Sodom before the city and the other towns of the Pentapolis were overwhelmed by the cataclysm described in Gen. 19. He took refuge in the small town of Segor (Sä'ar) or Bala (probably on the south-eastern edge of the Dead Sea, near present-day es-Sä'ijjeh), which was spared on account of his prayers. But his wife, delayed on the way (less accurately in the Vulgate: «respiciensque uxor eius post se») contrary to the angels’ express warning, was «changed into a pillar of salt» (Gen. 19, 26), that is, as modern exegetes commonly explain, she was suffocated and covered by the saline vapors released through the action of the fire that set the Pentapolis ablaze. Later, not feeling safe in Segor, L. took refuge with his two daughters on a mountain, and there dwelt in a cave (ibid. 19, 30); from the double incest Ammonites (v.), who are therefore also called in Sacred Scripture «sons of L.» (Deut. 2, p. 19; Ps. 82, 9); strictly speaking, the shameful act cannot be imputed to L., who at that moment was suffering the effects of wine; the true culprits were the daughters (Gen. 19, 31-38). Nevertheless, because of this event L. is left ingloriously in the shadows, and the Bible makes no mention of his death. According to a tradition, L.’s tomb would be near the present village of Beni Na'im, east of Hebron. In the Talmudic books as well, the figure of L. is generally presented in an unfavorable light.

Many rationalist critics, denying any truth to the biblical account, maintain that L. is nothing more than an imaginary eponym designating the supposed common ancestor of the two peoples of Moab and Ammon; indeed, some of them (such as H. Ewald and A. Dillmann) arbitrarily identify him with Lotan, son of Seir, one of the chiefs of the Horite tribe, subjugated by the descendants of Esau (Gen. 36, 20).

The name of L. is linked to the tragic fate of Sodom and Gomorrah («the days of L.», Lc. 17, 28-31). The name that the Arabs give to the Dead Sea (bahr Löf, «lake of L.») also perpetuates his memory. In the surroundings southwest of the Dead Sea, numerous highly distinctive little columns of salt can still be seen today, and popular imagination has identified L.’s unfortunate wife with a salt prominence in the form of a column on the Gebel Usdum (Mount Sodom), 15 meters high. Flavius Josephus already mentions a statue or column of salt, existing in his own time, which was believed to be the woman’s petrified body (there are also references in Clement, I Cor. 11, 11; Ireneo, Haer., IV, 31; in the Peregrinatio Etheriae; numerous fabulous details in the «poem of Sodom», falsely attributed to Tertulliano: PL 2, 1104). Sap. 10, 7 likewise mentions the statue of salt into which the unfortunate woman was changed as a permanent memorial of the destruction of the Pentapolis: but from this it cannot be inferred that the «statue» was still standing at the time of the hagiographer.

Jesus adduces the example of L.’s wife to exhort people to constancy and vigilance (Lc. 17, 32).