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“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ
Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.”
(Romans
8:2)
Lot –
Abraham’s Nephew - Britannica
Lot
biblical figure
Also known as: Lōṭ
Charles Preston
Britannica Editors July 6, 2026 •History
Lot, in the Hebrew Bible, a nephew of the patriarch Abraham
and a central figure in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. As told in the Book of
Genesis, Lot is spared from God’s destruction of Sodom, but his wife famously
looks back as they flee and turns into a pillar of salt. He is later referred
to in texts of Rabbinic Judaism, the New Testament, and the Qurʾān.
Lot’s story and that of his wife continue to be sources of religious
interpretation and discussion.
Narrative account
Lot’s story in the Hebrew Bible begins in Genesis 11, just
after the Tower of Babel account, where he is described as the son of Haran,
Abraham’s brother. He then travels from Ur toward Canaan along with Abraham,
Sarah, and Abraham’s father, Terah. After Terah’s death in Haran, they continue the journey, reach
Canaan and the Negev and make a side trip to Egypt during a famine. After their
return to the Negev Lot and Abraham both have large flocks of livestock, but
their herders begin to quarrel. To prevent strife, they go their separate ways,
and Lot chooses to settle in the lush plain of the Jordan River in the town of
Sodom.
Unfortunately, a group of eastern kings
pillage Sodom and Gomorrah and take Lot captive along with others. Abraham
hears of this and, with a team of 318 men, rescues Lot, the looted goods, and
the people of the towns. But soon after, in Genesis 18, God tells Abraham of
plans to investigate reports of sinfulness in Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham
insists that it is not God’s way to kill the righteous and the wicked alike and
intercedes on behalf of the townsfolk. Abraham eventually convinces God to
agree to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if 10 righteous people can be found living
there.
Lot features as a central character in the biblical
narrative in Genesis 19. When two angels in disguise as men arrive in Sodom,
Lot meets them at the town gates, bows reverently, and invites them to pass the
night in his house. The angels refuse initially but then accept his
hospitality. Before Lot and the angels go to sleep, townsmen surround Lot’s
house and request that Lot bring out the angels “so that we may know
them”—Hebrew nedʿah (נדעה)
“we may know” is from the verb yadaʿ (ידע) “knew,” which in biblical Hebrew has
a secondary euphemistic meaning of sexual intercourse. Lot refuses to send out
the guests but offers his two daughters instead. The men of the town are
offended that Lot, who came to Sodom as an alien, would judge their morality
and they try to storm the door. The two angels pull Lot inside and blind the
men so they cannot find the door.
Parallel Narrative
The story of Lot’s hospitality and Sodom’s immorality has a
close parallel in Judges, wherein sexual assault is actually committed. In
Judges 19 a Levite and his concubine stop in their travels in Gibeah in the
land of the tribe of Benjamin. The man and his concubine are given lodging, but
the men of the town ask that the wayfarer be sent out to be sexually assaulted.
The Levite sends out his concubine instead. The men of Gibeah rape and abuse
her. In the morning the Levite finds his concubine dead; he carves her body
into 12 parts and sends them to each of the tribes of Israel. The other
Israelites are appalled by this heinous action and go to war against the Benjaminites, who are nearly destroyed before an eventual
reconciliation (Judges 20–21).
The angels, still in disguise as men, inform Lot that the
city will be destroyed as punishment for its sins. They urge him to take his
wife and two daughters and run for the hills: “Flee for your life; do not look
back or stop anywhere in the plain; flee to the hills, or else you will be
consumed” (Genesis 19:17). As God rains down sulfur and fire to destroy Sodom
and Gomorrah, Lot’s wife glances back and turns into a pillar of salt.
Lot and his family flee the burning city of Sodom in a
Renaissance-style illustration after Raphael; Lot's wife looks back as flames
engulf the city behind them.
The escape of Lot and his family from Sodom Lot and family
flee as his wife, disastrously, looks back at Sodom's destruction. Artwork by
an unknown artist, possibly c. 1510, after a fresco by Raphael.
As Genesis 19 continues, Lot and his two daughters take
shelter in a cave in the nearby hills. The daughters become desirous of
continuing their lineage but find themselves isolated from men. So they make Lot drink wine in excess to become inebriated
and, without his knowledge or consent, have intercourse with him on subsequent
nights. They become pregnant with their father’s children. The firstborn
daughter bears Moab (according to a gloss provided in the Septuagint, the name
derives from Hebrew meaning “from the father”), the ancestor of the Moabites;
the second daughter gives birth to Ben-ammi
(according to a gloss in the Septuagint, the name is from the Hebrew meaning
“son of my kinsman”), who becomes the ancestor of the Ammonites.
Later in the Hebrew Bible Lot is mentioned primarily in
reference to his descendants, the Moabites and Ammonites, who are described as
periodic enemies of the Israelites. In Deuteronomy 2, as the Israelites are
wandering after the Exodus, God instructs Moses not to bother or make war with
the Moabites (2:9) and Ammonites (2:19), because he has promised the lands they
possess to those descendants of Lot. A similar mention in Psalm 83 juxtaposes
Israel and these descendants of Lot. Despite this opposition, the celebrated
biblical figure Ruth is a Moabite; she is the great-grandmother of David and,
according to the genealogy in Matthew 1, an ancestor of Jesus.
Religious interpretations
Lot and his two daughters walk away from burning Sodom in
the background, while Lot's wife, turned into a pillar of salt, stands behind
them. Painting by Albrecht Durer.
Lot and His DaughtersThe city of
Sodom is destroyed in the background as Lot leads his daughters to the hills.
Lot's wife, having turned into a pillar of salt, appears as a ghostly gray
figure along the path. Oil on panel by Albrecht Dürer,
c. 1496–99; in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
The interpretations of Lot in the main Abrahamic
religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—have been varied. Lot is typically
depicted as righteous, but sometimes his morality is questioned. The story of
Sodom’s judgment, in which Lot is a key figure, was in some later religious
interpretations connected to questions of sexual transgression, particularly
what became known as sodomy. Jewish commentators often emphasized the general
wickedness and inhospitality of Sodom’s inhabitants; Christian theologians
developed sodomy as a category of sexual sin; and Islamic texts present Lot as
a messenger who warns against male same-sex acts.
Lot in Judaism
In the midrashic text Genesis Rabbah (c. 400–450 CE), Lot
is interpreted as a judge in the town of Sodom. When the men of Sodom insist
that Lot send out the angels and he resists, they reply, “This fellow came here
as an alien, and he would play the judge!” (Genesis 19:9). This is taken as evidence
of his status, not a sarcastic criticism. The fact that he is outside the town
gate in the beginning of the scene is taken as evidence of his election as
chief judge. The respected French-Jewish medieval commentator Rashi (1040–1105)
in his commentary on Genesis confirms Lot’s judicial role and suggests he
learned hospitality from Abraham.
Other passages in Genesis Rabbah read Lot’s separation from
Abraham as a sign of moral deficiency and covenantal distance, the latter
underscored by God’s speaking to Abraham only after Lot’s departure. Some
rabbis in Genesis Rabbah interpret Lot’s choice of Sodom as indicative of his
own sexual depravity. They also accuse Lot’s neglect of his daughters’
marriages as the reason for their incestuous actions. The respected
13th-century Spanish rabbi Nachmanides (Ramban) chastises Lot for the atrocity of offering his
daughters in place of the angels. Some rabbinic readings attribute Lot’s
hesitation to leave Sodom to his immoral greed and inordinate wealth.
Lot in Christianity
In the New Testament Lot is recalled as a righteous man
saved from Sodom’s destruction. In the Second Letter of Peter, Lot is cast as a
good man suffering among the depravity of Sodom, and his story indicates God’s
propensity to rescue those who are suffering and to punish those who indulge in
evil (2 Peter 2:6–10). He is often understood to be alluded to in the Letter to
the Hebrews, when the virtue of hospitality is extolled: “Some have entertained
angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2).
In the Gospel According to Luke, Jesus compares the days of
Lot before the judgment of Sodom—a calm before the storm—to the coming
revelation of the Son of Man, a title that Jesus calls himself. The passage
then connects Lot’s wife with the danger of turning back and clinging to
everyday life in the face of divine judgment (Luke 17:28–33). In the Wisdom of
Solomon—an apocryphal text of the wisdom genre accepted as canonical in Roman
Catholicism—Lot’s wife’s conversion into a pillar of salt is read as a monument
to the results of disbelief (Wisdom 10:7). In subsequent Christian tradition,
Lot’s wife becomes especially significant in moral messaging—perhaps more so
than her husband—as a warning about favoring this world over salvation.
Lot in Islam
Persian illuminated manuscript showing Lot speaking with
the angel Jibra'il; Lot's family sits nearby and the
destroyed city of Sodom appears in the background.
The prophet Lūṭ (Lot)
talks with the angel Jibrīl, with the destroyed
city of Sodom in the backgroundAn Islamic artistic
representation of the prophet Lūṭ speaking
with the angel Jibrīl, from Qiṣaṣ
al-Anbiyāʾ (“Stories of the Prophets”),
illuminated manuscript miniature, c. 1577, Persia; in the New York Public
Library, New York City.
In Islam, Lot (Arabic: لُوط,
Lūṭ) is mentioned repeatedly in the Qurʾān, predominantly in accounts of the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. He is regarded in Islam as a prophetic
messenger (in the surah Al-Shuʿarāʾ
[“The Poets”] in verse 162, he is called a rasūl,
“messenger”) who is sent to Sodom to warn its people.
Quick Facts
Hebrew: לוט (Lōṭ)
Notable Family Members: spouse Lot’s wife
Lot is often described in the Qurʾān,
and in subsequent interpretive traditions, in the role of condemning the men of
Sodom for lusting after men rather than women. The Hebrew Bible’s account
includes the threat of same-sex sexual assault of the male visitors, but it
does not make same-sex desire the explicit thematic focus in the way the Qurʾānic passages do. In surah 7 verse 81, Lot
says, “Lo! ye come with lust unto men instead of women. Nay, but ye are wanton
folk.” In Islamic interpretive traditions, the story of Lot’s warning to the
people of Sodom appears in discussions of liwāṭ,
an Arabic term commonly used for sodomy and derived from Lot’s name in Arabic.
Charles Preston