III. LOT AND HIS WIFE AND DAUGHTERS.
The act of Abram's brother Lot delivering up his two daughters to the Sodomites, "to do to them as is good in your eyes" (Gen. xix. 8), must excite reflections in the highest degree revolting to the mind of every father who has daughters. The act of a father voluntarily offering up his virtuous daughters to gratify the depraved passions of a mob is too shocking to contemplate.
And to accept such a character as a "righteous man" must certainly weaken the faith of the Bible believer in a true system of morality, and plant in his mind a very low standard of the moral perfections of God.
We are told (Gen. xix. 26) that Lot's wife was converted into a pillar of salt as a penalty for the simple act of looking back. Several absurdities are observable in this story:—
1. It is difficult to conceive how any sin or crime could be attached to the natural act of turning the head to look in any direction, especially when no injunction had been laid upon the act.
2. If there were any thing so inherently wrong in the act of looking back as to be visited with such direful penalties, pillars of salt would soon become more numerous than frogs were in Egypt.
3. Reason would suggest that, to put the thing in shape to be believed by future generations, the woman should have been converted into some imperishable substance, such as granite, gold, silver, or pig-iron. A woman made of salt, or salt of a woman, would soon dissolve and disappear.
4. The Hindoos relate that a woman in India was once converted into a pillar of stone for an act of unchastity; and "the stone is there unto this day." Here is a story with a better foundation: the Egyptians have the tradition of a woman being converted into a tree for the act of plucking some fruit after it had been interdicted. How many of these stories should we credit?