lot and his wife

I don't think it was purely a matter of disobedience, although that certainly would have been part of it. From what I understand, the Hebrew language involved means she looked back with longing, wishing to return.

Why salt?

A number of years ago I was leading a Bible study for deaf women (I sign) and my dear friend Heloise asked me, signing, "Why salt? Why Jesus say we salt?" We were studying the Sermon on the Mount.

My first reaction was to tell her the same thing I had always heard -- because salt preserves things and helps them taste good, and Christians are to do that in the world. But I didn't sign that. Instead, I asked her to wait a week while I looked it up.

So I did. For hours I poured over a couple of concordances, looking up every time 'salt,' 'salty,' etc. were used and checking against other translations of the same phrases. No surprises. I was about to quit when I thought that, just to be totally complete, I would look up 'lose saltiness' -- then I would know I had done a complete job for her and the other women.

To my surprise, the Greek phrase translated as 'lose saltiness' in both Matthew and Luke is not used just those two times in the New Testament, but is used four times. The other two times that phrase is not translated 'lose saltiness' at all. Instead, in Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 1 that phrase is translates 'become foolish' or 'become fools'.

I stared. I checked it again. I looked at the text notes. Not one indication that this was the same phrase as 'lose saltiness', but it was.

I came to the conclusion that the translators of the Bible were faced with the same problem I faced daily in signing and interpreting for my deaf friends. When faced with an idiom, what do you do? Sign the exact words, which will have no meaning to them, or sign the meaning instead of the words? Although I wish there were text notes to indicate where there were idiomatic expressions, I think that is exactly what happened with this phrase in the Bible. Salt was an idiom for wisdom. There are two kinds of 'salt' mentioned in the Bible, and two kinds of 'wisdom.' The salt wastes of the OT are clearly also pictures of worldly wisdom -- dry, desolate, barren, although fascinating to look at. The salt Jesus referred to, and the salt used for the sacrifices, was a picture of Godly wisdom.

In short, we are God's wisdom in the world. And if we refuse or neglect or hide that wisdom, how can we be made wise again? There is no other source. Someone who rejects God and His wisdom is good for nothing but to be trampled on (used) by men.

So what about Lot's wife? She may well have become a literal pillar of salt. There are certainly enough of them in the area, and I refuse to discount miracles. But we also may be looking at a picture of a woman who became an utter fool. If that is the case, did she run back? As I said, she may well have become a literal pillar of salt, but if we are looking instead at a euphemism used in the history, we may rather be being told that she became totally foolish. We never hear about her again in any case.

Hope that helps a bit.

 

Lots Wife

She is an example for Christians not to look back to the world which God had chosen them out of.She was in my opinion a Saved person because she was made salt, but if salt has lost its savour,what is it good for? Others may disagree and say that she was lost eternal but I think not. Brother Mike

 

Here is what Jesus said about it: Luke 17 (King James)

28Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;

29But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.

30Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.

31In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.

32Remember Lot's wife.

33Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.