Escape for your life. Do not LOOK BACK

[tonychanyt]

Gen 19:

15 As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.” 16 But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the LORD being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.

There was an urgency.

17 And as they brought them out, one said, “Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.”

Why did the angel command them not to look back?

It was a test of obedience.

24 Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven. 25 And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. 26 But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

Lot's wife disobeyed and was punished. There is a spiritual lesson in her failure. This was a difficult test. If I were Lot, I might look back out of curiosity.

27 And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the LORD. 28 And he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and he looked and, behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace.

It was okay for Abraham to look.

 

[BobRyan]

Abraham was far from Sodom so he sees it from a great distance.

Lot on the other hand is at ground zero for the atomic bomb of an event - he was getting special protection even as it was.

For an actual citizen of Sodom with possessions, family and friends in Sodom -- Looking to Sodom symbolized having one's heart still in Sodom and there needed to be a clean break with it - to escape its judgment.

 

[AV1611VET]

There's more to this story than meets the eye, and I think Jesus sheds some light on it.

Luke 17:28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
30 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
31 In 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.
32 Remember Lot's wife.

Lot's wife apparently turned to go back and get something and was saltified.