JoelNothman.com

To redigest some stuff that’s been going around the blogosphere for years…

We all know the story of Lot’s wife who turned back during the destruction of Sodom and became a pillar of salt. Chazal even institute a beracha for when we see this pillar.¹

Nonetheless as I understand, some rishonim — Rabenu Hananel (990-1053), Hizkuni (13th century), Ralbag (1288-1344) — read the verse differently:

וַתַּבֵּט אִשְׁתּוֹ מֵאַחֲרָיו, וַתְּהִי נְצִיב מֶלַח.²

They read “and it [the plain]³ was a pillar of salt” rather than “she became a pillar of salt”, working off the ambiguity of the third-person feminine subject. And a verse in Deuteronomy might agree in suggesting that sulfur and salt overturned Sodom.⁴

Ralbag—otherwise known as Gersonides, the most important astronomer between Ptolemy and Copernicus—makes it clear that for him the Torah in law and narrative has to be rational, and something as arbitrarily supernatural as Lot’s wife’s transformation was an unlikely event.

In contemporary orthodoxy, it is quite rare to find insistence on rationalist readings that contradict chazal, midrash or kabbalah, but there is clearly a strong tradition from the rishonim for doing so.

Despite this, at the end of the day, this peshat reading seems unlikely:

1. A few verses on, it is clear Lot’s wife is no longer with him,⁵ so we need to understand why the Torah is not explicit in saying she died;⁶
2. Lot had been instructed not to turn back;⁷
3. Why would a ככר, a plain, become a pillar?;
4. With the exception of a few important rishonim, everyone, including Josephus,⁸ the Gospel of Luke,⁹ and modern translators sees it as referring to Lot’s wife.

Still, it would seem we have a right at times to challenge traditional readings for the sake of a rational approach, and the relationship between peshat and midrash, or even between “different peshats”, continues to be challenged.

Notes:

1. Berakhot 54a. [↩]
2. Gen. 19:26. [↩]
3. Other bloggers have written the city, but seeing as verse 25 refers to “the cities, the whole plain, and all the dwellers of the hills,” the most plausible singular feminine antecedent for the verb is “הככר”, the plain, and not the city or Sodom. [↩]
4. Deut. 29:22-3. [↩]
5. Gen. 19:30. [↩]
6. DovBear thinks it’s fine that her death is implicit, that she gets caught up in the fires sweeping the plain, but this doesn’t make much sense if she is with Lot’s group already on way to Zoar. [↩]
7. Gen. 19:17, although this instruction might explain why it does not need to be explicit that his wife died when she did so. [↩]
8. Antiquities 1:11:4. See also the interesting note there. [↩]
9. Luke 17:28-32. It is not explicit from here that Lot’s wife turned into salt, but certainly that she died (or was at great fault) for turning back. [↩]