Genesis 19:17

Summary

Genesis 19:17 describes the moment after Lot and his family are brought outside the city: a figure instructs Lot to flee for his life, warning him not to look back and not to stop anywhere in the valley, but to escape to the hill country to avoid being swept away in the coming destruction.

Key words

• himmaLet ("escape", H4422) — niphal imperative, appearing twice in the verse (lines 13 and 31), framing the command as urgent and passive-permissive ("be delivered/escape").
• nafSHekha ("your life/soul", H5315 + H9021) — feminine singular noun in construct with a 2ms suffix, forming the idiom "upon your life," i.e., "for your life."
• taBbit ("you look", H5027) — hiphil imperfect, 2ms, negated by 'al ("may not", H0408), forbidding an ongoing or repeated act of looking.
• ta'aMod ("you stop", H5975) — qal jussive, 2ms, also negated, prohibiting halting anywhere in the region.
• tissaPeh ("you should be swept away", H5595) — niphal imperfect, 2ms, introduced by pen ("lest", H6435), expressing the feared consequence of disobedience.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative formula va-yhi ("and it was", H1961) followed by a temporal clause using khe- ("when", H9004) plus the hiphil infinitive hotzi'am ("their bringing out", H3318), which sets the scene before the direct speech begins. The speech itself is structured around two grammatical negations ('al-tabbit, 'al-ta'amod) and two imperatives (himmalet), producing a symmetrical command pattern: escape → don't look back → don't stop → escape (again) → don't be swept away. The repetition of himmalet at the beginning and near the end of the speech creates an inclusio, framing the intervening prohibitions as elaboration on a single urgent instruction. The final clause, introduced by pen ("lest", H6435) with the niphal imperfect tissapeh, expresses purpose/consequence rather than a flat prediction — the passive niphal form implies being caught up in the destruction rather than initiating one's own end.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew verb va-yomer ("he said", H0559) is grammatically singular (3ms), leaving the speaker's identity implicit from earlier context. The LXX renders this with the plural εἶπαν ("they said"), and the Vulgate similarly uses the plural "locuti sunt" ("they spoke"), both making explicit a plural subject where the Hebrew verb form is singular. Regarding the destination, the Hebrew ha-har ("the hill country", H2022) is grammatically singular, as is the LXX's εἰς τὸ ὄρος and the Vulgate's "in monte"; the BSB's "mountains" (plural) diverges from all three source texts in number.