Genesis 19:29

Summary

The verse narrates that when God destroyed the cities of the valley, he remembered Abraham and sent Lot out from the midst of the overthrow, out of the cities where Lot had been dwelling. It closes the episode of Sodom's destruction begun in Genesis 19, linking Lot's rescue explicitly to God's remembrance of Abraham.

Key words

• sha.Chet ("destroyed", H7843) — piel infinitive construct with prefixed be- ("when"), forming a temporal clause; the piel stem intensifies the verb, marking a thorough destruction.
• yiz.Kor ("he remembered", H2142) — qal narrative (vav-consecutive) form; the narrative chain (va-yiz.Kor) advances the plot as a new consecutive action following the destruction.
• ha.fe.Khah ("overthrow", H2018) — feminine singular noun with definite article, an abstract noun naming the event of destruction itself, distinct from the verb ha.foKh used two words later.
• ha.foKh ("overthrew", H2015) — qal infinitive construct with prefixed ba- ("when"), again forming a temporal clause; note it uses a different root stem (qal) than sha.Chet (piel) despite both referring to the same act of destruction.
• 'a.Sher ("which/who", H0834A) — relative particle introducing the clause identifying the cities as those "where Lot had dwelt," anchoring Lot's prior residence to the destroyed cities.

What the text says

The verse is built around two parallel temporal clauses, each formed with a preposition plus an infinitive: be-sha.Chet ("when God destroyed...") at the start, and ba-ha.foKh ("when he overthrew...") later. Both frame the main narrative actions, which are carried by two vav-consecutive qal verbs: yiz.Kor ("he remembered") and y.sha.Lach ("he sent out"). This structure creates a chiastic movement: destruction — remembrance — rescue — destruction (restated), with Lot's deliverance placed at the center of the two mentions of catastrophe.

Notably, 'E.lo.Him ("God", H0430G) appears twice as subject, once for the destroying and once for the remembering, explicitly naming the same agent for both actions. The phrase mi-Tokh ha.fe.Khah ("from the middle of the overthrow") uses the construct noun Tokh ("middle of") to place Lot spatially within the event, while the closing clause with 'a.Sher yaShav baHen ("which he had dwelt in them") uses a qal perfect verb, marking this dwelling as a prior, completed state relative to the destruction — Lot's past residence, now ended.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'E.lo.Him ("God", H0430G) as κύριον ("Lord") in the first clause describing the destruction, but as ὁ θεός ("God") in the clause about remembering — using two different divine designations where the Hebrew consistently uses 'E.lo.Him both times. The Vulgate uses Deus ("God") only once explicitly, in the first clause, and leaves the subject of "he remembered" (recordatus) implicit rather than repeating the divine name, unlike the Hebrew which names 'E.lo.Him as subject of both verbs.