Setting: Genesis 19:1-3
Extra-biblical Sources:
It was after dark when Lot came home from his sitting in the gates. I heard his knock at the door and I left a pot of red lentil stew on the fire to go and unlatch the door. I gasped at once, for there was not one man, but three, waiting behind the door.
In the dim light of the moon I saw my husband's cheekbones and the wrinkles on his brow and I knew that it was he, but who were these men with him?
“Is it well?” I whispered to him, having regained some of my composure. I knew that it was not well, but I did not know what else to say or do.
“It is well,” he said softly, “and I want you to meet my esteemed guests, Gabriel and Michael, they are sojourners passing through on their way to distant lands. They are good men, as anyone can clearly see.”
My head spun. How could he be so nonchalant about this danger that he would invite into our midst? Having lost a daughter due to such hospitality, I was not about to lose a husband as well.
I felt the anger swelling within me at this stupid, stupid man. In my fury I berated him, trying to keep my voice low, “don’t you know the kind of danger this brings to our whole family?”
Lot placed his hands on me and started to shove me out of the doorway, and in my shock I struck him on his cheek and attempted to close the door in his face. But he forced his way in and I was filled with guilt and shame and anger and all manner of negative feelings.
I fetched a rope and stretched it out across the house. “I will not have these men in my house,” I said, “if you want to receive them, do so in your part,” and gestured to indicate in which half of the house he might conduct his own affairs, so that I might have no part in it. I would not have my daughters in any way associated with these sojourners. God knows what they do to sojourners here.
My husband proceeded to boss me around. "Adith, since your half of the house contains the kitchen, as is only fitting, would you please prepare my guests a meal? I’m afraid my half doesn’t have a kitchen in which to cook, and Adonai will not tolerate the hunger of our guests when it is in our power to feed them."
I brought them the stew, thinking this would be the best way to prevent the flaring of tensions. I knew that at any moment he could burst into a rage himself, especially once the alcohol began to flow.
“Adith,” said he again, “this stew needs salt. Michael and Gabriel cannot eat such a distasteful soup. Bring them some salt.”
I glared at him as if I might burn a hole right through him with my eyes. Michael or Gabriel or whoever it was must have seen the precariousness of our argument, and he turned to Lot and said, “it’s quite alright, good sir,” and, looking back to me with a polite nod, “the stew is good my lady.”
“No,” said Lot, “we will have salt.”
“We do not have any salt,” I said. This may have been a lie but I was tired of his immature demands.
I could not believe what he said next, “then ask it of Mararet.”
“And what reason, pray tell, will I give her for needing salt at this hour?”
“Why Adith,” he said, “because we have esteemed guests.”
I don’t know what finally broke in me at that moment, but some bitter, spiteful part of me raised its fist to the gods and I decided that if my husband told me to spread the news of our guests in the town of Sodom, then that was what I would do.
I told Mararet the truth.