Genesis 19:25-27

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

²⁵He overthrew, destroyed, and ended those cities, and all the valley and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.

²⁶But [Lot’s] wife looked back from behind him, and she ^[a]became a pillar of salt.

²⁷Abraham went up early the next morning to the place where he [only the day before] had stood before the Lord.

Genesis 19:26 Lot’s wife not only “looked back” to where her heart’s interests were, but she lingered behind; and probably overtaken by the fire and brimstone, her dead body became incrusted with salt, which, in that salt-packed area now the Dead Sea, grew larger with more incrustations—a veritable “pillar of salt.” In fact, at the southern end of the Dead Sea there is a mountain of table salt called Jebel Usdum, “Mount of Sodom.” It is about six miles long, three miles wide, and 1,000 feet high. It is covered with a crust of earth several feet thick, but the rest of the mountain is said to be solid salt (George T. B. Davis, Rebuilding Palestine According to Prophecy). Somewhere in this area Lot’s wife looked back to where her treasures and her heart were, and “she became a pillar of salt.” Jesus said, “Remember Lot’s wife” (Luke 17:32).