Genesis19chapter 19

This chapter is heard inside the fourth portion of the annual cycle, in the same sitting as the visit at the oaks and the binding of Isaac (src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts). The two angels at the gate, the destruction of the cities and the cave at Zoar are read without a break from the pleading of Abraham. The card above carries the portion and the prophetic reading set beside it.

The corpus holds the English text of three comments on this chapter and the reference alone for twenty one more. Radak is quoted from the CC-BY translation of Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash.

Radak reads the plea of Lot in the seventh verse as a plea made on the ground of neighbourhood. Lot calls the men of the city his brothers and his neighbours, and asks them to leave his guests alone for his sake (Radak on Genesis 19:7:1). On the thirteenth verse he reads the outcry as the cry of "the victims of the cruelties of the Sodomites". He treats the wording of that verse as a point of Hebrew grammar (Radak on Genesis 19:13:1). On the twenty third verse he holds that the destruction began the moment Lot was inside Zoar, and that the angel acted on the word of God (Radak on Genesis 19:23:1).

Rashi comments on nineteen verses of this chapter, and the corpus holds the text of none of them, because the licence Sefaria reports for that English version keeps it out. They run from Rashi on Genesis 19:1:1 on the angels at the gate to Rashi on Genesis 19:24:1 on the overthrow. Ibn Ezra stands on the sixth verse at Ibn Ezra on Genesis 19:6:1, and Sforno on the tenth at Sforno on Genesis 19:10:1.

The corpus records forty places where the Midrash and the Talmud cite this chapter, thirty three under Midrash and seven under Talmud. It carries the locator for each one with no text, so the references stand here and the sayings are read at the source.

Bereshit Rabbah reads the chapter through from the gate to the cave. It reads the first verse at 49:14, the second at 50:4, the sixth at 45:6, the ninth at 50:7 and the tenth at 50:8. It reads the twelfth verse at 26:5, the thirteenth at 50:9, the twenty second at 50:12 and the twenty fifth at 51:4. It reads the thirtieth verse at 51:7, the thirty first at 51:8, the thirty second at 41:7, the thirty sixth at 45:4 and the thirty seventh at 51:11.

Aggadat Bereshit reads the sixteenth verse at 31:3, the seventeenth at 25:2, the twenty third at 25:1, the twenty fourth at 1:1 and the twenty seventh at 34:1. Bamidbar Rabbah reads the fifth verse at 20:22, the eighth at 10:5, the eleventh at 9:18, the twenty first at 11:7 and the twenty ninth at 20:19. Midrash Sekhel Tov reads the seventh and thirty fourth verses at the locators of the same names, and Bereshit Rabbati reads the nineteenth at Parashat Vayera 41.

The Talmud is cited at Bava Metzia 86b:20 on the first verse and 87a:1 on the third, which sets the welcome Lot gave beside the welcome Abraham gave in the chapter before. It is cited at Bava Batra 91b:10 on the fifteenth verse and at Berakhot 54b:8 on the pillar of salt. The Jerusalem Talmud reads the twenty eighth verse at Maaser Sheni 5:5:8. Avot DeRabbi Natan reads the thirty third verse at 34:5, and its second recension reads the thirty fifth at 37:10.