Comments on: Poetry Sunday: Lot's Wife

By: joe quinton

joe quinton — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:00:16 +0000

There does seem a lot of misogyny in the passage, and in the comments. Akhmatova brings out the feminine feelings that Lot's wife had. We all know what they might be - they were as evident 2000 years ago as now. As Akhmatova points out the wife is not named, she is a thing. Akhmatova makes her a human being with feelings that she expresses at the risk of her life. Whatever spiritual/mythic dimensions the bible has it is based on the writings of actual men. That women were not "humans" back then is no more than we see now. The above accusation that the wife "nagged" her husband to escape is a perfect example. We should be thankful for Akhmatova's explication of the whole story.

By: Cynthia Harmon

Cynthia Harmon — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:50:55 +0000

Look back Lot's Wife
Be repulsed
Brimstone Tears melt pillars of salt

Daughters offered to sodimize
Necessary flight from Zoarh
AND THERE WAS MORE

Look back Lot's Wife & be repulsed
Crystalized understanding leads to DIVORCE

DIVORCE the archetype has been missed by man. Perhaps only a woman who has had to turn & face her reality and has had to take the consequences of her actions can read the story in a new way. Her society divorces/leaves her behind & she in turn divorces them due to her awakening to the truth of her circumstance. Ask the wife of an abuser, alcoholic, workaholic, etc. who has had to face societies concept of Boys Will Be Boys. She should be able to relate.

By: Lynet

Lynet — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:34:15 +0000

Although I disagree with you, Elian, I have to thank you for illuminating the poem further. You're right -- in the poem above, at least, and perhaps also in the Bible story, Lot's wife looks back in affection. This is the crime that the Soviets killed people for; this is also the crime that your interpretation of the story attributes to Lot's wife. However, God is supposed to be omnipotent. Is destroying people really the only way he has of preventing them from doing evil? Leaving aside the thorny question of whether God could create humans who would always freely choose to do good, the simple fact is that, in the story as written, it's hard to imagine that Lot's wife is completely beyond rehabilitation. She was leaving, after all, even if she did look back.

Lot, to show how noble a man he had become, offered to let them rape his two daughters instead.

Your tongue is in your cheek when you say that, right?

By: Elian

Elian — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 01:22:54 +0000

I find it amazing when people mock God for allowing so much evil in the world and at the same time mock him for destroying it.
One might suggest that a person would gain at least a basic understanding of what one so vehemently criticizes, at least of the story itself. Why was Lot in Sodom? Why did God destroy it? Just prior to this part of the story, (it is part of a larger story), Abraham and his nephew, Lot, had to separate because their stuff was just too much for them to live in the same area. Lot chose to live in the valley of Sodom because it looked best to him. Apparently, however, they did not live on the plain for long but quickly settled in Sodom itself, a city known for its wickedness. Lot would have been destroyed with the city except for Abraham’s pleading with God to allow Lot and his family to get out. When the messengers of God showed up to bring Lot out, his neighbors demanded that Lot put them out of his house so that they could rape them. Lot, to show how noble a man he had become, offered to let them rape his two daughters instead. The messengers allowed neither.
The fate of Lot’s wife was not due to some uncontrollable anger from God. He had given them a clear choice, they could be destroyed with Sodom or they could follow him out. They had previously chosen the wickedness of Sodom. God was giving them a second chance. She looked back not to say good-by but because she wanted to go back there. Lot’s wife chose her own fate.
If you demand that God rid the earth of evil and the suffering that results from it, by all means, step to the front of the line.
As to the great surprise that anyone would directly disobey God’s command and chose their own destruction, perhaps we need to examine our own practices.

By: steve bowen

steve bowen — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:35:12 +0000

However, the standard version of the story explains that it was all her fault because she nagged him into it.

Now that I can believe :)

By: Lynet

Lynet — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 04:14:48 +0000

Strange how the idiot who disobeys in these mysths is always a woman. Misogyny much!

Steve, for completeness' sake, I have to point out that it was Orpheus who looked back at Euridice, not the other way around.

However, the standard version of the story explains that it was all her fault because she nagged him into it.

By: heliobates

heliobates — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:08:21 +0000

K writes

Yes the rhymie is very cute. Pain-plain. Wife-life. But all it does for me is smack me in the head with how stupid the original story is.

Then you missed the point by several lightyears.

I mean, suspend your disbelief and pretend a true-blue, honest-to-goodness magical being told you that if you turn around, you will die, WHY WOULD ANYONE TURN AROUND?

From the poem:

it is not too late for a last sight!

Of the red towers of your native Sodom, the square
Where once you sang, the gardens you shall mourn,
And the tall house with empty windows where
You loved your husband and your babes were born.

K writes:

The bible is poorly written tripe and any little high school rhymie rhyme can only serve to emphasizes teh dumb.

This is not a "high school rhymie". That you barely understand one its levels of meaning, or that realize you're reading a translation, says nothing about the poem itself and everything about you as a reader.

By: steve bowen

steve bowen — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:00:04 +0000

Strange how the idiot who disobeys in these mysths is always a woman. Misogyny much!

By: Ric

Ric — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:42:11 +0000

Yoyo, you got it right. The story of Lot's wife just goes to show that the Judeo-Christian god is a monster.

By: yoyo

yoyo — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:45:47 +0000

I can understand where Lot's wife (she doesnt even have a bloody name!) is an important image for a Russian who lived in her period. Recent history was not something you were allowed to look back at or mourn for. It was to be totally erased, or you were turned to salt (killed).

By: yoyo

yoyo — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:43:02 +0000

I think it's a very sad poem to me, an indictment of a cruel and stupid god. She looks back because the real world, her home, her friends, her history and her community is more important than an imaginary "hereafter" and a brutal jealous god punishes her for it.

By: Gary F

Gary F — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:11:19 +0000

K is right, it doesn't make sense that someone would disobey God if he had made it obvious to her that he existed. If the creator of the universe, who was actively destroying the city in which I had lived, had told me not to look back, you could be certain that I would make sure not to look back. I'd probably just stay focused on the path in front of me, constantly making sure I wouldn't look behind me. But the Bible has several instances of people directly disobeying God. Adam and Eve are told not to eat the fruit, and what could be easier to do than avoid a fruit? But they go and eat it because a serpent tells them to. God brings his people out of Egypt, with many obvious miracles, including parting the Red Sea, and yet they build an idol to worship instead.

Stories such as these are among the many problems I see with the Bible, and which make the case of the Christian harder to believe. Why would anyone behave in a way that goes against the will of a god who has made his existence obvious? Why should I follow the will of this god, when the best evidence for his existence is an unbelievable story?