This year I commited to reading the Bible in a year. I have caught up thus far, but that had to include a day where I had to read three days' worth in a night. Yeah. But today was---good, interesting...
Genesis 19. Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed.
I think that this passage fascinates people. I have read (a few) different poems on this situation, most specifically, Lot's wife looking back.
So, God's angels have told Lot's family that they need to leave Sodom and Gomorrah, as God was to destroy the city for its wickedness.
"By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah...But Lot's wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt." (Gen. 19:23-26, NIV)
Anna Akmatova's take (trans. Max Hayward and Stanley Kunitz):
Lot's Wife
And the just man trailed God's shining agent,
over a black mountain, in his giant track,
while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:
"It's not too late, you can still look back
at the red towers of your native Sodom,
the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows set in the tall house
where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed."
A single glance: a sudden dart of pain
stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .
Her body flaked into transparent salt,
and her swift legs rooted to the ground.
Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem
too insignificant for our concern?
Yet in my heart I never will deny her,
who suffered death because she chose to turn.
And the just man trailed God's shining agent,
over a black mountain, in his giant track,
while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:
"It's not too late, you can still look back
at the red towers of your native Sodom,
the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows set in the tall house
where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed."
A single glance: a sudden dart of pain
stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .
Her body flaked into transparent salt,
and her swift legs rooted to the ground.
Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem
too insignificant for our concern?
Yet in my heart I never will deny her,
who suffered death because she chose to turn.
I cannot suppose I know what is going on in Lot's wife's (could we give her a name?) desires or mindset, or anything else.
Maybe I will start out what I know to be true:
The Old Testament God is the same God of the New Testament who is the same God of right now and forever.
Yet, there is the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.
Somethings I do not know:
What I mentioned, Lot's wife, what compelled her to look back and what was that difference between her and the remander of Lot's family.
It is not a matter of whether or not I 'agree' with Akmatova's poem. Phonetically it is beautiful (though translated) but I know that, if taken to represent what was going on, very biased. Maybe I too am looking at it with bias.
But already the first two lines have painted a picture that we know not to be true. The Bible is so devestatingly honest of the weakness of man. Yes. The great men were not perfect men. They walked with God---let him guide them, did things out of faith even when they were so weak.
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9)
Akmatova's poem isn't very overdone, but it does have the tint (I think?) of a mocking, ridculous man, overlooking his wife in the back, her eyes following "the red towers of (her) native Sodom." I don't want to propose the opposite in her.
"Looked back." I do not know what is meant completely by it, but---
Like an onion (yes) there are different layers to this. What can looking back say about her trust? Her faith (will God do what he says)? Her desire?
There is also a physical, literal act of turning back and looking. I think that it was C.S. Lewis (I am thinking in his book "The Screwtape Letters") that it is absurd to suppose that what you do in your physical life and the way you appear and act 'on the outside' has no bearing or effect on the spirtual, 'on the inside.'
"Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and in spirit." (1 Corinthians 7:34)
I know that this passage talks specifically about unmarried women, and obviously Lot's wife---wife. At the same time, there must have been a conflict of where her devotion lies.
Hm..more later (as I say). There's so much I could ponder on paper (or computer screen) about what I've read today. I will come back tonight.
{Yes, well, the New Covenant was something I did not fully grasp, didn't fully comprehend (do I think I do now? Is that even possible??) until probably this summer.} I will blog this sometime in the future.
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