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From the book of Genesis we learn of Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt. She was told by her husband and the two angels sent by God to flee the sinful city of Sodom and go to the village called Zoar, and to not look back. Lot took his wife and his two unmarried daughters and began to run out of the city. Lot’s wife lagged behind, not wanting to go, and turned and looked towards the world she was leaving behind at the same time God reigned fire and terror on the city of Sodom. She was then buried in rock and covered in ashes from the explosion, giving her the appearance of a pillar of salt.
Now it has always bothered me that Lot’s wife didn’t have a name in the Bible. She was only referred to as his wife. I did some research and found from Jewish folklore her name might have been Ildeth, meaning Edith. I find the name Ildeth much more appealing. It just sounds more like a woman of her status to me.
Let me say here my interpretation of Ildeth is my own, deriven from different research I have done on her. I have often wondered about the woman who turned into salt in the Bible, so this writing was a learning experience for me.
It is written by some that Ildeth was a materialistic woman. Her husband was wealthy and she had many luxuries. She must have loved her husband and children, but perhaps she loved her life of wealth and fine materials more. When she was told by the angels to flee the city of sin and perverseness, was her first thought of obedience to God and the safety of her family, or her place in the world? Lot was an important man in Sodom, he had considerable clout. She might have balked at going to a primitive village and living a peasant’s life.
Let me say now, in all fairness to Ildeth, she also might have been reluctant to leave other children behind. The Bible speaks of the sons-in-law who laughed at Lot when he told them they all must flee the city, because God was about to destroy it. To me that means Ildeth surely had married daughters who stayed behind with their husbands, and perhaps even grand children.
Whatever the reason for Ildeth’s disobedience, we can all learn from her mistake. God speaks to us everyday through what I perceive to be angels of a sort. People in our every day lives, who we trust, often advise us and sometimes we do not listen. At other times it is just an inner voice we ignore. We know what we are doing is wrong but it gives us pleasure, much in the way Ildeth might have gotten pleasure from her place in a the world. God speaks to us and tells us we must leave a sinful world behind and not look back, but do we? Not always.
It seems to me Ildeth might not have cared that much about all the horrid sin going on outside of her palatial grounds. She was thinking only of herself and had to look back at all she was giving up. Just as we often look back on our past and long for the luxury of sinful things, and as we return to them once again, our souls are covered in stone and ashes and we become like pillars of salt.
Mercifully, since the days of Ildeth and Lot, God sent us His Only Begotten Son, in order that we might have life again. Though Him we are forgiven if we sincerely ask to be. When we turn our lives over to Jesus and ask him to make us new, the ashes of sin that turned us to salt are washed away and we are reborn, free to live again, and we never, ever, feel the need to look back.
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