‘But, before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every section. And they called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you this night? Bring them out to us that we might know them.” '
The enthusiasm for evil that epitomises Sodom is brought out here. ‘Before they lay down'. They did not even wait for full darkness. It is then stressed that they had all gathered for the sport. They intended to take the men and practise their sexual perversions on them as both participants and spectators. There was no limit to their evil.
How many innocent strangers in the past had suffered in this way, including children? We will never know. But, in the light of this, who can doubt that God's way was right? These people had no redeeming feature.
“The men of the city, even the men of Sodom”. The repetition brings out the emphasis on who these men are. They represent the whole city, and they are Sodomites.
(In later times to be compared with Sodom was to have reached the lowest level of behaviour. But the idea even then is not that such people commit the sins of Sodom. The prophets had in mind the sins of their own times and possibly could not even conceive the total perversion of the Sodomites - see Isaiah 1:10; Isaiah 3:9; Jeremiah 23:14; Ezekiel 16:49).