But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
Ver. 26. But his wife looked back.] Whether out of curiosity, or foolish pity, or as loath to leave so sweet a country, she turned her about, and she was turned. Some think she was a Sodomite, and some tell us her name was Tytea. a Her sin, seem it never so light, was a compound of many sins. And her punishment was part of the plague of Sodom, which was "brimstone and salt," Deu 29:23 so that it became a sea of salt. And all this to season us, saith Augustine; to caution us, saith our Saviour, that we look not back. The fable of Eurydice, lost by her husband's looking back upon her, was devised by the devil to elude this holy history. The "pillar of salt," into which Lot's wife was turned, stands yet, saith Benjamin in his "Itinerary," about two miles from the Dead Sea; and if, by the rubbing or licking of cattle, it be any whit diminished, it groweth again forthwith, to its former size.
a Tyteam dictam volunt uxorem Loti ,& c. - Heidfeld.