But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. This phrase, "pillar of salt," is perhaps to be accounted for by the peculiarity of oriental metaphor. Salt, which was variously emblematical, was, with eastern people, especially a symbol of incorruptibility, and hence, to denote the validity and continuance of a covenant, it is frequently called in Scripture a covenant of salt (Numbers 18:19; 2 Chronicles 13:5). Conformably to this interpretation, "a pillar of salt" will signify a perpetual pillar. It is deserving of notice, that the text does not say she was metamorphosed into a pillar of salt, but that she became a pillar of salt - i:e., having not only 'looked behind,' but actually turned back (our Lord's admonition, Luke 17:32, is founded on the fact of her attempting to retrace her steps) - she was suffocated and then overwhelmed by the torrent of bituminous and sulphureous matter; which, as it formed an increasing incrustation over her body, rendered her a lasting monument of the fatal effects of a too deeply rooted affection for worldly attractions, and of wilful disobedience to the divine instructions. Josephus asserts ('Antiquities,' b. 1:, ch. 12, ˜4) that this pillar was still standing in his day. Clement of Rome, a contemporary of Josephus, bears a similar testimony, as also does Irenaeus, who lived in the century following (Whiston's Josephus, note).
Many travelers in succeeding ages also attested the sight of this archaic monument; and the mystery was not cleared up until the American Expedition, under Captain Lynch-during their explorations of the Dead Sea-discovered an immense pillar near the base of the salt mountain ridge of Usd-m. This salsuginous pillar, which was cylindrical in front, and pyramidical behind, being attached to the rock by a prop, was 40 feet in height, and stood on a pedestal which was about 40 or 50 feet above the level of the sea. It was one entire mass of crystallization.
The following year it is described by De Saulcy, who saw it as greatly changed, until it disappeared. But numerous pyramidical columns of salt appeared in many other places of this region, the original formation and mutable appearances of which, as they are detached from the general mass of the salt mountain, are now well known; but which, in an earlier and less observant age, might easily be mistaken for the pillar into which Lot's wife, the victim of her supine indolence or sinful temerity, was supposed to be transformed.