Page:A Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Genesis (Morgenstern, 1919, jewishinterpreta00morg).pdf/160

142 Vv. 18-23 are really an interpolation into the original story, and not an integral part of it. They were inserted probably to explain the etymology of the name of the village of Zoar, which seemed miraculously to have escaped the general destruction. Actually they have no relation to the story proper, and even seem to contradict some of its details. Zoar is represented as derived from the Hebrew stem sa'ar, "to be little."

V. 26. Very much has been told and written about this incident of the pillar of salt. Most of this is altogether fanciful, and with-

out the slightest basis of fact or history. This verse is probably also an interpolation, similar to the Zoar episode. Near the southern end of the Dead Sea is a large hill of salt, today known to the Arabs of the vicinity as Gebel Usdum (Mountain of Sodom). It is, of course, the product of centuries of deposit of salt from the Dead Sea. Vivid imaginations have from the earliest times professed to see the likeness of a woman in the configuration of this salt hill. Gradually the tradition arose that it was actually a woman who had been changed into salt. Ancient Israelite folk-lore identified this woman with Lot's wife. Of course there is not the slightest historical basis to this tradition.

Vv. 27f. From the highlands of Judah one can easily look across the valley of the Dead Sea to the mountains of Moab on the cast.