But he urged them strongly, so they turned his way and entered his house. He prepared a feast for them and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
Genesis 19:3 (The Contemporary Torah, JPS, 2006)
There are all sorts of links between the Genesis flood and the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, but the theme of alcohol afterwords is striking.
The rabbis point out that the word “feast” here in Hebrew means a “drinking feast.” That’s what מִשְׁתֶּה means.
A feast. Literally, “a drinking feast.” Lot offered them wine because he was fond of it himself.
Sforno on Genesis 19:3
The teaching isn’t that alcohol is “bad,” but perhaps it’s one of those things that people turn to after grief of loss, and when they do, it leads to greater grief and shame.
Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father naked and told his two brothers outside.
Genesis 9:20-22 (NIV)One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to give us children—as is the custom all over the earth. Let’s get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father.”
That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and slept with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.
Genesis 19:31-33 (NIV)
This is a kind of idolatry.
Perhaps the angels abstained to give this hint.