And they struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they became weary trying to find the door.
Genesis 19:11 (NKJV)
When the angels blinded the men trying to get past Lot, the rabbis point out a couple of fascinating things about the word-choices here.
First, this isn’t merely physical blindness. Surely a blind person can find a door if they really tried. This describes a stupor.
The word choice verifies this. The story uses an uncommon hebrew word for “blindness.”
Ordinarily, the word used for “blind” is ivvare (עיוור), and it just means… blind. But here, the word is sanvare (סָנְוֵר), and it carries a sense of mental or spiritual blindness.
This word sanvare is so uncommon that it’s only used once more in the whole Bible, in 2 Kings 6:8-23.
In the story, there’s an enemy who surrounds the prophet Elisha in Dothan, and when Elisha’s servant’s eyes are open, he sees an army of angels with chariots of *fire.*
It’s where we get these lyrics to a famous hymn:
So he answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
2 Kings 6:16 (NKJV)
And then Elisha prays that God strike the enemies with blindness. With sanvare.
The blinded and confused enemies are then led by Elisha into Israel’s territory, but rather than have them killed, Elisha prepared a great feast for them.
In Sodom, we have a feast (Genesis 19:3), surrounded (19:4), blindness (19:11), people moved (19:16), and then fire (19:24).
In Dothan, we have surrounded (2 Kings 6:14), fire (6:17), blindness (6:18), people moved (6:19), and a feast (6:23).
Isn’t that interesting?
In the case of Sodom, we have what starts with a feast and hospitality, but it ends in fire and destruction.
On the case of Dothan, we have what starts out as the outlay of destruction by fire, but it ends in a feast.
What do you suppose scripture is teaching us?