Did Lot´s Wife Deserve Her Fate? Did Eve? Did the Virgin Mary?

I was struck during a recent reading from the Book of Genesis at mass by the fate of Lot´s wife. God turned her into a pillar of salt simply because she disobeyed an angel´s instruction and looked back at Sodom and Gomorrah which were being destroyed by a hail of sulfur.

What exactly had Lot´s wife done to deserve this fate? Some commentators say that Lot´s wife was punished because by looking back at Sodom she was showing a lingering interest in the place. If so, then why was Lot not punished? After all, before leaving he had offered his two daughters up to a mob to be gang raped in order to spare God´s angels who were the mob´s original targets.

Lot´s wife was the mother of two daughters whose betrothed were among those killed when God turned his wrath on the two cities. If God spared Lot and his immediate family surely this means they were among the few inhabitants who were worthy of his mercy? The story gets worse as the two daughters, who no longer have their mother around to look after them, find themselves in a country where there are no men of their own age. In order to propagate their race, they get their father drunk and seduce him on consecutive nights. Lot remembers nothing and the two girls eventually become pregnant and give birth to sons who become the ancestors of the Moabites and Ammonites. These, in turn, became bitter enemies of the Israelites.

None of this would have happened if Lot´s wife had been around so why did God mistreat this family so? And how drunk did Lot have to commit the hideous sin of incest then forget about it? Forgive the pun but Lot sounds a bad lot.

Jesus makes an enigmatic reference to Lot´s wife in Luke (17: 32-33) when he says, “Remember Lot´s wife. Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it”.

Another woman who it could be argued was mistreated was Eve who broke God´s rule and ate from the forbidden fruit after being tempted by Satan. What exactly did Eve do wrong? So she broke a rule but could not God have forgiven her? Did we all deserve to be stained with original sin as a result? That´s a stiff penalty to impose on people who were not even around at the time. And is forgiveness not at the root of our faith? Catholics break rules all the time and a priest forgives them in Confession. And what about the Virgin Mary? Why was she forced to watch her son being tortured and put to death in public? What had she done to deserve this?Other examples are the massacre of the innocents by Herod after Jesus´s birth or the death of the firstborn sons of the Egyptians after the Pharoh refused to let the Jews leave.

I find it difficult to conciliate this treatment of innocent people with the idea of a merciful God who is “slow to anger”. The standard answer is that we mere mortals are in no position to judge God and why He does things. That´s a bit of a cop out in my opinion. God gave us free will to behave as we wish, to choose the path of evil as well as the path of goodness, to worship Him or worship Satan. With this free will he gave us we can also exercise our judgment on God. There is nothing blasphemous in saying this. God is often presented us as the Father – Jesus himself taught us the “Our Father” - and who among us has never been critical of his or her father yet still love him?