Genesis 19

¹ The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth ² and said, “My lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the town square.” ³ But he pressed them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house. And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. ⁴ But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. ⁵ And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.” ⁶ Lot went out to the men at the entrance, shut the door after him, ⁷ and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. ⁸ Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” ⁹ But they said, “Stand back!” And they said, “This fellow came to sojourn, and he has become the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.” Then they pressed hard against the man Lot, and drew near to break the door down. ¹⁰ But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. ¹¹ And they struck with blindness the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great, so that they wore themselves out groping for the door. ¹² Then the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city, bring them out of the place. ¹³ For we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.” ¹⁴ So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, “Up! Get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city.” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting. ¹⁵ As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.” ¹⁶ But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. ¹⁷ And as they brought them out, one said, “Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.” ¹⁸ And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords. ¹⁹ Behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life. But I cannot escape to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me and I die.²⁰ Behold, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there—is it not a little one?—and my life will be saved!” ²¹ He said to him, “Behold, I grant you this favor also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. ²² Escape there quickly, for I can do nothing till you arrive there.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. ²³ The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. ²⁴ Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. ²⁵ And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. ²⁶ But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. ²⁷ And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord. ²⁸ And he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and he looked and, behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace. ²⁹ So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived. ³⁰ Now Lot went up out of Zoar and lived in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to live in Zoar. So he lived in a cave with his two daughters. ³¹ And the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth. ³² Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father.” ³³ So they made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father. He did not know when she lay down or when she arose. ³⁴ The next day, the firstborn said to the younger, “Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine tonight also. Then you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father.” ³⁵ So they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. ³⁶ Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. ³⁷ The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. ³⁸ The younger also bore a son and called his name Ben-ammi. He is the father of the Ammonites to this day.

In 1973, Karl Menninger published his best-selling book, Whatever Became of Sin? He began the book in this way:

On a sunny day in September, 1972, a stern-faced, plainly dressed man could be seen standing still on a street corner in the busy Chicago Loop. As pedestrians hurried by on their way to lunch or business, he would solemnly lift his right arm, and pointing to the person nearest him, intone loudly the single word ‘GUILTY!’

Then, without any change of expression, he would resume his still stance for a few moments before repeating the gesture. Then, again, the inexorable raising of his arm, the pointing, and the solemn pronouncing of the one word ‘GUILTY!’

The effect of this strange accusatory pantomime on the passing strangers was extraordinary, almost eerie. They would stare at him, hesitate, look away, look at each other, and then at him again; then hurriedly continue on their ways.

One man, turning to another who was my informant, exclaimed: ‘But how did he know?’[1]

That is a fascinating and humorous story…but not too humorous. Truth be told, it gives us pause. In fact, if one has been alive for any period of time, one realizes that there are few surer bets out there today than that if you stood on a street corner and indiscriminately pointed your finger at strangers shouting “Guilty!” a fair number of them will think, “How did he know?” After all, Paul wrote, “Fall all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). That makes it a sure bet indeed!

Even so, as Menninger’s book title suggests, the modern world—inexplicably, I would argue, and against all evidence to the contrary—seems increasingly not to believe that sin exists. Menninger, as summarized by theologian James Leo Garrett’s consideration of the book, “noted that wrongdoing has been identified as ‘crime,’ as ‘symptom’ of illness, and as ‘collective irresponsibility.” Menninger then went on to call “on pastors, teachers, physicians, lawyers and judges, the police, the media, and statesmen to work for the recovery of sin as moral guilt.”[2]

I agree that the idea needs to be recovered. To do so, we need to regain a theology of sin. In theology, this study or consideration is called hamartiology, which comes from the Greek words ἁμαρτία, hamartia, meaning “missing the mark, error” and λογια, logia, meaning “study.” I would like to argue this morning that there are few more insightful chapters than Genesis 19 and the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in helping us construct our hamartiology, our theology of sin. So let us consider this chapter and what it tells us about sin, about the nature and character of God, and about ourselves.

Sin is ugly, and will inevitably reveal itself to be so.

One of the most jarring and obvious revelations of Genesis 19 involves the sheer ugliness of sin. While this chapter is difficult to read, it is insightful in that shows us the darkness that lies behind all sin. Genesis 19 shows us sin unmasked, sin with no pretension of pious gloss, sin in the raw, sin in all of its ugliness. Observe:

¹ The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth ² and said, “My lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the town square.” ³ But he pressed them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house. And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. ⁴ But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. ⁵ And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.” ⁶ Lot went out to the men at the entrance, shut the door after him, ⁷ and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. ⁸ Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” ⁹ But they said, “Stand back!” And they said, “This fellow came to sojourn, and he has become the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.” Then they pressed hard against the man Lot, and drew near to break the door down. ¹⁰ But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. ¹¹ And they struck with blindness the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great, so that they wore themselves out groping for the door.

The two angels left the Lord and Abraham at the end of Genesis 18. They moved next toward the city of Sodom, where Abraham’s nephew, Lot, and his family resided. They were going, you will recall, ostensibly to assess just how great the wickedness of the place was. What they find there is truly jarring.

As they approach the city they find Lot sitting in the city gate. This was the common place for conducting business. This is where you would find the movers-and-shakers of the city. Do not think of a “gate” as we think of it. Think of a deep gate, likely a passage through a thick wall, in which there would have been a chamber to one or both sides with benches inside. Lot was, quite literally, sitting “in the gate.” Lot seems to know that these two men are very special, honored guests. Perhaps he even knows that they are more than mere men. Regardless, he reveals his knowledge of the wickedness of the place by trying to rush them inside and then, quickly, out the next morning: “My lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way.” Lot knows what Sodom is. He knows the danger, as he sees it, to these two men.

These two, however, know the power they have. They are no men! They are angels of the almighty God. Therefore, they are not concerned for their safety. They state their intention to sleep out in the town square. The very idea of this is shocking and upsetting to Lot. He insists they come home with him and they relent.

It does not take long for news of the two interesting and handsome men to spread throughout the city. After dinner, before the house turns in for the night, there is suddenly an angry mob before Lot’s door. Moses, in writing this story, made clear to press the fact that the crowd consisted of all the men and boys of Sodom. E.A. Speiser writes of the phrase in verse 4, “the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man,” that it means “(even) from the fringe(s),” i.e., everybody.”[3] And what do they want? They want Lot, who goes out to meet them, shutting the door behind himself, to turn the two strangers over so that the men can “know” the them. I will not belabor the point of what this “knowing” entails, but it is made clear in Lot’s usage of the same word in his disturbing attempt to satiate the crowd’s lusts with his own daughters: “Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please.” The mob is not placated by this. Rather, they are incensed and turn their anger on Lot. As they press in on him, Lot is pulled inside by the angels who then blind the mob with light.

There are two things about sin that are revealed in this story: it is ugly and it is universal. It is grotesque, and all human beings are inflicted by its grossness. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that “…human beings belong together and are bound together in status corruptionis [state of corruption].”[4] That is a powerful thought. History and daily evidence would suggest that we are indeed bound together in a status corruptionis, a state of corruption. What an apt description of Sodom! What an apt description of all of humanity!

We try to dress sin up, to make it look less ugly. We put a pious veneer on it. And we try to fool ourselves concerning it. But make no mistake: sin is ugly and it is part of the fallen human condition. We are bound together in it.

Is there an equality among all human beings? There is indeed! There is the equality of our own fallenness and need for grace. Do you recoil at the ugliness of the sin of Sodom? Consider this: that seem base wickedness is in fact in the heart of all sins, even those we consider “acceptable” or those we wink at. There are no pretty little sins. If we could somehow train ourselves to hear the hideous perverse cries of the men of Sodom behind and beneath our culturally and “churchly” acceptable sins we would pause and tremble and flee!

Sin invites the wrath of God.

Genesis 19 also makes abundantly clear that sin invites the wrath of God. It is no small thing to sin against a righteous and holy God! We see this in the thoroughness and severity of the actions that God takes against Sodom.

¹² Then the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city, bring them out of the place. ¹³ For we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.” ¹⁴ So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, “Up! Get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city.” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting. ¹⁵ As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.” ¹⁶ But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. ¹⁷ And as they brought them out, one said, “Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.” ¹⁸ And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords. ¹⁹ Behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life. But I cannot escape to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me and I die.²⁰ Behold, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there—is it not a little one?—and my life will be saved!” ²¹ He said to him, “Behold, I grant you this favor also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. ²² Escape there quickly, for I can do nothing till you arrive there.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. ²³ The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. ²⁴ Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. ²⁵ And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.

Notice, first, the Lord’s protection of his people. The angels call upon Lot and has family to get out. Why? Because “we are about to destroy this place.” And why is that? “Because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.” Finally, after some exasperating negotiations to flee to the city of Zoar instead of to the further-away “hills,” the Lord “rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven.” What a terrifying picture this is. I cannot help but think of Bob Dylan’s great song and line, “a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.” A hard rain did fall, and great was its destruction!

The repeated usage of “Lord”—“Then the Lord rained” and “from the Lord out of heaven”—makes it very clear who is sending this judgment. And notice too the thoroughness of the judgment: “And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.”

Why does this matter for our day? It matters because it makes abundantly clear the seriousness of sin. The sin upon which God sent fire in Sodom and Gomorrah is the same sin that tempts us today. Put another way, when we sin we are indulging in the same activities that led the Lord to raze these cities to the ground. Sin is serious. Sin is an act of hostility against God. As R.C. Sproul put it:

Life on this planet has become the arena in which we daily carry out the work of cosmic treason…Sin is cosmic treason.  Sin is treason against a perfectly pure Sovereign.  It is an act of supreme ingratitude toward the One to whom we owe everything.[5]

Yes, sin is treason and invites the just judgment of a righteous God whether the sin be a singular act committed by an individual or intense city- or nation-wide corruption and immorality. Lest we think that God’s actions against Sodom and Gomorrah were exceptional, consider that Jesus pointed to what happened there in His description of what His second coming, His coming in judgment, would be like for the earth. He did this in Luke 17:

²⁸ Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, ²⁹ but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—³⁰ so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

The same fire and the same sulfur will rain because sin remains hideous and God remains holy. Nothing has changed. A hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

Think of this: if we could truly internalize what is happening in Genesis 19—the ugliness of sin, the righteousness of God, the severity of judgment‚—it would compel us onward to following Jesus with reckless abandon, with bold faith, indeed, with a sense of desperate need!

God delivering us out of judgment should result in our fleeing that which invites it.

We have seen what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah. But what of Lot and his family? What is their role in this sad tale? Their role, simply put, is to flee! To run! And, as they run, they are not to look back, as the angels say in verse 17: “Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley.” In other words, they are called to make a radical break with the place and reality of sin. Let us see what happens:

²⁶ But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. ²⁷ And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord. ²⁸ And he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and he looked and, behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace. ²⁹ So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived.

Here is one of the most famous and fascinating episodes of the Old Testament: Lot’s wife looks back and turns into a pillar of salt! Old Testament scholar John Walton proposes that “Lot’s wife does not simply glance back, but returns to the city and is swept up in the destruction like everyone else in the cities…Many ‘pillars of salt’ would have littered the streets.”[6] Perhaps. That is not the traditional understanding, of course. Traditionally she is viewed as merely looking back. Regardless, whether she looks or returns, she becomes a pillar of salt. Even so, Jesus’ words in Luke 17 maysuggest that she returned to the city:

²⁸ Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, ²⁹ but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—³⁰ so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. ³¹ On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back. ³² Remember Lot’s wife. ³³ Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.

What is abundantly clear in both Genesis 19 and Luke 17 is that we are to make a radical break with sin and that which invites the judgement of God! Do not look back! Do not turn back! Do not go back to your sin! Jerry Bridges argued that we must actually come to develop a hatred for sin.

Hatred is a legitimate emotion when it comes to sin.  In fact, the more we ourselves grow in holiness, the more we hate sin…As we grow in holiness, we grow in hatred of sin; and God, being infinitely holy, has an infinite hatred of sin….

We need to cultivate in our own hearts the same hatred of sin God has.[7]

I ask you: do you hate sin? Do you hate your sin and do you hate sin itself? I am not speaking of hating those who commit sin, either ourselves or others. I am speaking of hating sin itself, hating that which destroys our lives, hating that which God hates, hating that which brings judgment and the wrath of God.

Have you fled your sin? Have you run from it? Are you looking back?

Flee! Run! Do not look back!

Yet long exposure to sin can warp the minds and behavior even of those God has delivered from it.

The next component of our hamartiology is an important one. It has to do with the lingering effects of sin. We can see this point in what happens in Zoar between Lot and his two daughters.

³⁰ Now Lot went up out of Zoar and lived in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to live in Zoar. So he lived in a cave with his two daughters. ³¹ And the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth. ³² Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father.” ³³ So they made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father. He did not know when she lay down or when she arose. ³⁴ The next day, the firstborn said to the younger, “Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine tonight also. Then you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father.” ³⁵ So they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. ³⁶ Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. ³⁷ The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. ³⁸ The younger also bore a son and called his name Ben-ammi. He is the father of the Ammonites to this day.

Even though they had been delivered from wicked Sodom and from the judgment of God, the lingering effects of their long exposure to sin is still evident. It is evident, first, in their faithlessness, which is displayed in their assumption that “there is not a man on earth” left for them, as if the destruction of their city meant the destruction of the whole world. For many people, this is how they think, of course: their little corner of the world is the whole world. They should have trusted that God would provide.

The lingering effects of their long exposure to sin is also evident in their sinful behavior. They got Lot drunk and then slept with him. These incestuous actions reveal particularly how long exposure to the sexual anarchy of Sodom warped their understanding of what is sexually right and good before the Lord.

Finally, and ominously, the lingering effects can be seen in what they choose to name their children. Robert Alter observes of the names Moab and Ben-ammi that they “are etymologized to refer to incest: Moab…is construed as me-’ab, “from the father,” and Ben-Ammi…is construed as “my own kinsman’s son.”[8] I say this is ominous because it not only reflects upon the mental and spiritual state of the daughters but also suggests that their sin will continue on to infect their children who are themselves the result of sinful union between Lot’s daughters and Lot.

There is a scene in Cormac McCarthy’s novel Blood Meridian in which “the kid” (the only name given to the main character) says something quite memorable to a crazed man:

But the kid only spat into the darkness of the space between them. I know your kind, he said. What’s wrong with you is wrong all the way through you.[9]

This came to mind as I reflected on Sodom and its lingering effects. What is wrong with us is truly wrong “all the way through” us. Sin and its effects run deep and its effects can linger even after we have been delivered. This may cause us to despair. Sin indeed is powerful! However, there is a final truth that lifts us from despair.

Even so, the forgiving, cleansing love of Jesus is stronger than our sin.

Yes, sin invites God’s wrath, but God’s love invites His forgiveness. Sin kills but God’s forgiveness gives life. The forgiving, cleansing love of Jesus is stronger than our sin. One of the most powerful and beautiful statements about this is found in 1 Corinthians 6. In the first two verse, 9 and 10, we see a note of ominous warning. But then in verse 11 we hear good news. Listen:

⁹ Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, ¹⁰ nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Yes, sin invites judgment! Sin keeps us from “inheriting the kingdom of God.” But then these glorious words: “And such were some of you.” Were. Were! We used to be these things. We used to be enslaved to, bound to, captive to, and defined by our sin! We used to be marked for wrath and judgment! We used to be set apart for death and hell. This is what our sin brought us. But then something happened. What was it?

¹¹ And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

What happened was we and our sinful rebellious selves, we citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, all, we met Jesus (if you indeed have met Jesus!)! We met Jesus and were washed in His blood. We were saved. We were justified, that is, declared right before God. How? On what basis? On the basis of nothing less than Jesus’ own perfect life and substitutionary death on the cross and victory over sin in the resurrection.

Yes, we met Jesus and we were changed, forgiven, set free! We met Jesus and, by grace through faith, we were set free and marked now for life and joy and freedom!

Such were some of you!

You used to live in Sodom but then you fled to Jesus! You heard the fire coming and you ran to the hill of Calvary! You smelled the sulphur and fled to Jesus!

Yes, sin is ugly, but Jesus is beautiful! Sin brings wrath, but forgiveness brings love!

Flee from your sin. Flee to your Savior. Flee and live!

 

[1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-happened-to-sin_b_5815160

[2] James Leo Garrett, Jr. Systematic Theology. vol. 1. 4^th edition (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1990), p.521.

[3] E.A. Speiser, Genesis. The Anchor Bible. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1964), p.139.

[4] Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Sanctorum Communio: A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, vol.1 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), p.108.

[5] R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1998), p.116.

[6] John H. Walton, “Genesis.” Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary. Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), p.93.

[7] Jerry Bridges, The Pursuit of Holiness (Colorado Springs, CO:  NavPress, 2003), 38-39 and 40.

[8] Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses. The Hebrew Bible. vol. 1 (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 2019), p.64n30-38.

[9] McCarthy, Cormac (2010-08-11). Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West (Vintage International) (p. 60). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.