Lot's Behaviour in Sodom
The narrative of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19 has traditionally involved a translation whereby the inhabitants gather to gang-rape the angelic visitors (v.5). I've long had problems with this interpretation, particularly because the subsequent offer by Lot of his daughters as substitutes is extremely hard to square with Peter's description of Lot as a righteous man in 2 Peter 2:7, but also because it does not seem to fit with the immediate and extended context. One suspects that the traditional interpretation may have become entrenched because a record of another nation behaving atrociously helped lessen the horror of the Israelite gang-rape recorded in Judges 19. The issue hinges on the translation of the Hebrew yd‘ in Gen 19:5. The base meaning of this verb is 'to know', for example Gen 29:5 "Do you know Laban?". The knowledge may be intimate, as at Gen 18:19 "For I know him [Abraham] so that he will command his sons...":