Genesis 19:20
There is this city here at hand, to which I may flee, it is a little one, and I shall be saved in it: is it not a little one, and my soul shall live?
Open Genesis 19:20 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- est civitas hæc juxta, ad quam possum fugere, parva, et salvabor in ea : numquid non modica est, et vivet anima mea ?
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἰδοὺ ἡ πόλις αὕτη ἐγγὺς τοῦ καταφυγεῖν με ἐκεῖ, ἥ ἐστιν μικρά· ἐκεῖ σωθήσομαι· οὐ μικρά ἐστιν; καὶ ζήσεται ἡ ψυχή μου ἕνεκεν σοῦ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- הִנֵּה נָ֠א הָעִ֨יר הַזֹּ֧את קְרֹבָ֛ה לָנ֥וּס שָׁ֖מָּה וְהִ֣יא מִצְעָ֑ר אִמָּלְטָ֨ה נָּ֜א שָׁ֗מָּה הֲלֹ֥א מִצְעָ֛ר הִ֖וא וּתְחִ֥י נַפְשִֽׁי
The Fathers on this verse
St Justin Martyr Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter LVI. God who appeared to
Then I replied, “You are aware, then, that the Scripture says, ‘And the Lord said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I truly conceive? for I am old. Is anything impossible with God? At the time appointed shall I return to thee according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.’ And after a little interval: ‘And the men rose up from thence, and looked towards Sodom and Gomorrah; and Abraham went with them, to bring them on the way. And the Lord said, I will not conceal from Abraham, my servant, what I do.’ And again, after a little, it thus says: ‘The Lord said, The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and their sins are very grievous. I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to their cry which has come unto me; and if not, that I may know. And the men turned away thence, and went to Sodom. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Rusticus
1. I am induced to write to you, a stranger to a stranger, by the entreaties of that holy servant of Christ Hedibia and of my daughter in the faith Artemia, once your wife but now no longer your wife but your sister and fellow-servant. Not content with assuring her own salvation she has sought yours also, in former days at home and now in the holy places. She is anxious to emulate the thoughtfulness of the apostles Andrew and Philip; who after Christ had found them, desired in their turn to find, the one his brother Simon and the other his friend Nathanael. …
St Jerome Against Jovinianus, Book II
24. In vain, therefore, do you multiply instances of sheep and goats, of the five wise and five foolish virgins, of Egyptians and Israelites, and so forth, because retribution is not in the present, but will be in the future. Hence we find that the day of judgment is promised at the end of all things, because the judgment is not now. For it would be absurd to call the last day the day of judgment, if God were judging at the present time. Now we sail the ship, wrestle, and fight, that at last we may reach the haven, be crowned, and triumph. But you, with no less adroitness than perversity, make the life of this world illustrate that of the world to come, although we know full well that here unrighteousness prevails, there, righteousness:“until we go into the sanctuary of God, and understand the end of those men.” The saint does not die one way, the sinner another. …
St Ambrose On the Duties of the Clergy, Chapter XXI. To defend the weak, or to help strangers, or to perform similar duties, greatly adds to one's worth, especially in the case of tried men. Whilst one gets great blame for love of money; wastefulness, also, in the case of priests is very much condemned
105. Lot also, his nephew, who was near to him not only in relationship but also in virtue, on account of his readiness to show hospitality, turned aside the punishment of Sodom from himself and his family.
St Gregory the Great The Book of Pastoral Rule, How the married and the single are to be admonished
Husbands and wives are to be admonished to remember that they are joined together for the sake of producing offspring; and, when, giving themselves to immoderate intercourse, they transfer the occasion of procreation to the service of pleasure, to consider that, though they go not outside wedlock yet in wedlock itself they exceed the just dues of wedlock. Whence it is needful that by frequent supplications they do away their having fouled with the admixture of pleasure the fair form of conjugal union. For hence it is that the Apostle, skilled in heavenly medicine, did not so much lay down a course of life for the whole as point out remedies to the weak when he said, It is good for a man not to touch a woman: but on account of fornication let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband ( 1 Cor. vii. 1, 2 ). …