It is reasonable to assume that Abraham arose and stood looking over to the area Sodom had once occupied, shortly after the fire and brimstone had rained down from heaven on it and the surrounding land. This was early in the morning, and he stood from the raised vantage point where he had earlier asked the Lord to spare the towns if but ten righteous men could be found therein. Genesis 18:21-22 indicates an elevation. The text of 19:27-28 says “he looked towards” the site, not “back” as had Lot’s wife. Therein lies a clue. Abraham saw the whole land “as of the smoke of a furnace.” There is no mention of what fell from the sky, but only of the devastating results – the smoke of judgement.
Young’s Literal Translation renders Genesis 19:17 as the angelic command to Lot being,
“Escape for thy life; look not expectingly behind thee, nor stand thou
in all the circuit; to the mountain escape, lest thou be consumed.”
And in verse 26 comes this same adjective attached to his wife’s
looking behind her – ‘expectingly’.
The Companion Bible makes a comment that there are two different words here, verses 17 and 26 showing a looking back, but verse 28 showing a looking forward. Further, verse 17 indicates the looking back would involve ‘staying’ in the plain. Lot’s wife was still in the plain when she turned to look back, no doubt gazing – in complete disobedience to the explicit angelic command. Abraham was not in the plain but standing above it, at a distance, and he had not been commanded to avoid looking towards the cities.
Matthew Henry’s Commentary is helpful: (19:17)
“[Lot] must still apprehend himself in danger of being consumed… He
must therefore mind his business with the utmost care and diligence.
He must not hanker after Sodom: ‘Look not behind thee.’ He must not
loiter by the way. ‘Stay not in the plain’; for it would all be made
one dead sea. He must not take up short of the place of refuge
appointed him.”
Then (19:26) Henry links in Jesus’ words about Lot’s wife.
“Our Saviour refers to it (Lu. 17:32) ‘Remember Lot’s wife’. As by the
example of Sodom the wicked are warned to turn from their wickedness,
so by the example of Lot’s wife the righteous are warned not to turn
from their righteousness. See Eze. 3:18,20. We have here, The sin of
Lot’s wife. ‘She looked back from behind him.’ This seemed a small
thing, but we are sure, by the punishment of it, that it was a great
sin, and exceedingly sinful. 1. She disobeyed an express command, and
so sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, which ruined
us all. 2. Unbelief was at the bottom of it; she questioned whether
Sodom would be destroyed, and thought she might still have been safe I
it. 3. She looked back upon her neighbours whom she had left behind
with more concern than was fit, now that their day of grace was over,
and divine justice was glorifying itself in their ruin, See Isa.
66:24. 4. Probably she hankered after her house and goods in Sodom,
and was loath to leave them. Christ intimates this to be her sin (Lu.
17:31,32); she too much regarded her stuff. {Henry’s word, ‘stuff’!}
5. Her looking back evinced an inclination to go back; and therefore our Saviour uses it as a warning against apostasy from our Christian
profession. We have all renounced the world and the flesh, and have
set our faces heaven-ward; we are in the plain, upon our probation;
and it is at our spiritual peril if we return into the interests we
profess to have abandoned. Drawing back is to perdition, and looking
back is towards it. Heb. 4:1”
We may be sure that, just as God knew Abraham’s pure motivations and unwavering faith, he knew the sinful motivations and wavering faith of Lot’s wife. Looking towards the executed judgements of God from a safe distance of obedience is the opposite of looking back with some expectation borne of lack of faith, while not yet secured in God’s saving grace. To have run away from the city of perdition but, before leaving that road to look back (as if reluctant to finally leave it) is to remain on the road to perdition.
That, I suggest, is why Abraham was not punished, while Lot’s wife was.