Wanna Be Free said:
Lot's wife suffers painful death by having a scalding brine poured on her (is that how the Bible puts it?)
Did they actually say it like this? Here's how Genesis 19:26 puts it:
"And his wife began to look around from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt."
The New American Commentary on Genesis had this commentary about it:
The feature of "salt" in the Dead Sea area (cf. "salt sea," 14:3) and its sterile effects on arable land may explain the casting of her figure in the mineral. Her physical translation into an edifice of salt, probably to be understood as a coating of salt, testified to the consequence of disobedience and was an appalling reminder of the events at Sodom." (Vol II)
Josephus (Ant 1.11.4) says:
"... was changed into a pillar of salt; for I have seen it, ..."
The Barnes commentary on the Bible says this: (copied from the eSword program)
From the injunction to Lot to "flee to the mountain," as well as from the nature of the soil, we may infer that at the same time with the awful conflagration there was a subsidence of the ground, so that the waters of the upper and original lake flowed in upon the former fertile and populous dale, and formed the shallow southern part of the present Salt Sea. In this pool of melting asphalt and sweltering, seething waters, the cities seem to have sunk forever, and left behind them no vestiges of their existence. Lot's wife lingering behind her husband, and looking back, contrary to the express command of the Lord, is caught in the sweeping tempest, and becomes a pillar of salt: so narrow was the escape of Lot. The dashing spray of the salt sulphurous rain seems to have suffocated her, and then encrusted her whole body. She may have burned to a cinder in the furious conflagration. She is a memorable example of the indignation and wrath that overtakes the halting and the backsliding.
Keil & Delitzsch OT Commentary: (copied from eSword program)
On the way, Lot's wife, notwithstanding the divine command, looked "behind him away," - i.e., went behind her husband and looked backwards, probably from a longing for the house and the earthly possessions she had left with reluctance (cf. Luk_17:31-32), - and "became a pillar of salt." We are not to suppose that she was actually turned into one, but having been killed by the fiery and sulphureous vapour with which the air was filled, and afterwards encrusted with salt, she resembled an actual statue of salt; just as even now, from the saline exhalation of the Dead Sea, objects near it are quickly covered with a crust of salt, so that the fact, to which Christ refers in Luk_17:32, may be understood without supposing a miracle.
(Note: But when this pillar of salt is mentioned in Wis. 11:7 and Clemens ad Cor. xi. as still in existence, and Josephus professes to have seen it, this legend is probably based upon the pillar-like lumps of salt, which are still to be seen at Mount Usdum (Sodom), on the south-western side of the Dead Sea.)
When I first saw what you said they said, I was taken aback by the speculativeness of it. It is still speculative, but now I can see where the idea came from.
One of the things that would make me doubt the idea of her being poured over with burning salt was that she became "a pillar of salt." I remember seeing pictures of people unearthed in Pompeii. I don't remember seeing any who were still standing as if to become pillars. But then again, I'm open to learning.
Take Care
