It was a capital offence for any one to
supply the stranger with food, in proof of which it is recorded that a
poor man, having arrived in Sodom, was presented with money and refused
food by all to whom he made his wants known. It chanced that, as he lay
by the roadside almost starved to death, he was observed by one of Lot's
daughters, who had compassion on him, and supplied him with food for
many days, as she went to draw water for her father's household. The
citizens, marvelling at the man's tenacity of life, set a person to
watch him, and Lot's daughter being discovered bringing him bread, she
was condemned to death by burning. Another kind-hearted maiden who had
in like manner relieved the wants of a stranger, was punished in a still
more dreadful manner, being smeared over with honey, and stung to death
by bees.
[65] Did the Talmudist borrow this story from the Greek
legend of the famous robber of Attica, Procrustes, who
is said to have treated unlucky travellers after the
same barbarous fashion?
It may be naturally supposed that travellers who were acquainted with
the peculiar ways of the citizens of Sodom would either pass by that
city without entering its inhospitable gates, or, if compelled by
business to go into the town, would previously provide themselves with
food; but even this last precaution did not avail them against the wiles
of those wicked people: A man from Elam, journeying to a place beyond
Sodom, reached the infamous city about sunset.
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