19:1 The two angels came to Sodom in the evening while1 Lot was sitting in the city’s gateway.2 When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face toward the ground.
tn The disjunctive clause is temporal here, indicating what Lot was doing at the time of their arrival.
2
tnHeb “sitting in the gate of Sodom.” The phrase “the gate of Sodom” has been translated “the city’s gateway” for stylistic reasons.
sn The expression sitting in the city’s gateway may mean that Lot was exercising some type of judicial function (see the use of the idiom in 2 Sam 19:8; Jer 26:10; 38:7; 39:3).