What Does Genesis 19:9 Mean?

"Get out of our way," they replied. "This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We'll treat you worse than them." They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door. The mob's response to Lot's negotiation is contemptuous rejection combined with personal threat. The accusation that Lot "came here as a foreigner" and "wants to play the judge" is the rejection of his standing to speak about the city's behavior. He is not from here; he has no authority to define what is wicked or intervene in what the city does. The mob asserts its civic majority against the resident alien's moral objection.

The specific accusation "wants to play the judge" is ironic within the patriarchal narrative: Lot is sitting at the city gate, which was the place of judicial proceedings, and judgment is indeed the purpose of the visit his guests are making. The mob's contemptuous use of the word "judge" in their accusation against Lot touches, without their knowledge, the actual judicial purpose of the two who are inside the house. The Judge of all the earth sent agents to Sodom to see whether judgment is warranted; the city is in the process of demonstrating, with full efficiency and comprehensive participation, that it is.

The escalation from verbal threat to physical pressure to attempted breaking of the door represents the collapse of any remaining social order within the mob moment. Lot's diplomatic attempt to reason with the city's residents has failed completely; the threat has turned personal; the door is now the only barrier between the mob and everything inside the house. The scene is at its most dangerous physically when the Angels intervene in the next verse. The pivot from human helplessness to divine intervention is the narrative's structural hinge: Lot has done everything within his power, and his power has been exhausted.