And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the
land of the plain
To see how it fared with them: very probably the Lord had hinted it to him, that the destruction would be that morning, and therefore he rose early, got to the place bearly, and being on an eminence, looked wistly to see if he could observe any sign of it:
and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of
a furnace;
after the fiery shower was over, and the cities burnt down, the smoke ascended toward heaven, as the smoke of mystical Babylon will do, ( Revelation 19:3 ) ; like the reek of a boiling cauldron; or, as Jarchi, like the smoke of a lime kiln always burning.