Why Zoar Was Spared and Sodom Burned at Sunrise

"And Lot came to Zoar (Tzo'arah)." So was Zoar lesser in the reckoning of 365, corresponding to the 365 days that make one year, for its settlement was less than Sodom's; and therefore Tzo'arah is written lacking a vav, corresponding to the six hours by which the solar year exceeds the lunar year, which is 365 and six hours, neither less nor more. "For I cannot do anything" (Genesis 19:22). Because the worshippers of the sun say to the worshippers of the moon: had it been at night, when our god rules, this would not have been done to us; and likewise the worshippers of the moon say: had it been our god, this would not have been done to us. And concerning the two of them it is said, "Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed" (Isaiah 24:23). And what did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He smote them on the sixteenth of Nisan, when the sun and the moon stand together in the firmament, and this is what is written, "The sun was risen upon the earth" (Genesis 19:23). "From the LORD." It should have said "from Me," but it means: from His court (beit din).