The sky is beginning to lighten. The judgment is scheduled for sunrise. Genesis 19:15 finds the angels pleading with a man who cannot quite make himself move.
"And at the time that the morning was about to uprise, the angels were urgent upon Lot, saying, Up, take thy wife and thy two daughters who are with you, lest you perish in the condemnation of the inhabitants of the city."
The Targum's word for "urgent" — doh'qin — is the same word used elsewhere for pressing a crowd through a narrow doorway. These angels are not politely suggesting departure. They are physically urging Lot toward the gate. The next verse will tell us they literally took him by the hand (Genesis 19:16).
Why the hesitation? The rabbis of Bereshit Rabbah offered a devastating reading: Lot had accumulated wealth in Sedom. Flocks, fields, household goods, silver. He could not bring himself to walk away from it. Every minute he delayed was a minute he was calculating how much of his life he could carry out with him. And the angels knew it, and they pulled him anyway.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan also notes that the warning names specifically the people who can be saved: "thy wife and thy two daughters who are with you." The sons-in-law had already disqualified themselves by laughing at the warning. Only those still in the house could still be rescued.
The takeaway: when Heaven decides to save you, it does not wait for you to finish packing. It grabs your hand and pulls.