For that righteous man dwelling among them,.... Which is sometimes the lot of good men, to their great sorrow and grief, Ps 120:5. Upon mentioning those words in Ge 13:12 "and pitched his tent towards Sodom", but the men of Sodom were wicked, &c.
says R. Eleazar ;"he is a righteous man that dwells between two wicked men, and does not learn their works;''and such an one was Lot, whatever they are elsewhere pleased to say of him: "in seeing and hearing"; the Vulgate Latin version reads this in connection with the word "righteous", thus, "in seeing and hearing he was righteous": he could not bear to see their filthy actions, and hear their obscene language, but turned away from them, and shut his eyes, and stopped his ears, by which he appears to be a righteous and good man; though rather this belongs to what follows, seeing their wicked practices, and hearing their filthy talk:vexed his righteous soul from, day today with their unlawful deeds; either "they vexed" him, as the Vulgate Latin and Ethiopic versions read; or rather "he vexed" himself; he fretted and teased himself, and became exceeding uneasy, and was put upon a rack and tortured, as the word signifies, continually, with their wicked actions; seePs 119:158.
T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 38.