77وَلَمّا جاءَت رُسُلُنا لوطًا سيءَ بِهِم وَضاقَ بِهِم ذَرعًا وَقالَ هٰذا يَومٌ عَصيبٌMuhammad AsadAND WHEN Our messengers came unto Lot, he was sorely grieved on their account, seeing that it was beyond his power to shield them;1 and he exclaimed: "This is a woeful day!"Lit., "he was straitened as regards the reach of his arm in their behalf" - an idiomatic phrase often used in classical Arabic, denoting here Lot's utter inability to afford his guests protection from the people of Sodom, whose homosexual propensities have ever since been commemorated in the term "sodomy". Since Lot thought that the strangers were no more than handsome young men, he felt certain that they would be sexually assaulted by his sinful countrymen.