“But his people’s response” was neither acceptance, desistance, reflection, nor heed. Their only response was opposition, contradiction, and threats to expel their sincerely counselling prophet and trustworthy messenger from his homeland and banish him from his town. Thus, his people’s response was nothing but that they said, “Expel Lot’s family from your town.”
It is as though they were asked: What fault did you find with them, and what sin did they commit to warrant their expulsion? They replied, “They are people who keep themselves pure.” That is, they refrain from sodomy and the rear passages of males. May Allah disgrace them! They treated the finest of good deeds as though it were the vilest of sins. Nor were they content merely to disobey their prophet concerning what he admonished them to do; they went so far as to expel him. Calamity is bound up with what one says, and they said: “Expel them from your town. They are people who keep themselves pure.”
The implication of these words is: “Whereas you yourselves are befouled by filth and impurity, warranting the descent of punishment upon your town and the deliverance of whoever leaves it.”
For this reason, Allah Most High said: “So We saved him and his family, except his wife; We decreed that she would be among those who remained behind.” This occurred when the angels came to him in the guise of guests. His people heard of them and came to him intending them harm. He shut the door to bar them, and the situation became extremely distressing for him. The angels then informed him of the truth of the matter: they had come to rescue him and remove him from among his people, whom they intended to destroy, and their appointed time was morning. They commanded him to depart by night with his family, except his wife, for what befell them would befall her as well. He therefore departed by night with his family, and they were saved. In the morning, the punishment overtook his people. Allah overturned their dwellings upon them, turning them upside down, and rained upon them stones of layered baked clay, marked by your Lord.
For this reason, He says here: “And We rained upon them a rain. How evil was the rain of those who had been warned!” That is, how wretched was the rain that fell upon them, and how wretched was their punishment! They had been warned and made afraid, yet they neither desisted nor restrained themselves, so Allah brought His severe punishment upon them.