Behold, your servant has found favor in your sight: for behold as used here, see comment on “I pray you” in 19.2. Lot refers to himself as your [singular] servant as in Gen 19.2. See there for comments. Lot softens his refusal to leave the valley by recognizing the kindness the angels have shown to him and his family. Your sight is also singular. This whole expression was first used in regard to Noah in 6.8, “in the eyes of the LORD.” See there for comments.

You have shown me great kindness in saving my life begins literally “You [singular] have magnified your [singular] mercy.” Lot repeats what he has just said using different words. The sense is the same and forms a parallelism.

But I cannot flee to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me, and I die: Lot argues that the hills are too far away. He would be killed in the destruction before he could reach them. Overtake means that the effects of the destruction will spread out more quickly than Lot can run from them, and the destruction will reach him before he can be at a safe distance. Disaster translates a word meaning evil, distress, or misery, and refers to the destruction of Sodom. We may also translate, for example, “But I cannot reach the hills before you destroy Sodom, and I will be caught in it and die” or “But the hills are far away … and while I still have a long way to go, the town will be destroyed and I will die with it.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .