Genesis 19:24-28

DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH, 24-28.

This account of the overthrow of the cities of the plain is brief, but graphic. Four things are succinctly told: 1) The means of destruction fire and brimstone from heaven. 2) The effect utter ruin of the cities, inhabitants, and vegetation. 3) Lot’s wife perishing. 4) The appearance of the country after the destruction, as seen by Abraham like “the smoke of a furnace.”

It is scarcely necessary to repeat here the various speculations and controversies touching the sites of the “cities of the plain,” (see on chapter 14:3,) the possible causes of their destruction, and the present configuration of the Dead Sea. On these subjects the reader must consult the special treatises, and the Biblical Dictionaries. See especially McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopaedia, articles Dead Sea, Gomorrah, Sodom, Siddim, and Zoar.

It has been supposed that the Jordan once flowed southwards through the Arabian Ghor, and emptied into the Red Sea through the Gulf of Akabah. But it is now generally conceded that this salt lake, now nearly 1,300 feet lower than the Mediterranean, and over 1,300 feet lower than the Red Sea, never communicated with the latter, but must have existed long before the age of Abraham. But very probably this ancient lake, which received the waters of the Jordan and many other streams, was very much smaller than the present Dead Sea. This latter, doubtless, covers much surface which was anciently a luxuriant plain. According to Major Wilson, of the Palestine Exploration Fund, “the basin of the Dead Sea has been formed without any influence from, or communication with, the ocean; whence it follows that the lake has never been any thing but a reservoir for the rainfall, the saltness of which originally proceeded from the environs of the lake, and has greatly increased under the influence of incessant evaporation. At a later date volcanic eruptions have taken place to the north-east and east of the Dead Sea, and the last phenomena which affected its basin were the hot and mineral springs and bituminous eruptions which often accompany and follow volcanic action.” It is the province of scientific research to bring to light all that can be ascertained as to the geological formation of this mysterious gulf. The destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah was, according to the obvious import of our narrative, miraculous. See the exposition below.