Genesis 19:25

25. Overthrew those cities… plain… inhabitants… that which grew Note the fourfold destruction . This sudden and awful ruin is referred to repeatedly as an example of God’s fearful judgments upon the wicked . Comp . Deuteronomy 29:23; Jeremiah 49:18; Jer 40:40; Zephaniah 2:9; 2 Peter 2:6. It is interesting to notice in this connexion the remarks of the old geographer Strabo, who was born about half a century before Christ . Near Masada, he says, “are to be seen rocks bearing the marks of fire; fissures in many places; a soil like ashes; pitch falling in drops from the rocks; rivers boiling up and emitting a fetid odor to a great distance; dwellings in every direction overthrown; whence we are inclined to believe the common tradition of the natives, that thirteen cities once existed there, the capital of which was Sodom, but that a circuit of about sixty stadia around it escaped uninjured. Shocks of earthquakes, however, eruptions of flames and hot springs, containing asphaltus and sulphur, caused the lake to burst its bounds, and the rocks took fire. Some of the cities were swallowed up; others were abandoned by such of the inhabitants as were able to make their escape.” Book 16: 2, 44. Bohn’s Ed. Comp. Tacitus, Hist., 5: 7, and Josephus, Ant., 1: 11, 4, and Wars, 4: 8, 4.