Genesis 19:25

And he overthrew those cities,.... Of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim: very probably at the same time that this fiery tempest was in the heavens, there was an earthquake which overthrew the

Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven; Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire.

All the plain, to wit, where these cities and their territories lay, called the plain of Jordan, ; all which then became, and to this day continues, to be a filthy lake, called the Dead Sea, because no fish lives in it.

Genesis 19:25 And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.Ver. 25. And he overthrew, &c.] Some footsteps of this overthrow are to be read of in Solinus and Tacitus. Josephus tells us of the mock-apples of Sodom, and saith, that an ox, having all his legs bound, will not sink into the lake of Sodom, the water is so dense. Lib. v., De Bello, Jud.: - Omne carens vita in profundum mergitur; siquid vivum arte aliqua immerseris super exibit .

(25) Overthrew.—This does not mean submerged, and the agent in the destruction was fire and not water. “The plain” (Heb., the Ciccar) still existed, and when Abraham saw it, was wrapped in smoke.

Verse 25. And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain] This forms what is called the lake Asphaltites, Dead Sea, or Salt Sea, which, according to the most authentic accounts, is about seventy miles in length, and eighteen in breadth. The most strange and incredible tales are told by many of the ancients, and by many of the moderns, concerning the place where these cities stood. Common fame says that the waters of this sea are so thick that a stone will not sink in them, so tough and clammy that the most boisterous wind cannot ruffle them, so deadly that no fish can live in them, and that if a bird happen to fly over the lake, it is killed by the poisonous effluvia proceeding from the waters; that scarcely any verdure can grow near the place, and that in the vicinity where there are any trees they bear a most beautiful fruit, but when you come to open it you find nothing but ashes! and that the place was burning long after the apostles' times. These and all similar tales may be safely pronounced great exaggerations of facts, or fictions of ignorant, stupid, and superstitious monks, or impositions of unprincipled travellers, who, knowing that the common people are delighted with the marvellous, have stuffed their narratives with such accounts merely to procure a better sale for their books. The truth is, the waters are exceedingly salt, far beyond the usual saltness of the sea, and hence it is called the Salt Sea. In consequence of this circumstance bodies will float in it that would sink in common salt water, and probably it is on this account that few fish can live in it. But the monks of St. Saba affirmed to Dr. Shaw, that they had seen fish caught in it; and as to the reports of any noxious quality in the air, or in the evaporations from its surface, the simple fact is, lumps of bitumen often rise from the bottom to its surface, and exhale a foetid odour which does not appear to have any thing poisonous in it. Dr. Pococke swam in it for nearly a quarter of an hour, and felt no kind of inconvenience; the water, he says, is very clear, and having brought away a bottle of it, he "had it analyzed, and found it to contain no substances besides salt and a little alum." As there are frequent eruptions of a bituminous matter from the bottom of this lake, which seem to argue a subterraneous fire, hence the accounts that this place was burning even after the days of the apostles. And this phenomenon still continues, for "masses of bitumen," says Dr. Shaw, "in large hemispheres, are raised at certain times from the bottom, which, as soon as they touch the surface, and are thereby acted upon by the external air, burst at once, with great smoke and noise, like the pulvis fulminans of the chemists, and disperse themselves in a thousand pieces.

25. and he overthrew] The word used is the one regularly employed elsewhere in the O.T. where the overthrow of the cities is mentioned. Like the word mabbul for the Flood, so this word, “overthrow” (mahpêkah, “overturning”), used here and in Genesis 19:29, became the technical term for this catastrophe. It suggests an earthquake. “The Korán frequently refers to Sodom and Gomorrah by the title of al mutafikât ‘the overturned’ (Sur. ix. 71, liii. 54, lxix. 9)” (Cheyne).

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.