07 - Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII.
Destruction of Sodom and the Cities of the Plain -- Bird’s-eye View of the Scene -- Abraham beholds it -- His feelings, and those of Lot -- Reflections.
"The sun was risen upon the earth, when Lot entered into Zoar." How much is comprised in, or rather how much is indicated by this little verse!
Let us go, in imagination, to the spot, and stand there, as by the side of this poor bereaved man. For, though he was a man of the world, he had feelings. It had pained him deeply, no doubt, to be compelled to give up his property; but to lose his wife besides, and to lose her in so strange and awful a manner, could not but have cut him to the heart. We do not hear that he murmured, however. Perhaps he was submissive. Worldly men sometimes exercise a species of submission to what they cannot escape. But there he stands in Zoar; and a brighter and more beautiful morning human eyes perhaps never beheld! The clearness and serenity of the sky is probably designed to heighten the contrast; and with Lot, if not others, to render the judgment of Heaven more striking. There stands Lot, I say, now looking back, no doubt; but from a point of comparative safety. What must be his feelings! Except these two weeping daughters, now clinging to his arms, yonder vale, wide spreading to the north, with all its beautiful cities and villages, contains all that is dear to him. There is his mansion; there his sons-in-law; there his neighbors, his goods, his everything. Between this spot and the vale, is the petrified body of his wife, it is true; but he derives no consolation from reflections on a subject so unutterably painful.
Conflicting sentiments now begin to distract his mind. Will the threatened judgments of Heaven be executed? Will Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah and Zeboim, and all that inhabit the beautiful vale, be destroyed? Can it be? Must there not be some mistake? Who can think it possible that such awful destruction should ensue, when the morning sun arises us as usual, and the day is so uniformly fair and beautiful?
If not, however, whence the terrible judgments that just now befell the partner of his bosom, in climbing yonder hill? Could men of such singular and such almost almighty power have been deceiving him? What motive could they have had for so doing? With sentiments, conflicting like these, we can readily imagine Lot’s mind and heart to be agitated, imagine Lot’s mind and heart to be agitated, as we stand unobserved, and watch his motions and countenance. Now he almost ventures to think of going back. Now again he remembers he cannot go back, as before. One of the company will avoidably be missing. Now, once more, he thinks, of the judgments of God; and rejoices that he and his two daughters have escaped them. But presently the scene changes. The clear sky begins to be overcast with clouds. The wind rises. A damp midnight chill comes on. The clouds thicken, and grow black and threatening. Soon, to add to the gloom, is heard the distant thunder, and ere long the forked lightenings begin to play. -- The thunder becomes heavier; the lightenings more vivid. The darkness and gloom increase, and the clouds seem concentrating over yonder devoted valley. Where now is Sodom? Where her gay inhabitants? Roused from their chambers of dissipation, and their beds of drunkenness, by the terrific peals of thunder, and still more terrible flashes of lightening, they rub their wildly-staring eyes, and anxiously ask themselves whether they are not still dreaming. But all doubts are soon -- alas too soon! -- removed. Such a continual blaze of lightning was never before seen, either in this or any other country. And the thunder -- was ever anything like it? It seems as if all the artillery in the world were discharging at once! And the fumes of sulpher, -- what mean these?
Alas! all that could have been predicted -- the very worst of temporal woes, a shower of fire and brimstone, is upon this abominable people. Pitiable indeed they are in the sight of man, who sees not as god sees, the turpitude of the human heart. But perish they must, whether worthy of our pity or not; and that without remedy.
Perhaps, to add to the terror, and accelerate the already swift destruction of a race of men accused by the Infinite Purity, the fiery flame, kindled among the combustible materials of both fields and dwellings by Heaven’s electricity, has communicated itself to the pitchy substances so abundant in the vale of Siddim, and this may be one cause of the amazing smoke which, like a dense cloud, not only settles over the whole valley, but begins to envelope the mountains even as far as Zoar, where we now stand; and to hide entirely the propect. -- Would that it could hid from us the reflection, that thousands are not only now suffocating or scorching in the awful conflagration, but are beginning already to reap the fruit of their doings, and to be filled with their own devices, in a region where hope can never enter: --a region "where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched."
Perhaps, to crown the whole and finish the desolation, the neighboring hills and mountains, like so many batteries of fire, burst forth volcanic, and pour their numerous flods of melted lava over Siddim’s once beautiful vale, and whelm in one promiscuous, ruinous heap, every thing which has escaped the ravages of the lightning and the fire.
Abraham, too, the venerable patriarch -- the friend of God and man, -- from the high hills towards Hebron, beholds the dismal scene! What must be the sensations of this holy man! What pangs must rend his bosom! -- Does he not -- must he not -- conclude that Lot and his friends are engulfed among the dead? It is difficult to answer the latter question. Abraham had been fully warned of the impending destruction of Sodom; but it is not quite certain -- though it is very probably -- he knew that Lot would be spared. -- Many think that Lot was saved more in mercy to Abraham and on account of his prayers, than on his own behalf.
I have thus imagined, or attempted to present to the imagination, a bird’s-eye view of the whole scene. But the picture must, of a certainty, fall far short of the reality. No tongue of man, had there been never so many witnesses of it, besides Lot and Abraham, could possibly have described it, with any thing like justice. It must, from the very nature of the case, have defied all description. This must be obvious to any individual who has only seen a city on fire, in a common way, and seen houses by scores and hundreds, dropping into the flames. With what sentiments must Abraham have beheld the smoke of Sodom and Gomorrah, like the smoke of a burning fiery furnace, ascending to heaven? What anxiety must have filled his aching bosom, (even if he knew the end from the beginning), how and by what means Lot’s escape was effected? And Lot, too -- oh, what must have been his feelings! Was he susceptible to sympathy? No doubt he was. Then how must his whole soul have been moved in sorrow for the multitudes thus called out of time, in an instant, as it were, and hurried to the eternal bar!
Perhaps only six -- nay, only three -- hours before, the intemperate, lewd, beastly inhabitants of the vale had been engaged in their excessive debaucheries and abominations. Perhaps the sound of the harp, and the pipe, and the tabret, had been in their feasts, and they had only desisted from their mad course of revelry, at the approach of that light from the dawning east, which men, whose deeds are deeds of darkness, always hate, and, if possible, fly from. How dreadful the change in the condition of sould immortal, may a few hours sometimes produce! Was Lot susceptible of gratitude, and above all, of gratitude to God? If he was, how must this sentiment have been enkindled in his heart! True, he had lost much; but he had still much remaining. His two daughters were spared him. Abraham -- still his friend -- was spared him. The world -- except one vale, was spared him. He was stil in a region of hope. He was not yet shut up unto "devouring fire." He was not yet an inhabitant of "everlasting burnings." He was not yet banished, summarily, from the presence of the Lord, and from the glories of his kingdom. There was yet granted him a space for repentance; and the influences, would he but seek them, of the Holy Spirit.
I have spoken as if the destruction of Sodom, and the cities of the plain, was effected by means of lighting, communicated to brimstone or sulphur, and other combustible matter, and aided in accomplishing its fearful ravages by the pitchy or bituminous matter with which the soil of the vale is known to have abounded; and perhaps by volcanic eruptions. But much of this, though believed by many commentators to have actually taken place, is mere conjecture.
I might, indeed, have introduced, to a much greater extent, the opinions of learned men -- their speculations rather, on this curious topic. But it seemed to me wholly unnecessary to do so. I fear rather that I have already introduced more of mere fancy work than some of the more sober part of my readers will approve.
One thing is certain, -- Sodom was destroyed, and the cities about it; and they were never more rebuilt. To this day, a mass of waters, with great propriety, both from their nature and the history of the spot which they now overwhelm, called the Dead sea, occupies the once delightful vale of Siddim; and the Jordan, instead of passing onward through the valley of the Ghor, as it probably once did, loses itself in this sea.
Here I might stop, and describe, more particularly, this lake; and disabuse the reader in regard to the many wonderful stories which have been told about it, -- how birds drop down dead in flying over it, &c. &C. -- stories now well known to be wholly fabricated. But such a course would lead me so widely from the adventures of Lot, that I forbear; and I now return to finish, in the next chapter, his story.