A city ever - memorable in Scripture, and now most probably the very spot of the Dead Sea. The name is properly Sodomah, and signifies their secret, from Sodom, and Ah. For the history of this city, and its overthrow, see Gen. 13. - - xix.
the capital of Pentapolis, which for some time was the residence of Lot, the nephew of Abraham. The history of its destruction is given in the book of Genesis. See ABRAHAM, See LOT, and See DEAD SEA.
Sodom, a city in the vale of Siddim, where Lot settled after his separation from Abraham (Gen 13:12; Gen 14:12; Gen 19:1). It had its own chief or ’king,’ as had the other four cities of the plain (Gen 14:2; Gen 14:8; Gen 14:10), and was along with them, Zoar only excepted, destroyed by fire from heaven, on account of the gross wickedness of the inhabitants; the memory of which event has been perpetuated in a name of infamy to all generations (Genesis 19). The destruction of Sodom claims attention from the solemnity with which it is introduced (Gen 18:20-22); from the circumstances which preceded and followed—the intercession of Abraham, the preservation of Lot, and the judgment which overtook his lingering wife (Gen 18:25-33; Genesis 19); and from the nature of the physical agencies through which the overthrow was effected. It has usually been assumed that the vale of Siddim occupied the basin of what is now the Dead Sea, which did not previously exist, but was one of the results of this catastrophe. It has now, however, been established by Dr. Robinson, that a lake to receive the Jordan and other waters must have occupied this basin long before the catastrophe of Sodom, but of much less extent than the present Dead Sea. It is extremely probable that its southern extremity covers the once fertile vale of Siddim, and the site of Sodom and the other cities which the Lord destroyed; and that, in the words of Dr. Robinson—’by some convulsion or catastrophe of nature, connected with the miraculous destruction of the cities, either the surface of this plain was scooped out, or the bottom of the sea was heaved up, so as to cause the waters to overflow, and cover permanently a larger tract than formerly. The country is, as we know, subject to earthquakes, and exhibits also frequent traces of volcanic action. It would have been no uncommon effect of either of these causes to heave up the bottom of the ancient lake, and thus produce the phenomenon in question. But the historical account of the destruction of the cities implies also the agency of fire. Perhaps both causes were therefore at work; for volcanic action and earthquakes go hand in hand; and the accompanying electric discharges usually cause lightnings to play and thunders to roll. In this way we have all the phenomena which the most literal interpretation of the sacred records can demand.’
One of the cities of the plain, and for some time the dwellingplace of Lot, Gen 13:10-13 14:12. Its crimes and vices were so enormous, that God destroyed it by fire from heaven, with three neighboring cities, Gomorrah, Zeboim, and Admah, which were as wicked as itself, Gen 19:1-20 . The plain of Siddim in which they stood was pleasant and fruitful, like an earthy paradise; but it was first burned, and afterwards mostly overflowed by the waters of the Dead Sea or Lake of Sodom. See JORDAN, and SEA 3.\par The prophets, in denouncing woes upon other countries, mention the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and intimate that these places shall be desert and dried up and uninhabited, Jer 49:18 50:40; that they shall be covered with briers and brambles, a land of salt and sulphur, where can be neither planting nor sowing, Deu 29:23 1Sa 4:11 . Throughout Scripture the ruin of Sodom and Gomorrah is represented as a most signal effect of God’s anger, and as a mirror in which those living at ease in sin and lust may see their own doom. The name is given in Jer 11:8, to the great and corrupt city of antichrist. "Sodomites" were men addicted to the beastly lusts alluded in Gen 19:1-38 1Ki 14:24 1Ch 1:26,27 .\par
Sod’om. (burning). One of the most ancient cities of Syria. It is commonly mentioned in connection with Gomorrah, but also with Admah and Zeboim, and on one occasion -- Gen 14:1 -- with Bela or Zoar. Sodom was evidently the chief town in the settlement. The four are first named in the ethnological records of Gen 10:19, as belonging to the Canaanites.
The next mention of the name of Sodom, Gen 13:10-13, gives more certain indication of the position of the city. Abram and Lot are standing together between Bethel and Ai, Gen 13:3, taking a survey of the land around and below them. Eastward of them, and absolutely at their feet, lay the "circle of Jordan." The whole circle was one great oasis -- "a garden of Jehovah." Gen 13:10. In the midst of the garden, the four cities of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim appear to have been situated. It is necessary to notice how absolutely the cities are identified with the district. In the subsequent account of their destruction, Gen 19:1, the topographical terms are employed, with all the precision which is characteristic of such early times.
The mention of the Jordan is conclusive as to the situation of the district, for the Jordan ceases where it enters the Dead Sea, and can have no existence south of that point. The catastrophe by which they were destroyed is described in Gen 19:1, as a shower of brimstone and fire from Jehovah. However we may interpret the words of the earliest narrative, one thing is certain -- that the lake was not one of the agents in the catastrophe. From all these passages, though much is obscure, two things seem clear:
That Sodom and the rest of the cities of the plain of Jordan stood on the north of the Dead Sea;
That neither the cities nor the district were submerged by the lake, but that the cities were overthrown and the land spoiled, and that it may still be seen in its desolate condition. When, however, we turn to more modern views, we discover a remarkable variance from these conclusions.
The opinion long held, that the five cities were submerged in the lake, and that their remains -- walls, columns and capitals -- might be still discerned below the water, hardly needs refutation, after the distinct statement and the constant implication of Scripture. But, a more serious departure from the terms of the ancient history is exhibited in the prevalent opinion, that the cities stood at the south end of the lake. This appears to have been the belief of Josephus and Jerome. It seems to have been universally held by the medieval historians and pilgrims, and it is adopted by modern topographers, probably without exception.
There are several grounds for this belief; but the main point on which Dr. Robinson rests his argument is the situation of Zoar.
(a) "Lot," says he, "fled to Zoar, which was near to Sodom; and Zoar lay almost at the southern end of the present sea, probably in the mouth of Wady Kerak."
(b) Another consideration in favor of placing the cities at the southern end of the lake is the existence of similar names in that direction.
(c) A third argument, and perhaps the weightiest of the three, is the existence of the salt mountain at the south of the lake, and its tendency to split off in columnar masses, presenting a rude resemblance to the human form. But it is by no means certain that salt does not exist at other spots around the lake.
( (d). A fourth, and yet stronger, argument is drawn from the fact that Abraham saw the smoke of the burning cities from Hebron.
(e) A fifth argument is found in the numerous lime-pits found at that southern end of the Dead Sea. Robinson, Schaff, Baedeker, Lieutenant Lynch and others favor this view. -- Editor).
It thus appears that, on the situation of Sodom, no satisfactory conclusion can, at present, be readied: On the one hand, the narrative of Genesis seems to state, positively, that it lay at the northern end of the Dead Sea. On the other hand, long-continued tradition and the names of the existing spots seem to pronounce, with almost equal positiveness, that it was at its southern end. Of the catastrophe which destroyed the city and the district of Sodom, we can hardly hope ever to form a satisfactory conception.
Some catastrophe there undoubtedly was, but what secondary agencies, besides fire, were employed in the accomplishment of the punishment cannot be safely determined, in the almost total absence of exact scientific description of the natural features of the ground round the lake. We may suppose, however, that the actual agent in the ignition and destruction of the cities had been of the nature of a tremendous thunder-storm accompanied by a discharge of meteoric stones, (and that these set on fire, the bitumen with which the soil was saturated, and which was used in building the city. And it may be that this burning out of the soil caused the plain to sink below the level of the Dead Sea, and the waters to flow over it -- if indeed Sodom and its sister cities are really under the water. -- Editor). The miserable fate of Sodom and Gomorrah is held up as a warning, in numerous passages of the Old and New Testaments. Mar 8:11; 2Pe 2:6; Jud 1:4-7.
Chief of the group Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Bela or Zoar (Gen 10:19; Gen 13:3; Gen 13:10-13; Gen 13:19; Luk 17:29; 2Pe 2:6; Jud 1:4-7; Mar 6:11; Mat 10:15; Deu 29:23).
Abraham could see the smoke of the burning cities from near Hebron. The Lord over night announced to him Sodom’s doom, at some spot on the way from Mamre or Hebron toward Sodom, to which he had accompanied the angels (Gen 18:16). Tradition says the spot was Caphar Berucha, from which the Dead Sea is visible through a ravine. Long ranges of hills intervene between Hebron and Sodom, but from the hill over Hebron or Mamre through a gap in the chain the whole district of the Jordan valley is visible. Lot at first pitched only towards Sodom, not until afterward did he go further south to Sodom itself (Gen 13:12; Gen 14:12; and Gen 14:3 says expressly the vale of
Sodom (sŏd’om), burning? The principal city in a group of cities in the vale of Siddim, which were destroyed on account of the great wickedness of their inhabitants. Gen 10:19; Gen 13:3; Gen 13:10-13; Gen 19:1-29. The history of its great wickedness and its terrible punishment is given in Gen 18:16-33; Gen 19:1-29. Sodom is often held up as a warning to sinners to escape the terrible vengeance of God. Deu 29:23; Isa 1:9-10; Isa 3:9; Isa 13:19; Jer 23:14; Jer 49:18; Eze 16:49-50; Amo 4:11; Zep 2:9; Mat 10:15; Mat 11:23-24; 2Pe 2:6-8; Rev 11:8. There are only two possible localities for these cities—the lower end of the lake, or the upper end of the same. Tradition, from the time of Josephus and Jerome, has pointed to the southern site. The northern site has been strongly advocated by Grove, Tristram, Thomson, and others, and it is probably the true one, though the question is one which is undecided.
SODOM.—The overthrow of the ‘cities of the plain’ was, according to Hebrew traditions, a Divinely-sent catastrophe, second only to that of the Deluge. The sinfulness of Sodom (often with the addition of ‘Gomorrah’) is frequently referred to as typical of terrible wickedness (e.g. Deu 32:32, Isa 1:10; Isa 3:9, Jer 23:14, Lam 4:6, Eze 16:46-49, Wis 10:6-8); and even more frequently is the devastation of the guilty cities typical of Divine punishment. And similarly in the NT:
1. Mat 10:15 || Luk 10:12. In St. Matthew the words occur in the course of our Lord’s charge to the Twelve. If they came to any place in which their words were not received, they were to shake off the dust of their feet; ‘Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.’ In St. Luke, on the other hand, the words form part of the charge to the Seventy; he has ‘Sodom’ for ‘the land of Sodom,’ ‘Gomorrah’ is omitted, and instead of St. Matthew’s favourite expression
2. Mat 11:23-24. Our Lord uttered Woes against three Galilaean cities which refused to accept His mighty works and repent (Mat 11:20). These denunciations were a practical carrying out of the figurative injunctions which He gave to His disciples in Mat 10:14. The three cities named are Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum. The two former He compares with Tyre and Sidon; and to the latter He uses somewhat similar language in referring to Sodom: ‘for if in Sodom had been done the mighty works (
The typical use of ‘Sodom’ as an example of sin reaches its height in Rev 11:8, where Jerusalem is described as ‘the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt.’
3. Luk 17:29. This passage, like the two preceding, is absent from the Markan tradition. Sodom is here not so much a type of sin as of sudden and fearful destruction. Our Lord uttered many logia concerning the coming of the Son of Man. In one of these (Mat 24:37-39, Luk 17:26 f.) He likened the ‘parousia’ (Mt.)—the ‘days’ (Lk.)—of the Son of Man to the Deluge in the days of Noah. St. Luke alone adds, ‘In like manner as it came to pass in the days of Lot; they were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building; but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom, he rained [Gen 19:24
A. H. M‘Neile.
By: Joseph Jacobs, Schulim Ochser
First city of Pentapolis, the others being Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Zoar, all situated in the vale of Siddim (Gen. xiv. 3), either in the present plain of Sabkhah or farther north, in the southern Seccudes between the peninsula of Al-Lisan and the Sabkhah.
—Biblical Data:
God had announced His determination to destroy these cities because of their wickedness, but promised Abraham to spare Sodom if as few as ten of its inhabitants should be found righteous (ib. xviii. 20-32). Abraham, however, failed to find even ten righteous in Sodom, and Yhwh thereupon rained fire and brimstone upon the entire Pentapolis and overthrew it (ib. xix. 24-26). This event appears to have occurred in the twenty-second century B.C. According to the hypothesis of Blankenburg ("Entstehung und Gesch. des Todten, Meeres," Leipsic, 1896), the catastrophe was in the nature of a sudden sinkage of the valley of the Dead Sea, producing chasms which engulfed the cities. Whenever it happened, the disaster must have been terrible; and it produced such an impression that the Prophets often refer to Pentapolis or to Sodom in describing dire misfortunes (Isa. i. 9, xiii. 19; Jer. xxiii. 14, xlix. 18; Amos iv. 11; Zeph. ii. 9). The destruction of these cities is described in similar terms by Josephus ("B. J." iv. 8, § 4) and in the Koran (sura liv.). In the account of the battle of the kings of the vale of Siddim the names of those rulers are given as follows: "Bera of Sodom, Birsha of Gomorrah, Shinab of Admah, Shemeber of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela or Zoar.
—In Rabbinical Literature:
The Talmud, like the Bible, ascribes the fate of Sodom and the other cities of Pentapolis to the wickedness of their inhabitants; and when the sins of the people of Jerusalem are enumerated, on the basis of Ezek. xvi. 48-50, the attempt is made to show them less heinous than those of the inhabitants of Sodom (Sanh.104b). There were four judges in Sodom (ib. 109b), named respectively Shaḳḳarai ("liar"), Shaḳrarai ("habitual liar"), Zayyafa ("deceiver"), and Maẓle Dina ("perverter of the Law"). In Sodom every one who gave bread and water to the poor was condemned to death by fire (Yalḳ., Gen. 83). Two girls, one poor and the other rich, went to a well; and the former gave the latter her jug of water, receiving in return a vessel containing bread. When this became known, both were burned alive (ib.). In the Midrash (ib. 84) the judges are called Ḳaẓ Sheḳer (= "greatest liar"), Rab Sheḳer (= "master of lies"), Rab Nabal (= "master of turpitude "), Rab Masṭeh Din (= "chief perverter of the Law"), and Ḳelapandar (probably = "forger"). Pentapolis existed only fifty-two years; and during the last twenty-two of them God brought earthquakes and other misfortunes upon it that it might repent. It refused to do so, however, and was destroyed (ib. 83). The inhabitants of the cities of the plain worshiped the sun and the moon. If destruction had come upon them by day, they would have said that the moon would have helped them; if by night, they would have declared that the sun would have been their aid; wherefore they were destroyed early in the morning, when both the sun and the moon were shining. This happened on the sixteenth of Nisan.
According to the "Sefer ha-Yashar," a man entered Sodom riding on an ass, and as he had no lodging he was received by a resident of the place. On preparing to depart he missed his colored cover and the cord by which it had been tied to the animal's back. When he asked his host about the matter, he received the answer that he had only dreamed of a cover, but that the vision was of good omen, since the cover meant that he would possess large vineyards, and the cord indicated that his life would be prolonged. The stranger protested; but he was dragged before the tribunal and sentenced to pay four silver shekels. The names of the judges, according to this account, were: Sarak in Sodom, Sarkar in Gomorrah, Zabuak in Admah, and Manon in Zeboiim (ib. 24-27). For the other stories related in the "Sefer ha-Yashar" see Eliezer and Lot.
Bibliography:
Sepp, Jerusalem und das Heilige Land, pp. 707, 813, Schaffhausen, 1873;
Cheyne, Encyc. Bibl.;
Herzog-Hauck, Real-Encyc. xiv. 1904, s.v. Palestine.
SODOM.—See Dead Sea, Plain [Cities of the].
Literature.
Dillmann. Genesis, 111 f; Robinson, BR, II, 187 ff; G. A. Smith, HGHL, 505 ff; Blanckenhorn, ZDPV, XIX, 1896, 53 ff; Baedeker-Socin, Palestine, 143; Buhl, GAP, 117, 271, 274.
This city is used by the Holy Spirit to describe the nation of Israel, and also the city of Jerusalem. This city was filled with wickedness, lust and evil of every sort. It was so vile that GOD destroyed it by fire. Israel and the city of Jerusalem took on the sins of Sodom and practiced their evil ways so that GOD used that name as a description of the places where His people lived, and of the people themselves. (See Eze 16:48; Rom 9:29; Rev 11:8).
It is believed that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were located near the southern end of the Dead Sea, but through earthquake activity the sea spread farther south and covered whatever remained of the ancient cities.
The area around Sodom was once suitable for raising flocks and herds, and for this reason Lot settled there (Gen 13:10-13). On one occasion when Sodom was invaded by plunderers, Lot was taken captive. But Abraham took some of his guards and workmen, defeated the invaders and recaptured Lot. Abraham acknowledged that God was the one who had given him victory, and he refused to accept any reward from the king of Sodom (Genesis 14).
Sodom and Gomorrah were notoriously sinful, and homosexual practices were widespread (Gen 19:4-10). God determined to destroy the cities, but Abraham asked God to withhold his judgment if ten righteous people could be found. But ten righteous people could not be found and the two cities were destroyed. Lot and his family, however, escaped before the judgment fell (Gen 18:22-33; Gen 19:12-14).
Petroleum, bitumen, salt and sulphur were abundant in this area (cf. Gen 14:10), and these became part of the means of judgment. The cities were destroyed probably through the lighting of natural gases by lightning, combined with earthquake disturbance. Nevertheless, the fiery destruction was also the work of God, for its timing and extent were exactly as God had previously announced (Gen 19:24-29).
In later generations people likened great moral sin to the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, and likened a devastating judgment to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Deu 29:23; Isa 3:9; Isa 13:19; Jer 23:14; Jer 49:18; Eze 16:46-56; Zep 2:9; Mat 10:15; Luk 17:28-29; 2Pe 2:6; Jud 1:7). Jesus warned that Jews of his day, who heard his teaching and saw his mighty works yet rejected him, would receive a more severe judgment than people of those wicked Gentile cities who had never heard of him. The people of Jesus’ day had a greater privilege, and this placed upon them a greater responsibility (Mat 11:20-24).
A city that God destroyed, together
with the city of Gomorrah, because the
people living there were so evil. See
Gen. 19.