Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire. "Rained" is figuratively used in describing the descent of various objects from above-namely, hail (Exodus 9:18-23), manna (Exodus 16:4; Psalms 78:24) and lightning (Psalms 11:6; Ezek. 38:32 ). God, in accomplishing His purposes, acts immediately, or mediately through the instrumentality of means; and there are strong grounds for believing that it was in the latter way He effected the overthrow of the cities of the plain.
It was long thought that an earthquake or a volcano was employed as the agent of destruction. The raining down of burning matter from heaven appeared perfectly accordant with this idea, since the melted lava, being raised into the air by the force of the volcano, would fall in a fiery shower on the surrounding region. But though the whole country around bears traces of volcanic action, it must have been long prior to the historical period; and it does not appear that there has been an eruption from any of the extinct volcanoes in this region so recent as the patriarchal age. Recent explorations have suggested a way for a more literal interpretation of the text. 'The existing condition of the country throws light upon the Biblical narrative. Certainly we do observe by the lake sulphur and bitumen in abundance. Sulphur springs stud the shores. Sulphur is strewn, whether in layers or in fragments, over the desolate plains; and bitumen is ejected in great floating masses from the bottom of the sea, oozes through the fissures of the rocks, is deposited with gravel on the beach, or, as in the Wady Mahawat, appears, with sulphur, to have been precipitated during some convulsion. Everything leads to the conclusion that the agency of fire was at work, though not the overflowing of an ordinary volcano. The materials were at hand, and may probably have been accumulated then, to a much greater extent than at present.
The kindling of such a mass of combustible material, either by lightning from heaven or by other electrical agency, combined with an earthquake, ejecting the bitumen or sulphur from the lake, would soon spread devastation over the plain, so that the smoke of the country would go up as the smoke of a furnace. The simple and natural explanation, then, seems to be this-that during some earthquake, or without its direct agency, showers of sulplur, and probably bitumen ejected from the lake, or thrown up from its shores, and ignited perhaps by the lightning which would accompany such phenomena, fell upon the cities and destroyed them. The history of the catastrophe has not only remained in the inspired record, but is inscribed in the memory of the surrounding tribes by many a local tradition and significant name.' (Tristram's 'Land of Israel').
To this conjecture, formed after a careful scientific survey of the whole surrounding region, it may be added, that the houses of the people were probably built of clay bricks made from the soil of Siddim, in which bitumen was a predominating ingredient; so that with asphalt and other inflammable materials abounding throughout the whole extent of that vale, and ignited by causes under the control of a superintending Providence, the cities were first consumed; then, the bituminous crust of the earth taking fire, a general conflagration ensued, by which not only the surface produce was destroyed, but the alluvial ground completely scooped out. This universal destruction seems indicated by the two words employed by the sacred historian to describe this catastrophe, in Genesis 19:13; Genesis 19:24, [ mashchitiym , destroy, and yahªpok , overthrew; Septuagint, apollumen, katestrepse], the latter of which, being a special expression, is used in subsequent allusions to the dreadful fate of the cities of the plain (Isaiah 1:7; Isaiah 13:19; Amos 4:11; Jeremiah 49:18; Jeremiah 50:40).
Sodom and Gomorrah only are mentioned here, either because they were the two chief cities, or because the narrative has an immediate reference to Lot and his family. But that Admah and Zeboiim were overwhelmed by the same catastrophe is expressly declared (Deuteronomy 29:23).
Among the physical agents employed in this destruction, water is not mentioned; because the cities were not submerged, but consumed and no allusion is made in this narrative either to the origin or the existence of the Dead Sea. Nevertheless it is impossible to ignore the fact of the presence of that remarkable lake, and the long prevalent opinion that it lies in the immediate vicinity, if it does not cover the site of the destroyed cities and plain.
In the present day particular attention has been attracted to the subject, and a succession of scientific expeditions sent out by various governments to examine the real character of the Dead Sea, as well as the geological phenomena of the Gh"r or Valley of the Jordan. It is divided externally into two portions-the northern and southern-by a long peninsula, which stretches almost across its whole breadth; and it has been ascertained by accurate survey that its bottom consists of two submerged plains, depressed throughout to a depth of 1,000 feet, while through its center, in a line corresponding with the course of the Jordan, there extends a ravine, cleaving the bottom to a depth of 200 feet more; the former, namely, the northern and larger, being about 50 English miles long. The bottom of the latter, or southern portion of the sea, which may be estimated at about 10 miles in length, is uniformly more elevated being not deeper than 13 feet below the surface (Lynch's 'Expedition'). To this smaller part of the lake Dr. Robinson ('Biblical Researches,' 2:, 601; Physical Geography,' 215) limits the catastrophe described in this chapter-the water of the northern bay (for he assumes that there has always existed a lake in this quarter as the receptacle of the Jordan) spreading over the whole or the greater part of the submerged plain, a conclusion apparently confirmed by Genesis 14:3 (cf. Josephus, 'Antiquities,' 1:, 9; 'Jewish Wars,' b. 4:, ch. 8, ˜ 4), and by the fact that immense masses of asphalt are after earthquakes, which is a frequent occurrence, ejected from the muddy bottom to the surface of the southern lake.
The writer of the account of the American Expedition considers the effects of the visitation to have been much more extensive; because he believes that, by a sudden and violent convulsion, the entire chasm was a plain sunk and overwhelmed by the wrath of God; and this belief he grounds on the extraordinary character of the soundings obtained. In both of these theories, it is assumed that the cities of the plain, and the plain itself, were overspread by the waters of the Dead Sea.
But Roland ('Palaestina Illustrata'), whose opinion has been most strenuously supported in our day by De Saulcy (founding on Genesis 13:12, toward, or as far as Sodom) places Sodom on the southwestern point of the lake, near Jebel Usdum [the Salt mountain, which was called Sodom by Galen, and indifferently by the Arabs, Jebel El-Maleh or Jebel Esdoum (Usdum)], a heap of stones lying on that spot being traditionally known as Kharbet Esdoum (the ruins of Sodom). This opinion necessitates his fixing the locality of Zoar also on the western side-an hypothesis which, as has been already shown, is totally inadmissible. Sodom must have stood a mile or two further north or northeast in the plain; and accordingly Cellarius, in his map of Palestine, places all the four destroyed cities of the Pentapolis within the range of the southern asphalt-like lake.
Future researches may throw light upon these vexed questions. But whether they may or not (and perhaps certain information can not now be obtained in regard to several of them), the judicial character of the calamity that befell the polluted cities of the plain is unmistakeably discoverable from the inspired record. Whether it was produced miraculously or by the operation of physical agents employed by God, is in a religious point of view of comparatively little consequence to determine. It was a divine judgment foretold, as being designed for the punishment of a people who were "sinners exceedingly." Their repentance would have stayed the hands of the destroying angels; and the knowledge of this interesting fact, relieving the pain of perusing the revolting narrative, gives a beautiful view of the moral government-the gracious character of God.
But those cities had become a hotbed of vice-a sink of iniquity; and while the inhabitants were exterminated, that their foul posterity might no longer defile the earth with their presence, their name is introduced into every prophetic denunciation-forms the type of every blasted scene of moral desolation, no terms more emphatic being found to describe the judgment of heaven upon a wicked people than to compare it to the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.