MORNING MESSAGE: John Cline
Genesis 18 and 19
Reader: Ipe Manvunkal
I have studied the Bible for over 50 years. Seriously, over 50 years? Wow, that’s a long time, but that fact is not what I want to focus on today! Rather, I want to focus on God’s righteousness. From the first time I read through the Bible all those decades ago, I have noticed the same phrase was repeated over and over again, over 100 times:
The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. (Psalm 103:8)
And…
Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. (Joel 2:13)
I have noticed God’s righteousness on display; His compassionate, gracious, patient, merciful, and loving righteousness. But I have also noticed a few times where that phrase had a variation, that being:
The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. (Exodus 34:6,7a)
And…
The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. (Numbers 14:18a)
I saw that the righteousness of God is mentioned throughout the Bible but so is His judgment. So, I came to see that God being righteous necessitates the conclusion that God would not be righteous if He allowed unrighteous, sinful, cruel, even evil behaviour to continue on unchecked and that there is such a thing as God’s “wrath”. Well, after a few years of studying the Bible, I then went to seminary where I learned to read the Bible’s languages of Hebrew and Greek. My comprehension isn’t so good now but I learned from the Greek and Hebrew that my understanding of God’s “wrath” was incorrect. The Biblical languages don’t often describe His wrath as being
Thumos, a Greek word which signifies an intense, immediate, emotional and explosive anger. But the first time “thumos” shows up in the Bible is in Revelation 15:1. It is not the primary word.
Rather, the primary word for God’s wrath, I came to learn, is
Orge, an “organic” word (organic meaning foundational) wherein a response to a bad thing happens, eventually growing into a righteous indignation, which then produces a settled, abiding anger. “Orge” wrath comes as a last resort after many warnings.
The “wrath” of God thus involves Him being “slow to anger and abounding in love” but moving beyond that to judgment. In the case of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, God threw down “orge” wrath, which came after a lengthy period of many calls to the people to change their ways, and many warnings of destruction if they didn’t. Sodom and Gomorrah we read in Genesis 14 were part of a five-city alliance that went to war against 4 powerful northern nations. And, earlier, in Genesis 13, we read that when Abraham gave his nephew Lot the choice of where he and his large number of herdsmen and herds of livestock would settle, Lot chose a valley and Sodom:
Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So, Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company: Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom. Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord. (Genesis 13:10-13)
Lot chose to live among a “wicked” people who were “sinning greatly against the Lord”. The burning sulfur and fire pouring down upon the Sodom and Gomorrah when the people refused to repent of their sins and turn from their wicked ways reminds many archaeologists of the June 30th, 1908 meteor air burst explosion in Tunguska, Siberia. In that incident, a large explosion felled an estimated 80 million trees over an area of 2,150 square kms. The explosion has been attributed to a stony asteroid some 50–60 metres in width which was hurling towards the earth. It didn’t hit the earth but the asteroid/meteor exploded above it, at an altitude of 5 to 10 kilometres, raining down sulfur and fire onto the earth. An explosion of that magnitude, capable of destroying an area of 2,150 square kilometers, is what many think happened to Sodom and Gomorrah. God foreknew about the coming destruction, the Bible says but, where were those cities located?
In 1942, Dr. William F. Albright identified Sodom and Gomorrah as being located near the southern end of the Dead Sea.
Albright reached his conclusion after finding millions of brimstones the size of golf balls in that area, as well as ashes hundreds of meters deep. Brimstone, by the way, turns to burning sulfur or fire in the air and then into ashes after the fire has burnt out. Brimstone and burning sulfur, the Bible says, fell on Sodom and Gomorrah.
A second possible area for Sodom and Gomorrah, however, has been identified north and east of the Dead Sea, in Jordan. Here’s a map with the two different possibilities:
Map showing Sodom and Gomorrah https://answersingenesis.org/archaeology/have-we-found-sodom/?srsltid=AfmBOoocmPegd9NHG0GnsJSD1Wn7izYbD8ibczWlyQWBt67nOe6GsN2Bhttps://biblemapper.com/blog/index.php/2024/05/11/sodom-and-gomorrah-are-destroyed/
In reading the Genesis 13 passage we earlier read where Lot looked over the Jordan River Valley, chose it for himself and headed east to Sodom, Professor Stephen Collins, a decade ago, realized that the text did not support Albright’s contention that Sodom and Gomorrah were located at the southern end of the Dead Sea. Lot had been looking north and east, not far to the south. Collins proposal came after digs in 1975 – Tell el-Hammam, Jordan (north-east of the Dead Sea) was proposed as the site of Sodom. Dr. Stephen Collins ran with that. At Tell el-Hamman, Collins and his crew discovered pottery fragments that had been melted into glass, a result of rapid, superheating to temperatures as hot as the surface of the sun. Those discoveries, and other supporting facts, led him to propose Tell el-Hamman, northeast of the Dead Sea, in Jordan as the ancient site of Sodom, with Gomorrah nearby at another Tell/hill. You can do studying on your own on that topic.
In any case, last Sunday, we read of 3 angels who visited with Abraham and Sarah for a chat about God’s covenant. Those angels would become central to the events in Sodom and Gomorrah.
When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. Then the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.” (Genesis 18:16-19)
God’s “orge” wrath was about to be unleashed upon Sodom and Gomorrah. We have already read that the people in that area were “wicked and sinning greatly against the Lord.” God’s “slow to anger, abounding in love” righteousness was about to end with His righteous “orge” wrath. First, though, Abraham would put it to the test. When two of the three angels left Abraham’s presence to go on down to Sodom, one of the angels stayed behind to chat with him.
Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.” The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the Lord. (Genesis 18:20-22)
Abraham, concerned for nephew Lot and his family living in Sodom, screwed up the courage to question God. He was not trying to so much change God’s mind as he was trying to understand it.
Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing – to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” The Lord said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?” “If I find forty-five there,” he said, “I will not destroy it.” Once again, he spoke to him, “What if only forty are found there?” He said, “For the sake of forty, I will not do it.” Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?” He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.” Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?” He said, “For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.” Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?” He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.” When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home. (Genesis 18:23-33)
Why did Abraham stop at ten? Likely, he was testing how low God would go but once the number 10 was reached, Lot was afraid to go any longer, considering that Lot and his family were in Sodom. Abraham didn’t want to know the answer lower than 10 people! What we can love about this passage is the way in which Abraham appeals to God’s better nature, as one does when one is trying to persuade someone with extraordinary power to do the right thing. After all, Abraham knew that the future fulfilling of God’s covenant with him depended upon El Shaddai/God Almighty having total power. After questioning God and His plans for Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham realized, probably for the first time, that God, though He was “slow to anger and rich in love”, was also a righteous judge who would enact “orge” wrath upon chronic, unrepentant evildoers and wicked people. I am sure Abraham was experiencing a healthy dose of awe and the fear of God at that very moment.
The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.” “No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.” But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.” (Genesis 19:1-5)
We need to explore what the sin of Sodom was. Some claim the sin of Sodom, based upon Ezekiel 16:49, was that its people were “inhospitable, arrogant, overfed, unconcerned, not helping the poor or the needy”.
But that claim overlooks the wider context of the rest of Ezekiel 16, which is all about sexual sin. Proponents of this claim tie in, as well, that, based upon the 17th century King James Version which says that the men of Sodom wanted to “know” the two angels but that the word “know” was a pleasant one, not meant in the context of having sex with them but of simply getting to know these strangers who had shown up in their city. The sin of the men of Sodom was that they had not been polite, they had been inhospitable, in demanding that Lot hand his two visitors over to them, but it was all a mistaken understanding, that they simply had wanted to get to have a visit with them, getting to “know” them in that manner.
However, lots of sticky facts get in the way of that interpretation. For example, the word for “know” used in Genesis 19:5 by the King James Version was also used in the KJV in Genesis 4:1, where it says that Adam “knew” his wife Eve and the result was the conception and birth of Cain, a thing that wouldn’t have happened if Adam “knowing” Eve was just on friendship terms and did not mean “having sexual relations”. That is why modern translations have done away with the idea of Adam wanting to “know” Eve or the men of Sodom wanting to “know” Lot’s two visitors in the sense of simply being friendly. Every other translation accurately does the following:
Genesis 19:5 uses the same Hebrew word, “yada” that is used in Genesis 4:1 to describe sexual intercourse (“knowing”). Thus, the sin of the men of Sodom involved a sexual act, not friendship.
They demanded Lot to turn over to them his two visitors so that “we can have sex with them”. That a sexual act was intended is seen clearly in that Lot offered his two young daughters to the men of Sodom in the place of the angels. He didn’t offer his daughters to the men for the men to visit with them, getting to know them, but for the purpose of satisfying their sinful sexual lust. Lot’s horrific offer puts to rest the idea that the men of Sodom simply wanted to get to “know” the angels who looked like men, for as we read,
Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.” (Genesis 19:6-8)
Let’s fact it, Lot’s protecting his two angelic visitors, but offering his daughters instead, suggests he was no better than the men of Sodom. In fact, Lot was a horrible person, is what can be concluded. However, Genesis 19:8 shows that the sin was rape. The sought-after rape would have been of men raping other men.
“Get out of our way,” they replied. “This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door. But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door. Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door. (Genesis 19:9-11)
Now was the time for Lot and his family to get out of the city…
The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.” So, Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking. With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.” When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them. As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!” (Genesis 19:12-17)
So, the two angels led Lot, his wife, their two daughters (but not the 2 mocking sons-in-law) outside the city, instructing them to “flee to the mountains!”
But Lot said to them, “No, my lords, please! Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it—it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.” He said to him, “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.” (That is why the town was called Zoar.) (Genesis 19:18-22)
Zoar simply means “small”. But think of how terrifying the scene must have been for everyone!
By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus, he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. (Genesis 19:23-26)
I am not wanting to sound like I am mocking anyone but it strikes me as a convenient cash-cow for both the nations of Israel and Jordan as each of them claim to have Lot’s Wife pillar of salt. I do believe that Lot’s wife became a pillar of salt. I just don’t believe it still exists.
Lot’s Wife Pillar of Salt: The one in Jordan https://www.pinterest.com/pin/396457573459919467/
The one in Israel – https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/lots-wife-pillar-of-salt-mount-sodom-on-the-south-west-of-the-dead-sea-in-the-judean-gm1745772212-543270618
For Jewish people throughout history, Sodom and Gomorrah has been as 9/11 was for Americans – a horror of destruction branded into their collective memories. This event really happened, and as I have learned in over 50 years of studying, it is used throughout the Bible as a symbol, imagery as it were, of what eternal judgment and hell are like, with brimstone and fire raining down.
To close, if God in the Old Testament, then the prophets, then, in the New Testament, Jesus himself, and writers such as Peter and Jude, all referenced the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as something we had better learn from, then that is what we should be doing. Let’s pray.
