Sodom and Gomorrah #24

Sodom and Gomorrah were two of the “cities of the plain” in the region around the Jordan and the Dead Sea, along with Admah, Zeboiim, and Zoar (Genesis 14:2; 19:20-22). Genesis describes the district before its destruction as well watered, “even as the garden of the LORD” (Genesis 13:10). Lot chose to settle there when he separated from Abraham, even though the text already notes that the men of Sodom were “wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly” (Genesis 13:10-13).

Biblical Significance

Before acting, the Lord tells Abraham of the outcry against the cities, and Abraham pleads for the righteous who might be in them, asking whether the judge of all the earth will do right (Genesis 18:20-33). Two angels then visit Sodom and are hosted by Lot; the men of the city surround his house and demand the visitors, an act of violent inhospitality. The angels lead Lot and his daughters out, and the Lord rains sulfur and fire on the cities and the whole plain. Lot’s wife looks back and becomes a pillar of salt (Genesis 19).

Sodom becomes a standing symbol. Ezekiel gives a specific charge: the city’s guilt was pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, and a refusal to help the poor and needy, joined to “abomination” (Ezekiel 16:49-50). Isaiah and Jeremiah compare Judah’s rulers to Sodom (Isaiah 1:9-10; Jeremiah 23:14). Jesus says that towns rejecting his message will face a judgment worse than Sodom’s (Matthew 10:15; 11:23-24), and compares the coming of the Son of Man to the days of Lot (Luke 17:28-30). Jude and 2 Peter treat the cities as an example of judgment on the ungodly (Jude 1:7; 2 Peter 2:6).

Today

The exact location of Sodom and Gomorrah is uncertain, and two main proposals compete. The traditional view places them south of the Dead Sea, near the salt formations of Jebel Usdum (“Mount Sodom”), whose name may preserve the ancient one. Early Bronze Age sites on the southeastern shore, such as Bab edh-Dhra and Numeira, were long favored, though they were abandoned in the third millennium BC and are not clearly linked to the biblical account.

A second proposal locates Sodom at Tall el-Hammam, northeast of the Dead Sea, in the Jordan Valley, pointing to Genesis 13, where Lot looks over “the whole plain of the Jordan.” Its excavators have argued for a Middle Bronze Age destruction there, but many archaeologists dispute both the identification and the claims made about the destruction. Neither site has produced evidence that settles the question, and some have suggested that any remains may lie buried beneath sediments or the waters of the Dead Sea itself.