The fall of Sodom and
Gomorrah is one of the most riveting incidents in scripture.
Archaeologists confirm
that the area was built on a significant fault-line in the dead sea basin.
Beneath that is a large bitumen (tar) and oil deposit, with a constant smell of
sulfur.
There is evidence in
the ruins of a sudden shaking. It collapsed walls and structures. Only a large
earthquake could have done that. In so doing, fissures created along the
fault-line would have forced bitumen to the surface. Fires would have started
quite naturally due to friction.
If the tar was ejected
forcefully, fireballs would have been fired into the air to arc across the sky
and
land in the villages of the region, a lot like Napalm. Unlike fireballs ejected
by volcanic explosions, the burning tar would have spread and oozed everywhere.
The prelude to disaster
The three visitors
that Abraham had met, went to stay with Lot so they could assess the evil of
Sodom and Gomorrah. In the night, the local men demanded that Lot bring them
out to them so they could have their way with them.
They were consumed
with lust. As Will Smith said in “I am Legend”, they had reach the “process of
dehumanization is complete”. They were worse than animals.
Lot refused. A long-standing
custom of the region was to ensure the safety of anyone “under the shadow of
your roof”. Instead, to appease the angry crowd and avoid a runaway crisis, he
offered his two virgin daughters. The men declined that and demanded their way.
The visitors then
pulled Lot back in and smote the villagers with blindness.
That was the last
straw. The text reveals the power of an angelic mandate. The visitor says, “I
cannot let the judgment start until you are safely away. They also agreed to
let Lot flee to the smallest village in the Pentapolis, called Zoar, which was
saved from the storm”.
Zoar, which means
least, is later mentioned in Isaiah 15:5 and Jeremiah 48:34, as a place of
refuge for Moab. It revealed God’s mercy.
The idea of cities of refuge from
judgment, was enshrined in the culture of Israel. Maybe that is why Zoar
survived. Goshen was also a place of refuge from the judgment of Egypt and the church
offers refuge to souls in this age.
Despite being told not
to, Lot’s wife looked back and became a pillar of salt. The Valley of Siddim was
at the southern end of the dead sea, so salt abounded. An upwelling from the
heavings of the earth explains her being enveloped in a surge of salt.
Lot and his daughters later fled into the mountains to live in a cave. There, for lack of a
wife and a shortage of husbands, two disreputable nations were conceived – the Moabites
and Ammonites. However, Ruth, David's virtuous grandmother later emerged from Moab.
Thus, whilst judgment may
fall on an evil culture, as happened to the likes of Pompeii, the rats
always seem to emerge from the debris to reseed the earth with evil,
as also happened after the flood. However, where sin abounds, grace the much more abounds.
(c) Peter Missing @ bethelstone.com
Image: The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, John Martin, 1852
