Sodom And Gomorrah
Holman Bible Dictionary [1]
Genesis 13:12 Genesis 19:29 Genesis 14:3 14:8 14:10-11 Genesis 13:10-12 Genesis 14:12 Genesis 19:1
Sodom and Gomorrah were renowned for their wickedness ( Genesis 18:20 ). Despite Abraham's successful plea ( Genesis 18:22-32 ) not even ten righteous men could be found in Sodom, and the cities were judged by the Lord, then destroyed by “brimstone and fire” ( Genesis 19:24; NIV, “burning sulfur”).
The unnatural lusts of the men of Sodom ( Genesis 19:4-8; Jude 1:7 ) have given us the modern term sodomy, but the city was guilty of a full spectrum of sins including pride, oppression of the poor, haughtiness, and “abominable things” ( Ezekiel 16:49-50 ). Together, Sodom and Gomorrah provided a point of comparison for the sinfulness of Israel and other nations ( Deuteronomy 32:32; Isaiah 1:10; Jeremiah 23:14 ). The memory of their destruction provided a picture of God's judgment ( Isaiah 13:19; Jeremiah 49:18; Matthew 10:14-15; Matthew 11:23-24 ) and made them an example to be avoided ( Deuteronomy 29:23-25; 2 Peter 2:6 ).
Daniel C. Browning, Jr.
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament [2]
Sodom and Gomorrah are mentioned in Matthew 10:15, Judges 1:7, 2 Peter 2:6, Revelation 11:8 as affording by their fate a warning against strange sins, whether moral or spiritual. The verb (ἐκπορνεύω) used in Jude is also used in Septuagintof Exodus 34:15-16, Leviticus 17:7, Hosea 4:12, Ezekiel 16:26; Ezekiel 16:28; Ezekiel 16:33, of ‘going after’ other gods, and this seems to explain the use of Sodom in Revelation 11:8. Rome is Sodom because its gods are no true gods. Beyond references in The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (Test. Naph. 3) and in 3 Maccabees 2:4 f. the symbolism of Sodom seems to have been dropped out of sight. It is not used in the Apostolic Fathers, or in any apocalyptic or heretical books of the Apostolic Age. The reason is possibly to be found in the belief (Enoch, lxvii. 4) that the angels who sinned are imprisoned in a subterranean burning valley (Ge-hinnom) which extended to the Dead Sea, so that Gehenna extruded Sodom by assimilating it.
W. F. Cobb.
The Nuttall Encyclopedia [3]
Two ancient cities which, for their wickedness were, as the Bible relates, consumed with fire from heaven; they are supposed to have stood near the S. border of the Dead Sea, though they were not, as was at one time supposed, submerged in the waters of it.
