Historical Source

On Genesis 19:24-25

Then, when Lot had got safely into Zoar, then this ruin came; for good men are taken away from the evil to come. Then, when the sun had risen bright and clear, promising a fair day, then this storm arose, to show that it was not from natural causes. Concerning this destruction observe, 1. God was the immediate author of it. It was destruction from the Almighty: The Lord rained--from the Lord (v. 24), that is, God from himself, by his own immediate power, and not in the common course of nature. Or, God the Son from God the Father; for the Father has committed all judgment to the Son. Note, He that is the Saviour will be the destroyer of those that reject the salvation. 2. It was a strange punishment, Job xxxi. 3. Never was the like before nor since. Hell was rained from heaven upon them. Fire, and brimstone, and a horrible tempest, were the portion of their cup (Ps. xi. 6); not a flash of lightning, which is destructive enough when God gives it commission, but a shower of lightning. Brimstone was scattered upon their habitation (Job xviii. 15), and then the fire soon fastened upon them. God could have drowned them, as he did the old world; but he would show that he has many arrows in his quiver, fire as well as water. 3. It was a judgment that laid all waste: It overthrew the cities, and destroyed all the inhabitants of them, the plain, and all that grew upon the ground, v. 25. It was an utter ruin, and irreparable. That fruitful valley remains to this day a great lake, or dead sea; it is called the Salt Sea, Num. xxxiv. 12. Travellers say that it is about thirty miles long and ten miles broad; it has no living creature in it; it is not moved by the wind; the smell of it is offensive; things do not easily sink in it. The Greeks call it Asphaltites, from a sort of pitch which it casts up. Jordan falls into it, and is lost there. 4. It was a punishment that answered to their sin. Burning lusts against nature were justly punished with this preternatural burning. Those that went after strange flesh were destroyed by strange fire, Jude 7. They persecuted the angels with their rabble, and made Lot afraid; and now God persecuted them with his tempest, and made them afraid with his storm, Ps. lxxxiii. 15. 5. It was designed for a standing revelation of the wrath of God against sin and sinners in all ages. It is, accordingly, often referred to in the scripture, and made a pattern of the ruin of Israel (Deut. xxix. 23), of Babylon (Isa. xiii. 19), of Edom (Jer. xlix. 17, 18), of Moab and Ammon, Zep. ii. 9. Nay, it was typical of the vengeance of eternal fire (Jude 7), and the ruin of all that live ungodly (2 Pet. ii. 6), especially that despise the gospel, Matt. x. 15. It is in allusion to this destruction that the place of the damned is often represented by a lake that burns, as Sodom did, with fire and brimstone. Let us learn from it, (1.) The evil of sin, and the hurtful nature of it. Iniquity tends to ruin. (2.) The terrors of the Lord. See what a fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God!

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

On Genesis 19:24-25

Then the Lord rained . . . brimstone and fire from . . . heaven - God, in accomplishing His purposes, acts immediately or mediately through the agency 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--that it was, in fact, by a volcanic eruption. The raining down of fire and brimstone from heaven is perfectly accordant with this idea since those very substances, being raised into the air by the force of the volcano, would fall in a fiery shower on the surrounding region. This view seems countenanced by Job [Job 1:16; Job 18:15]. Whether it was miraculously produced, or the natural operation employed by God, it is not of much consequence to determine: it was a divine judgment, foretold and designed for the punishment of those who were sinners exceedingly.

John Gill

On Genesis 19:24

Then the Lord rained upon Sodom, and upon Gomorrah, brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And not upon those two cities only, but upon Admah and Zeboiim also, see Deuteronomy 29:23; this was not a common storm of thunder and lightning, with which often there is a smell of sulphur or brimstone; but this was a continued shower of sulphurous fire, or of burning flaming brimstone, which at once consumed those cities and the inhabitants of them; and the land adjacent being bituminous, or however some parts of it, full of slimepits, or pits of bitumen, a liquid of a pitchy quality, Genesis 14:10; this flaming sulphur falling thereon, must burn in a most fierce and furious manner; and which utterly consumed not only houses, goods, and everything upon the land, but the land itself, and turned it into a bituminous lake, called to this day, from thence, the Lake Asphaltites, the Greek word for bitumen being "asphaltos". Of this conflagration some Heathen writers speak, as particularly Tacitus (f) who says, some large and famous cities, or, as some copies have it, Jewish ones, not far from Jordan, were struck with thunderbolts, and were fired "igni ceolesti", with fire from heaven, and were consumed; and so Solinus (g) relates, that,"at some distance from Jerusalem, a sorrowful lake appears, which the black ground testifies was stricken by heaven and turned into ashes; where were two towns, the one called Sodomum, the other Gomorrum.''This was a righteous judgment on those cities, and a just retaliation for their sin; their sin was an unnatural one, and nature is inverted to punish them, fire comes down from heaven, or hell from heaven, as Salvian's words are, to consume them; they burned with lusts one against another, and flaming sheets of sulphurous fire fall upon them, burn and destroy them; and, in allusion to this terrible conflagration, hell is called the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, Jde 1:7 Revelation 20:14; and this destruction was brought upon them by Jehovah the Son of God, who had appeared to Abraham in an human form, and gave him notice of it, and heard all he had to plead for those cities, and then departed from him to Sodom, and was the author of this sad catastrophe; this amazing shower of fire and brimstone was rained by him from Jehovah his Father, out of heaven; so the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem both call him, the Word of the Lord.

(f) Hist. l. 5. c. 7. (g) Polyhistor. c. 48.

Keil & Delitzsch

On Genesis 19:23-25

"When the sun had risen and Lot had come towards Zoar (i.e., was on the way thither, but had not yet arrived), Jehovah caused it to rain brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven, and overthrew those cities, and the whole plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and the produce of the earth." In the words "Jehovah caused it to rain from Jehovah" there is no distinction implied between the hidden and the manifested God, between the Jehovah present upon earth in His angels who called down the judgment, and the Jehovah enthroned in heaven who sent it down; but the expression "from Jehovah" is emphatica repetitio, quod non usitato naturae ordine tunc Deus pluerit, sed tanquam exerta manu palam fulminaverit praeter solitum morem: ut satis constaret nullis causis naturalibus conflatam fuisse pluviam illam ex igne et sulphure (Calvin). The rain of fire and brimstone was not a mere storm with lightning, which set on fire the soil already overcharged with naphtha and sulphur. The two passages, Psa 11:6 and Eze 38:22, cannot be adduced as proofs that lightning is ever called fire and brimstone in the Scriptures, for in both passages there is an allusion to the event recorded here. The words are to be understood quite literally, as meaning that brimstone and fire, i.e., burning brimstone, fell from the sky, even though the examples of burning bituminous matter falling upon the earth which are given in Oedmann's vermischte Sammlungen (iii. 120) may be called in question by historical criticism. By this rain of fire and brimstone not only were the cities and their inhabitants consumed, but even the soil, which abounded in asphalt, was set on fire, so that the entire valley was burned out and sank, or was overthrown (הפך) i.e., utterly destroyed, and the Dead Sea took its place.

(Note: Whether the Dead Sea originated in this catastrophe, or whether there was previously a lake, possibly a fresh water lake, at the north of the valley of Siddim, which was enlarged to the dimensions of the existing sea by the destruction of the valley with its cities, and received its present character at the same time, is a question which has been raised, since Capt. Lynch has discovered by actual measurement the remarkable fact, that the bottom of the lake consists of two totally different levels, which are separated by a peninsula that stretches to a very great distance into the lake from the eastern shore; so that whilst the lake to the north of this peninsula is, on an average, from 1000 to 1200 feet deep, the southern portion is at the most 16 feet deep, and generally much less, the bottom being covered with salt mud, and heated by hot springs from below.)

In addition to Sodom, which was probably the chief city of the valley of Siddim, Gomorrah and the whole valley (i.e., the valley of Siddim, Gen 14:3) are mentioned; and along with these the cities of Admah and Zeboim, which were situated in the valley (Deu 29:23, cf. Hos 11:8), also perished, Zoar alone, which is at the south-eastern end of the valley, being spared for Lot's sake. Even to the present day the Dead Sea, with the sulphureous vapour which hangs about it, the great blocks of saltpetre and sulphur which lie on every hand, and the utter absence of the slightest trace of animal and vegetable life in its waters, are a striking testimony to this catastrophe, which is held up in both the Old and New Testaments as a fearfully solemn judgment of God for the warning of self-secure and presumptuous sinners.

Matthew Henry

On Genesis 19:24-25

Then, when Lot had got safely into Zoar, then this ruin came; for good men are taken away from the evil to come. Then, when the sun had risen bright and clear, promising a fair day, then this storm arose, to show that it was not from natural causes. Concerning this destruction observe, 1. God was the immediate author of it. It was destruction from the Almighty: The Lord rained - from the Lord (Gen 19:24), that is, God from himself, by his own immediate power, and not in the common course of nature. Or, God the Son from God the Father; for the Father has committed all judgment to the Son. Note, He that is the Saviour will be the destroyer of those that reject the salvation. 2. It was a strange punishment, Job 31:3. Never was the like before nor since. Hell was rained from heaven upon them. Fire, and brimstone, and a horrible tempest, were the portion of their cup (Psa 11:6); not a flash of lightning, which is destructive enough when God gives it commission, but a shower of lightning. Brimstone was scattered upon their habitation (Job 18:15), and then the fire soon fastened upon them. God could have drowned them, as he did the old world; but he would show that he has many arrows in his quiver, fire as well as water. 3. It was a judgment that laid all waste: It overthrew the cities, and destroyed all the inhabitants of them, the plain, and all that grew upon the ground, Gen 19:25. It was an utter ruin, and irreparable. That fruitful valley remains to this day a great lake, or dead sea; it is called the Salt Sea, Num 34:12. Travellers say that it is about thirty miles long and ten miles broad; it has no living creature in it; it is not moved by the wind; the smell of it is offensive; things do not easily sink in it. The Greeks call it Asphaltites, from a sort of pitch which it casts up. Jordan falls into it, and is lost there. 4. It was a punishment that answered to their sin. Burning lusts against nature were justly punished with this preternatural burning. Those that went after strange flesh were destroyed by strange fire, Jde 1:7. They persecuted the angels with their rabble, and made Lot afraid; and now God persecuted them with his tempest, and made them afraid with his storm, Psa 83:15. 5. It was designed for a standing revelation of the wrath of God against sin and sinners in all ages. It is, accordingly, often referred to in the scripture, and made a pattern of the ruin of Israel (Deu 29:23), of Babylon (Isa 13:19), of Edom (Jer 49:18), of Moab and Ammon, Zep 2:9. Nay, it was typical of the vengeance of eternal fire (Jde 1:7), and the ruin of all that live ungodly (Pe2 2:6), especially that despise the gospel, Mat 10:15. It is in allusion to this destruction that the place of the damned is often represented by a lake that burns, as Sodom did, with fire and brimstone. Let us learn from it, (1.) The evil of sin, and the hurtful nature of it. Iniquity tends to ruin. (2.) The terrors of the Lord. See what a fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God!

Tyndale Study Notes

On Genesis 19:23-25

19:23-25 Cp. Luke 17:29. The eruption of Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii in AD 79, as well as recent natural disasters, show how quickly a thorough catastrophe like this could happen.

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