Famously, his wife did gaze toward the disaster and became a pillar of salt. Gathering his family, Lot arrived at the city of Zoar when the sulfur and fire rained down from the heavens.
Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground… Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the Plain and saw the smoke of the land going up like the smoke of a furnace (Genesis 19:24-25 27). The angels of the Lord told Lot of the imminent destruction, warning him not to “stop anywhere in the Plain flee to the hills,” and not to look back upon the ruin. Lot and his daughters with Sodom burning in the background by Cornelis Cort. In either case, God’s punishment was now certain for Sodom and its twin city. Whether the crime of the Sodomites was sexual immorality or a violent denial of hospitality remains debated.
When the people of Sodom broke this convention, Lot tried to spare his visitors by offering the mob his two virgin daughters instead. Hospitality to strangers, as Lot showed, was a preeminent virtue of ancient civilizations. Sins of the Sodomitesīiblical scholars debate the actual crime of the men of Sodom, who sought to “know” (Hebrew: yada) Lot’s visitors. The angels sent by the Lord received hospitality from Lot upon entering the city but were set upon thereafter by a mob of wicked men: “both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house and they called to Lot, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them’.” (Gen. In Genesis 18, the Lord recognized the wickedness growing in the land but promised Abraham that if ten righteous people were found in Sodom, He would not destroy the city. The real story of Sodom and Gomorrah surrounds a bargain between the patriarch Abraham and the Lord God.
#SODOM AND GOMORRAH MOVIE YOUTUBE FULL#
According to Genesis 14.10, before the destruction, “the Valley of Siddim was full of bitumen pits as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some fell into them, and the rest fled to the hill country.” This passage introduces critical geographical features of note in the search for these ruined cities. The so-called cities of the plain were Sodom, Gomorrah, Zoar, Admah, and Zeboiim. Sodom and Gomorrah were only two of many kingdoms around the Jordan River valley and the Dead Sea region, also called the Valley of Siddim. Reference to the two cities appears throughout the Old Testament, but Genesis chapters 14 through 19 offer the region’s lengthiest descriptions. John Martin’s 1852 painting showing the destruction of the two cities.