Gomorrah

Gomorrah is one of the cities of the Plain of the Jordan, paired in nearly every mention with Sodom and remembered for the brimstone-and-fire overthrow that turned its land into salt and burning. Scripture rarely names Gomorrah alone; it appears as Sodom's twin in narrative, in prophecy, and in apostolic warning. From the table of nations to the war of the four kings, from the cry that goes up to Yahweh to the smoke that goes up like the smoke of a furnace, Gomorrah's witness is the witness of a city overthrown and afterward held up as the standing pattern of judgment on the wicked.

A City of the Plain

Gomorrah stands among the cities of the Plain at the southeastern edge of the Canaanite border. The table of nations places it: "And the border of the Canaanite was from Sidon, as you go toward Gerar, to Gaza; as you go toward Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboiim, to Lasha" (Gen 10:19). When Lot lifts up his eyes and chooses the well-watered country, the narrator marks the time precisely: "And Lot lifted up his eyes, and saw all the Plain of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, before [the Speech of] Yahweh destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of Yahweh, like the land of Egypt, as you go to Zoar" (Gen 13:10). Lot then settles in the Plain, "and moved his tent as far as Sodom" (Gen 13:12).

The War of the Kings

Gomorrah enters narrative action in the campaign of Chedorlaomer. Birsha king of Gomorrah joins the alliance of the cities of the Plain: "that they made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar)" (Gen 14:2). The five kings deploy in the valley of Siddim against four eastern kings: "And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar); and they set the battle in array against them in the valley of Siddim; against Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings against the five" (Gen 14:8-9). The valley turns against them: "Now the valley of Siddim was full of bitumen pits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and they fell there, and those who remained fled to the mountain. And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way" (Gen 14:10-11). In the same sweep Lot is taken: "And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed" (Gen 14:12).

The Cry of Sodom and Gomorrah

The men of the Plain are named wicked from their first appearance: "Now the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners against Yahweh exceedingly" (Gen 13:13). Their sin rises as a cry that reaches Yahweh and brings him down to investigate: "And Yahweh said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous" (Gen 18:20). The pairing here is not incidental — the cry is named jointly against the two cities, and the verdict that follows falls on both.

The Rain of Brimstone and Fire

Yahweh's judgment falls together on the twin cities. "Then [the Speech of] Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Yahweh out of heaven" (Gen 19:24). The overthrow takes the cities and the country together: "and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground" (Gen 19:25). When Abraham looks back from the place where he had stood before Yahweh, he sees Gomorrah's ruin from a distance: "and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and over the whole surface of the land (of the [Jordan] valley), and looked, and saw that the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace" (Gen 19:28). Lot is delivered out of the midst of it: "And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the Plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt" (Gen 19:29). Sirach remembers the same event compactly: "And he did not spare the place where Lot sojourned; Those who were furious in their pride" (Sir 16:8). Luke restates it in the Lord's own teaching: "but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all" (Lu 17:29).

A Land of Brimstone and Salt

Gomorrah's land afterward becomes scripture's image of barren judgment. Moses describes the country left behind: "[and that] the whole land of it is brimstone, and salt, [and] a burning, [that] it is not sown, nor bears, nor any grass grows in it, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which [the Speech of] Yahweh overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath" (Deut 29:23). The vine that grows from this soil is bitter: "For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, And of the fields of Gomorrah: Their grapes are grapes of gall, Their clusters are bitter" (Deut 32:32). The desolation is named in stark terms in the prophetic invocations below.

Gomorrah as the Pattern of Judgment

Prophets after Moses return to Gomorrah whenever a comparable overthrow is in view. Babylon's end is named in those terms: "And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah" (Isa 13:19). Edom's: "As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighboring cities, says Yahweh, a man will not dwell there, neither will any son of man sojourn in it" (Jer 49:18). Babylon's again, in nearly identical words: "As when [the Speech of] God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighboring cities, says Yahweh, so a man will not dwell there, neither will any son of man sojourn in it" (Jer 50:40). Moab and Ammon's: "Therefore as I live, says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, Surely Moab will be as Sodom, and the sons of Ammon as Gomorrah, a possession of nettles, and saltpits, and a perpetual desolation: the remnant of my people will make a prey of them, and the remainder of my nation will inherit them" (Zeph 2:9). Israel itself was reduced to a near-Gomorrah remnant: "[My Speech has] overthrown [cities] among you⁺, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you⁺ were as a brand plucked out of the burning: yet you⁺ have not returned to me, says Yahweh" (Am 4:11). Both Isaiah and Paul name the survival of any seed in Israel as itself a deliverance from Gomorrah's fate: "Except Yahweh of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, we should have been like Gomorrah" (Isa 1:9); "And, as Isaiah has said before, Except Yahweh of hosts had left us a seed, We had become as Sodom, and had been made like Gomorrah" (Rom 9:29).

Gomorrah Named at Israel and Jerusalem

The prophets turn the comparison inward. Isaiah addresses Jerusalem's rulers and people in the cities' names: "Hear the word of Yahweh, you⁺ rulers of Sodom; give ear to the law of our God, you⁺ people of Gomorrah" (Isa 1:10). Of the same generation's shamelessness Isaiah says, "they declare their sin as Sodom, they do not hide it" (Isa 3:9). Jeremiah indicts Jerusalem's prophets in the twin-city idiom: "In the prophets of Jerusalem also I have seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies; and they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that none returns from his wickedness: they are all of them to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah" (Jer 23:14). Lamentations measures Zion against Sodom and finds her worse: "For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands were laid on her" (Lam 4:6).

The Apostolic Memory

The apostolic writings hold Gomorrah up alongside Sodom as an enacted warning. Peter names the overthrow as a pattern set down in advance: "and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, having made them an example to those coming who should live ungodly" (2 Pet 2:6). Jude names the same example with the surrounding cities and the specific charge: "As Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, which committed sexual depravity and homosexuality as do these [men], are set forth as an example, serving a penalty of eternal fire" (Jude 1:7). At the end of scripture, the cities' names are laid spiritually upon the great city: "And their dead bodies [lie] in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified" (Rev 11:8).

See also Sodom for the parallel survey of the twin city, and Lot for the deliverance narrative that runs through the overthrow.