Sodomites

The word "sodomite" carries two distinct strands in scripture. In its first sense it names the inhabitants of Sodom, whose violent night-attack on Lot's guests fixed Sodom in later memory as shorthand for cities ripe for judgment. In its second sense it names a class of male shrine-personnel attached to pagan shrines — the counterpart to the female "pagan whore" — whom the Mosaic legislation forbids in Israel and whom successive reforming kings worked to root out. The UPDV renders both the male and female shrine-figures with the single phrase pagan whore, which is why the Genesis 38, Deuteronomy 23, Kings, Job, and Hosea passages all share this vocabulary.

The Men of Sodom

The Genesis narrative establishes the inhabitants of Sodom as a settled and unchecked wickedness before the angelic visit ever arrives: "Now the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners against Yahweh exceedingly" (Gen 13:13). Yahweh's own assessment is the same: "Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous" (Gen 18:20).

The visit to Lot makes the cry concrete. "Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter; and they called to Lot, and said to him, Where are the men who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may have sex with them" (Gen 19:4-5). Lot pleads with them not to act so wickedly and even offers his daughters; the crowd answers by threatening him further and pressing toward the door (Gen 19:7-9). The visitors strike the assailants with blindness, deliver Lot, and warn him out of the city: "we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxed great before Yahweh: and Yahweh has sent us to destroy it" (Gen 19:13). Lot's sons-in-law treat the warning as a joke (Gen 19:14).

Destroyed by Fire

The next morning the announced judgment falls: "Then [the Speech of] Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Yahweh out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground" (Gen 19:24-25). Luke recalls the scene exactly: "in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all" (Lu 17:29).

A Standing Witness

After the destruction, Sodom does not fade from scripture. It becomes a fixed image of unconcealed sin, of total overthrow, and of the judgment Israel itself can incur. Isaiah uses it as the worst-case from which only a remnant can spare Judah: "Except Yahweh of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, we should have been like Gomorrah" (Is 1:9). A few lines later the comparison is moral, not just demographic: "they declare their sin as Sodom, they do not hide it" (Is 3:9). Moses' song uses the same image to describe a corrupted Israel: "their vine is of the vine of Sodom, And of the fields of Gomorrah" (De 32:32). Lamentations measures Jerusalem's fall against it and finds Jerusalem worse: "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" (La 4:6). Ben Sira reaches back into the same memory of judgment: "he did not spare the place where Lot sojourned; Those who were furious in their pride" (Sir 16:8). And Revelation finally reuses the name as a spiritual label for the great city where the Lord was crucified: "the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified" (Re 11:8).

Judged According to Opportunity

In the Synoptic mission discourse, Sodom becomes a benchmark for accountability. Where the cities that hear the kingdom message reject it, their judgment will be heavier than Sodom's: "I say to you⁺, It will be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city" (Lu 10:12). The point of the saying is comparative, not exonerating — Sodom's judgment stands; what changes is the relative weight when greater light has been refused.

The Pagan Whores in Israel

The second strand uses "sodomite" as a proverbial term of reproach for a male class of shrine-personnel attached to pagan shrines, with a female counterpart. The Mosaic legislation rules out both at once: "There will not be a pagan whore among the daughters of Israel, neither will there be a pagan whore among the sons of Israel" (De 23:17).

The Deuteronomistic history then records, generation by generation, how the ban was kept or broken. Under Rehoboam the practice took root: "there were also pagan whores in the land: they did according to all the disgusting behaviors of the nations which Yahweh drove out before the sons of Israel" (1Ki 14:24). Asa reformed: "he put away the pagan whores out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made" (1Ki 15:12). Jehoshaphat finished the job: "the remnant of the pagan whores, who remained in the days of his father Asa, he put away out of the land" (1Ki 22:46). By the time of Josiah the practice had crept inside the temple precinct itself: "he broke down the houses of the pagan whores, who were in the house of Yahweh, where the women wove hangings for the Asherah" (2Ki 23:7).

Job's friend marks the same class as a place of premature death: "Their soul dies in youth, And their life [perishes] among the pagan whores" (Job 36:14).

The Female Counterpart

The female counterpart shares the same UPDV vocabulary. In the Judah-and-Tamar episode, Hirah the Adullamite hunts for the woman who took Judah's pledge: "Where is the pagan whore, that was at Enaim by the wayside? And they said, There has been no pagan whore here. And he returned to Judah, and said, I haven't found her; and also the men of the place said, There has been no pagan whore here" (Gen 38:21-22). Hosea pairs the male and female agents in a single indictment: "I will not punish your⁺ daughters when they go whoring, nor your⁺ brides when they commit adultery; for [the men] themselves go apart with whores, and they sacrifice with pagan whores; and the people that does not understand will be overthrown" (Hos 4:14). The men's traffic with the shrine-prostitutes is itself the reason the daughters and brides are not punished — the corruption begins at the altars they patronize.