Sodom

AI summary: Sodom appears first in the patriarchal narratives as a real city in the Jordan plain, linked with Lot, regional conflict, and the fertile land near the Dead Sea. Its destruction by divine judgment then gives it a lasting symbolic role that far exceeds its original geography. Later biblical writers repeatedly invoke Sodom to warn of moral corruption, violence, arrogance, and social injustice, using it as a shorthand for a society that has come under severe judgment. Jesus and the apostles continue that pattern, making Sodom a reference point for accountability and unbelief. Across the cross references, Sodom functions both as a historical place in Genesis and as one of Scripture's strongest enduring symbols of judgment.¹

Burning; the walled, a city in the vale of Siddim (Gen. 13:10; 14:1-16). The wickedness of its inhabitants brought down upon it fire from heaven, by which it was destroyed (18:16-33; 19:1-29; Deut. 23:17). This city and its awful destruction are frequently alluded to in Scripture (Deut. 29:23; 32:32; Isa. 1:9, 10; 3:9; 13:19; Jer. 23:14; Ezek. 16:46-56; Zeph. 2:9; Matt. 10:15; Rom. 9:29; 2 Pet. 2:6, etc.). No trace of it or of the other cities of the plain has been discovered, so complete was their destruction. Just opposite the site of Zoar, on the south-west coast of the Dead Sea, is a range of low hills, forming a mass of mineral salt called Jebel Usdum, “the hill of Sodom.” It has been concluded, from this and from other considerations, that the cities of the plain stood at the southern end of the Dead Sea. Others, however, with much greater probability, contend that they stood at the northern end of the sea. [in 1897]. ³