03/29/2022 – Day 030 – Genesis – 16 thru 19: We have moved so eeringly close to Sodom and Gomorrah over just the past generation./ + ,not that we need it, but a fascinating archaelogical note.
My reference today is : “Halley’s Bible Handbook” by Henry H. Halley – Twenty-Third Edition, Copyright @ 1962 /
“Chapters 18,19. Sodom and Gomorrah”:
“These cesspools of iniquity were only a few miles from Hebron, the home of Abraham, and from Jerusalem, the home of Melchizedek, yet so vile, their stench reached heaven. It had been only 400 years since the Flood, almost within the memory of men than living. Yet man had forgotten the lesson of that cataclysmic destruction of the race. And God ‘rained fire and brimstone’ on these two cities, to refresh men’s memories, and to warn of the wrath of God that is in store for wicked men; and perhaps, to serve as a token of the earth’s final doom in a holocaust fire (II Peter 2:5, 6; 3:7, 10).
Jesus likened the time of His Return to the days of Sodom (Luke 17: 26-32); as he did also to the days of the Flood. Both were periods of unspeakable wickidness. Today, on a scale never before known in history, with greed, brutality, beastliness and criminal instincts, in demons in the high places of earth, it does not require much imagination to see the end toward which we are heading, however much good men and statesmen may try to avert it. Unless there comes a world-movement of Repentance, the Day of Doom may not be far off.” (pg 98)
Archaelogical Note:
“In 1924, Drs. W.F. Albright and M.G. Kyle, directing a join Expedition of the American Schools and Xenia Seminary, found, at the southeast corner of the Dead Sea, five Oasis, made of fresh water streams, and centrally located to them, on a plain of 500 feet above the level of the Dead Sea, at a place called Bab-ed-Dra, the remains of a great fortified enclosure, evidently a ‘high place’ for religious festivals. There were great quantities of potsherds, flints, and other remains of a period dating between 2500 B.C. and 2000 B.C. This evidence that the region was densely populated and prosperous indicates that it must have been very fertile, ‘like the garden of God.’ That the population ceased abruptly , and that it has been a region of unmixed desolation ever since, seems to indicate that the district was destroyed by some great cataclysm which changed the soil and the climate.
The opinion of Albright and Kyle, and most archaeologists, is that Sodom and Gomorrah were located on these oases, further down the streams, and that the site is now covered by the Dead Sea….
‘Brimstone’ (19:24). Kyle said that under Mt. Usdom there is stratum of salt 150 feet thikc; and above it a stratum of marl mingled with free sulphur; and that at the proper tinme God kindled the gases; a great explosion took place; the salt and the sulphur were thrown into the heavens red hot, so that it did literally rain fire and brimstone from heaven. Lot’s wife was encrusted in salt. There are many pillars of salt at the south end of the Dead Sea which have borne the name of “Lot’s wife.” Indeed everything about the region seems to dovetail exactly with the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah.” (pgs 99 – 100)
Soli Deo Gloria!