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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 057. Sodom and Gomorrah
Subjects in this Topic:
VII
Sodom and Gomorrah
Literature
Driver, S. R., The Book of Genesis (Westminster Commentaries) (1904), 144.
Dykes, J. O., Abraham, the Friend of God (1883).
Gregg, D., Individual Prayer as a Working Force (1903), 1.
Hilprecht, H. V., Recent Research in Bible Lands (1896), 21, 116, 163.
Hommel, F., The Ancient Hebrew Tradition (1897), 147.
Huntington, E., Palestine and its Transformation (1911), 196.
Lane, E. W., The Modern Egyptians, i. (1871) 364.
Meyer, F. B., Abraham, or the Obedience of Faith.
Skinner, J., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis (1910), 240.
Strachan, J., Hebrew Ideals (1902), Pt. i. 25.
Williams, I., The Characters of the Old Testament (1870), 34.
Expositor, 1st Ser., x. (1881) 216 (R. E. Bartlett); 5th Ser., iv. (1896) 177 (R. Winterbotham).
Expository Times, x. (1899) 210, 278 (F. Hommel); xvii. (1906) 498 (A. H. Sayce).
Guardian, 11th March 1896, p. 394 (S. R. Driver).
Jewish Quarterly Review, xv. (1902) 104 (G. A. Kohut).
The story of the destruction of the Cities of the Plain, told in the 18th and 19th chapters of Genesis, is, says Driver, “one of the most graphically and finely written narratives in the Old Testament. Except in Gen_19:29 (P), the author is throughout J, whose characteristics-ease and picturesqueness of style, grace and delicacy of expression, and naïve anthropomorphisms-it conspicuously displays. Abraham is attractively depicted; he is dignified, courteous, high-minded, generous, a man whom accordingly God deems worthy of His confidence, visiting him as one friend visits another, bestowing upon him promises, and disclosing to him His purposes: a strong contrast to the weak and timid Lot, and still more so to the profligate inhabitants of the Cities of the Plain.”
The narrative appears at first sight to be based on vague recollection of an actual occurrence-the destruction of a group of cities situated in what is now the Dead Sea, under circumstances which suggested a direct interposition of Divine power. It seems unreasonable to suppose that a legend so firmly rooted in Hebrew tradition, so full of local colour and preserving so tenaciously the names of the ruined cities, should be destitute of historic foundation; and to doubt whether any such cities as Sodom and Gomorrah ever existed in the Dead Sea basin appears an unduly sceptical exercise of critical judgment. It has been shown, moreover, that a catastrophe corresponding in its main features to the Biblical description is an extremely probable result of volcanic and other forces, acting under the peculiar geological conditions which obtain in the Dead Sea depression.
The present ruins of Ghuweir doubtless date from a time at least two thousand years after the days of Abraham and Lot. One work of man, however, may go back to the period of the Patriarchs, and may have played a part in the Biblical narrative. Near the head of the valley which leads eastward from Ghuweir up toward the plateau of Moab we discovered a carefully excavated cave among the mountains at a place called El Ghuttar, between Abu Hassan and Beth Peor. The cave is about twenty feet long and fifteen wide, carefully hewed out of the limestone above a spring. Two windows look down the wadi toward Zoar. A door with a rock-cut trough to lead off rain water is so located that it can be reached only by climbing a precipice by means of six or eight little niches cut in the rock, or by climbing down over some difficult steps in the cliff above. Nowhere else in this region is there known to be an artificial cave upon which any such care has been bestowed as upon this. The discovery of the cave supplements the volcano and the tradition of Suweimeh in supplying all the elements of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in exactly the location where the Biblical account would lead one to expect them.1 [Note: E. Huntington, Palestine and its Transformation, 196.]