The events surrounding the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah are well known.
The Plan to Destroy Sodom and Gomorrah
In Genesis 18:16-21, God informs Abraham that a great outcry against the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah had come up before Him, and so He was going to destroy the cities if they were as wicked as He had heard.
Abraham, knowing that Lot and his family lived in Sodom, pled with God to not destroy the cities if righteous people could be found within. In one of the most amazing and challenging passages about intercessionary prayer in the Bible, Abraham goes from persuading God to spare the cities if fifty righteous people are found within them, all the way down to only ten righteous people (Genesis 18:23-33).
The Depravity of Sodom and Gomorrah
Genesis 19 shows some of the depths of depravity to which Sodom had sunk.
When the messengers visit Sodom, Lot invites them to stay in his house. Such hospitality was expected at that time. That night, the men of Sodom gather at Lot’s house, demanding that he send the visitors out so they can rape them.
Lot, showing that he himself is not so righteous, offers the mob his two daughters instead, but the crowd will not be dissuaded, and demand that he hand over the two visitors or they will do worse to him (Genesis 19:9).
The visitors strike the crowd with blindness, and tell Lot to flee the city with his family because “the Lord has sent us to destroy it” (Genesis 19:13). Lot pled with his two sons-in-law, but they would not flee, and ultimately, Lot was forced to flee the city with only his wife and two daughters.
Behind the Scenes in the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
The entire account pretty clearly seems to lay the direct action of the destruction of the cities in the hands of God. Aside from the statement from the messengers that God had sent them to destroy the cities (Genesis 19:13), the text says multiple times that the Lord sent the destruction, rained down the fire and brimstone, and overthrew the cities in the plain (Genesis 19:14, 17, 21, 24, 25, 29). In light of all this, the case seems pretty cut and dry: God saw the evil; God destroyed the cities.
And yet, just as with Genesis 6–8, there are multiple hints within the text itself and in numerous related passages in the Bible that something else was going on behind the scenes.
The first hint is in the intercessionary prayer of Abraham to spare the city if righteous people lived within it. Though Abraham stopped at ten, one wonder how low God would have gone. Would God have gone to five? To one? What if Abraham had simply said, “My nephew, Lot, lives there. I doubt that even he is righteous, but I love him. Would you spare the city just for him?” Regardless, these are questions with no answers, for they were questions that were not asked.
However, the deeper question from this intercession of Abraham relates to how God would have spared the city if He had found ten righteous people dwelling within.
If, as has been suggested by the Chaos Theory, God cannot always stop destruction when it comes, how is it that God could have stopped this destruction if He had found ten righteous people in the city?
If God has a policy of non-intervention, if nature is out of control, if the destroyer destroys, and if sin cannibalizes itself, how could God have stepped in and stopped all this if He had found ten righteous people in the city?
What seems most likely is that, much like the flood and due to the various elements of the Chaos Theory, God was unable to stop the destruction of Sodom, but would do everything He could to rescue and deliver people from the impending destruction.
Genesis 19 seems to indicate that God knew that there were not ten righteous people in the city.
In fact, as it turned out, there was probably not even one. Neither Lot’s family nor Lot himself turned out to be righteous.
The destruction that was coming upon Sodom and Gomorrah had been coming for a very long time, and God had been holding back this destruction, but the situation has grown so bad that the people had departed from God’s protective hand. Yet God was faithful, loving, and merciful, and did what He could to rescue as many people as possible from the fire and brimstone. When it appeared that not even Lot was going to leave the city, God almost forcibly removed Lot, his wife, and his daughters from the city as an act of pure mercy toward him (Genesis 19:16, 19).
Though Lot and his family probably deserved to be destroyed along with everybody else, God rescued Lot and his daughters through an act of pure mercy toward Lot, and in response to the intercession of Abraham. But note that even though God tried to rescue Lot’s wife, and Lot’s two sons-in-law, they were unwilling to be rescued, and there was nothing God could do to prevent their destruction.
Even Lot himself did not want to obey the commands of God. When instructed to flee to the mountains, Lot argued, and begged instead to be allowed to flee to Zoar (Genesis 19:20). Since this was a city that would not be destroyed, God allowed Lot to go there instead (Genesis 19:21). Once again, we see God’s mercy at work in the midst of widespread destruction.
Yet where in this text do we see Jesus?
If Genesis 19 is to be read in light of Jesus Christ on the cross, we need more evidence that God was taking the blame for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah rather than actively sending it.
This is especially true in light of Genesis 19:24-25, 29 which specifically state that the fire and brimstone came from God, and that He “overthrew” and “destroyed” those cities, along with all the inhabitants of the plain. This is a perfect example of what we have been arguing in this book, that God takes the blame for that which He did not prevent, that God bears responsibility for evil things that occur on His watch. Rather than destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, God did what He could to rescue and deliver people from the destruction which they had brought upon themselves.
While this way of reading the text is not blatantly obvious in Genesis 19 itself, several other texts in Scripture provide further evidence that this is the best way of understanding God’s involvement in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
We will look at these texts tomorrow.
Until then, what are your thoughts so far on this take of Sodom and Gomorrah? Does it seem too much of a stretch? Does it make sense? What objections or additional insights do you have?
The term Remember Lot’s Wife can no longer be seen as ‘remember her end’ but ‘remember not to be regardless of the efforts of His mercy’. (She saw the angels, the miracle of being delivered when the attackers were struck blind, heard the message to flee, the angels dragged her bodily by the hand, but she still was not persuaded)
Mark, Wow. I really like that!
So He didn’t destroy Sodom &Gomorrah?
Robert, I am trying to argue in my book that God takes the blame for the violent actions which are attributed to Him in Scripture. So Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, and God accepted responsibility.
Wow great read. Led me to read the whole Chaos theory . Gives me a whole new perspective on the Love that God has for us. Thanks Mike
Thanks for reading all that! in future posts, I hope I can show how Jesus helps us understand more of the violent texts of the Bible.
Jeremy, I think you are on to something and strongly recommend you check out Dont Blame God by Schoenheit. $1.99 for the Kindle version
http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Blame-God-Biblical-Suffering-ebook/dp/B003U4WVJ6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1401237879&sr=8-1&keywords=dont+blame+god
Here is a quick excerpt
Another example of Prophetic Metonymy is Genesis 3:16 (KJV): “…I will greatly multiply thy sorrow….” The context of this statement clearly shows that God is prophesying or foretelling the consequences of man’s sin, not declaring His will for all people’s lives. We cannot fathom a loving God literally and deliberately inflicting a multiplying of sorrow on His children for generations because their ancestors disobeyed Him. We must search deeper in the context and refer to the scope of the Bible for the keys to the proper interpretation of this verse. In the context, we see that “…I will greatly multiply thy sorrow…” is a prophetic declaration meaning “your sorrow will be multiplied as a consequence of your sin.” Much confusion is eliminated by understanding the use of Prophetic Metonymy.
Schoenheit, John W.; Graeser, Mark H.; Lynn, John A. (2013-12-03). Don’t Blame God! – A Biblical Answer to the Problem of Evil, Sin, and Suffering (Kindle Locations 1696-1702). Spirit & Truth Fellowship International. Kindle Edition.
Emilio,
Yes, I have read that book and will be referencing it in my book.
You have set a mostly impossible task for yourself: to make sense out of the stories and myths of bronze-age desert nomads.
Generally, God is assumed to be all powerful and all knowing, but, time after time, his behavior and abilities are no better than that of the humans he supposedly created. This makes sense if the story about God is written by people trying to explain God in terms of what they know. It does not make sense if God is a supernatural being with magical powers
God knows everything but is unaware of the evil of S&G until somebody complains? How does that work? Did someone climb to a high place, sacrifice a bull, and yell, in a loud voice, about how nasty S&G were? And still, God is not sure? “…I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me.” (Genesis 18:21 NIV) That does not sound like an all-knowing God, to me.
Then, Abraham negotiates with God as to the number of righteous people in Sodom. God seems to have no idea as to how many righteous people are living in Sodom, again, not the sign of an all-knowing God.
Even though God said that “…I will go down and see…” would visit Sodom, he sends angels instead to visit Lot, the most righteous man in Sodom. Why a righteous man would live in such a sinful city is never explained. And Lot does not seem like a good example of righteousness in that he offers his virgin daughters to be abused by a mob and later has sex with those same daughters.
If God were all-powerful enough to prevent the destruction of S&S if as few as 10 righteous people could be found, then he should be powerful enough to do something other than just destroy the cities including infants and babies still in the womb. Are not children righteous? Are not unborn babies sinless? Are animals sinful?
Later in the Hebrew Bible, we read of God hardening the heart of Pharaoh to ‘prevent’ him from freeing the Hebrews. (Exodus 4:21 NIV) Why couldn’t God soften the hearts of those living in S&G and allow them to turn from their evil ways? If it were necessary to kill them, why not painless, massive aneurysms? Why fiery, painful deaths to men, women, children and animals? How were the children and animals guilty of the same sins as the adults? Or do they deserve to die just because they were ‘born’ in S&G?
If you stand back and look at the Hebrew Bible’s stories and myths as stories and myths they make sense. They are written explain the world by ability with no clue as to how science works and to scare other people into obeying the religious leadership, including supporting that same leadership. If you try to interpret the Hebrew Bible as some form of reality, as an historical record of something that actually happened, you might have better luck treating “The Wizard of Oz” as an historical event.
Sorry, autocorrect or something. I meant to say, “…explain the world by people with no clue…” not “…by ablity with no clue…”
Harold,
You raise some really good points and ask some very good questions. I think I would interpret the words of the Angel of the Lord and the bartering with Abraham a bit differently than you have, though I admit that my way may not be the most straightforward way of reading the text…
If by “…not be the most straightforward way of reading the text…” you mean that you are applying your own interpretation, I commend you for your honesty. Once you have admitted that the text is open to interpretation, you are on the verge of seeing that much of it is simply stories and myths. Talking donkeys and snakes, the flood and sky-fire, the garden of Eden and the Tower of Bable, all fall into the story category and should not be used as a basis for any kind of morality or modern judgment.
Yes, of course I am applying my own interpretation. It is an interpretation based on my best attempt to study the grammatical, historical, cultural, and theological contexts of Scripture, but in the end, it is only my understanding of what the text is saying.
Jeremy, in trying to reconcile things where does faith come in? In your last post you mentioned a woman who abandoned Christianity because she couldn’t answer to her satisfaction the questions you are asking. Is your faith in question if after all your search, you cannot reconcile violence and love in God? Or will your need to hold to faith cause you to rationalize and answer wrongly? Asking cause I think the same questions of understanding God come up talking about election and God making choices. For me had the same crossroads reading Romans 9, “Jacob I loved but Esau I hated. . . though they were not yet born and had done nothing good or bad…” The bible’s answer to that is “Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” And goes on to say that God raised up Pharoah to show his power and proclaim his name, the justification being “so then he has compassion on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.” A little further, “…God desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction…” And then further, “… only a remnant will be saved for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.”
The only answer given to these choices of God where man’s fault/responsibility isn’t the issue is “You will say to me then, why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will? For who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?”
Election is not the same issue as violence but the questioning and understanding of God is. I still can’t get my head around all the issues raised in Romans 9 but I know Jesus as living and that God is the Father. At the end of all my questioning, that Jesus is, is enough. Guess my question for you is that if you are not able to reconcile the acts of God in view of his character, can you live with that?. . . can live in that place? Isn’t faith how you stand when the answers to questions not enough? Should add that this series of posts is great and not questioning your faith, but at the end of all the searching, the questions may not have an answer, or answers that satisfy, but going forward the only choices are not to give answers that are not answers or to abandon things.
Alan,
No, my faith in God and in Jesus Christ is not in question, but to be completely candid, my faith in the inerrancy of Scripture is. I have abandoned much of my previously-held theology over the last 15 years, and I imagine there may be more abandonment to come, but no matter what, I have seen too much of God and known too much of Jesus to think of throwing in the towel on all of it.
Hey man, get lost in the bible as a book but find when the words come alive by the Spirit, my heart finds life. Thinking inerrancy only happens when God is present in things. Apart from that, not sure how I would sort things out.
Are we to blame God for punishing evil-doers and that he takes the blame for it? Now you’re blaming God for punishing? he has the divine right to punish and destroy what he sees fit to destroy!
Hi Harold, I have a friend who talks as you do and I love him to bits and it leaves me sad that whenever we have a conversation about God and all that we hit a brick wall.
I love it that my friend and you are wrestling with people who both of you see as OK guys with similar outlooks on social and moral issues and get on really well together but even though we can converse on belief the Old Testament is a massive stumbling block, a 100 foot high brick wall. I have asked him to look at the life of Jesus and the Acts of the Apostles but still comes back to the God the killer.
Will you or he receive a revelation from God to enable you to destroy the wall or will He knock it down for you both. My advantage is that I am allowed to continue to pray for him and you. His love is greater than anything we can conceive of as human beings Jesus suffered and gave up His life so that nothing can get in Gods way in revealing this love to the world He created. Clive
Harold,
god says ”come, let us reason together”. God does know everything and yet waits on the prayers of his people. Getting to know God means you will hate sin as much as he does. What if he suffers the objects of his wrath to show mercy to the objects of his affection.
The whole of creation groans as it waits for the sons of God to be revealed. I pray you will be revealed as one too.
I get where you are coming from though, I read about metal axe heads floating on water, shadows moving while the sun is not, men running faster than horses and fifty armed soldiers falling dead when they come against one of Gods prophets, it goes on and on, an outrageous affront to any human intelligence, I mean come on !! talking Donkeys? walking on water coming back from the dead, who on earth does God think he is expecting us to believe all this, my head is in turmoil trying to get to grips with all this, it just doesn’t make any sense at all, its sheer madness, Oh how I long for the peace that surpasses all understanding and yet he offers that too.
Your mind works within the confines of logic via calculation, God is not confined to the limits of what you understand. This is not fobbing you off because we have no answers, this is pleading with you not to allow yourself to be robbed of the most incredible adventure of your life. All you need is proof that God is real and that he is capable of doing all these things, and proof is what you are going to get.
I think you’ve made an important distinction about reading the Old Testament not only in light of the New Testament, but in light of Jesus and what his life and sacrifice tell us about the character of God.
Thanks, Dan. It is a tricky way of reading the Bible, but helps some of these violent texts in the Old Testament look more like Jesus.
“Though Abraham stopped at ten, one wonder how low God would have gone. Would God have gone to five? To one? What if Abraham had simply said, “My nephew, Lot, lives there. I doubt that even he is righteous, but I love him. Would you spare the city just for him?””
Jeremy, I just love this thought.
Sometimes I think we may never know what God “would have” done if we had just prayed….
“God” was a mortal being, that explains his temper and imperfections. He could of easily been our creator, or a multitude of mortal beings with advanced technologies and science. This would be interpreted as divine by humans at that time.
You’re a bit off here my friend, but nicely done. Just a little friendly critique.
As Jesus said in John 8:48, “before Abraham I am.” This means Jesus was God and God was Jesus to begin with. The Book of John 1:1 opens with, “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” So you see my friend In the beginning of creation, Jesus is God or better stated, “The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” is the Trinity and He is One God.
God is Omnipotent, meaning he can do anything. He could have stopped the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah at anytime. Just as he could have stopped Satans Wrath against Job or rescued Jonah from lounging around inside a whale 🐳 at sea. 😆😆😆 I thought we could both use a laugh. 😉
Much of God is a mystery by design in my opinion and we are not supposed to know everything about him. Lots wife looked back at the two cities being destroyed and she was turned into a pillar of salt. This is a not so subtle clue that once we are saved by Jesus, never to look or go back, right?
When studying the Bible you will learn that everything written in New Testament fulfills the Old Testament and vice versa. You will be much more accurate with your explanations and writings if you understand this first. You will also discover that people’s names all mean something, whether they be a location or a mountain, it’s all connected to ultimately fulfill prophecy. The Bible is mostly made up of prophecies.
Well done! I look forward to reading more from you. God bless you my friend.