Unless the LORD Almighty had left us some survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah. – Isaiah 1:9

Today's Scripture Reading (March 6, 2023): Isaiah 1

Warning: This post contains some disturbing content.

Sodom and Gomorrah were cities believed to have existed at the south end of the Dead Sea. The cities were supposed to be under God's judgment because of the rampant homosexuality that existed in the city. However, that narrative does not make much sense when compared to the biblical story. The belief comes from the narrative that the men of the city went to the house of Lot and demanded that his two male visitors, who are believed to be angels, be brought out so that they could have sex with them. We are supposed to believe that homosexuality was so rampant in the city that the men of the town needed new meat to satisfy their desires. But even if this understanding of the narrative is true, it is the rape of which the men of the town would be guilty. A companion story in Judges 19, which follows the same plot as Sodom and Gomorrah, differs only in that it does not have a supernatural, good ending. Instead of God stepping down from heaven to stop the abusive sexuality in Gibeah, the men of the town are allowed to follow their vicious path. Still, rather than having sex with a Levite, which is what the men were demanding, they raped his female concubine repeatedly until she was dead. I remain unconvinced that the rape of the concubine is any better because it happened through "natural" sexual relations between a man and a woman rather than "unnatural sexual relations" between two men.

For me, and I need to clarify that this is my opinion, the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was a violation of hospitality. And I don't think in our mobile world, where restaurants exist on almost every busy street and motels and hotels dot our major highways and are clustered around our significant attractions, it is hard to get our heads around the need for hospitality in a world where these things didn't exist. So, in Sodom, Gomorrah, and the cities of the plain, as well as in Gibeah in Judges 19, I believe that the major sin of these cities was that instead of treating visitors as welcome guests, they used sexual abuse so that the visitor was humiliated, and would hopefully never return to the town. It was a well-established practice for treating enemy prisoners, borne out of humiliation and not sexual desire.

But whatever the sin, Sodom and Gomorrah were under God's judgment, and the cities were destroyed by fire from heaven. Some experts believe there might have been some seismic activity in the area that caused the Dead Sea to eject hot tar from the sea, destroying the cities. But again, regardless of how God did it, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as their sister cities, were so completely destroyed that we don't even know where the cities might have been. If it were not for the mentions of the city in Scripture, the cities of plain could have simply disappeared from our history with no one even knowing that they had once existed.

And Isaiah makes the point that the same could have happened in Israel. The only reason why the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah are remembered is that, unlike what happened at Sodom and Gomorrah, God left a few people, a remnant, that would keep the memory of the tribes of Jacob alive for generations to come.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Isaiah 2