Sodom and Gomorrah: An Ancient Curse & A Modern Plague

 

While reading through the pages of the Old Testament, also known as the Hebrew Bible, are we confronted with an extremely ominous act of God which occurred in ancient times. However, this divine judgment from the distant past has also created much controversy for many of us living in the modern era who are uncomfortable with the suggested reason for why God's wrath was so fervently kindled towards a particular people group. And this Biblical story, which has been cited by preachers and revisited by conservatives, is infamously known as Sodom and Gomorrah. To begin with,  it is understood that God destroyed these cities due to the rampant sin of homosexuality which was practiced by the town's inhabitants. Going further, the English word sodomy (and its meaning) has come down to us by referencing the city of Sodom, which was known as a human settlement filled with men who reveled in anal sex. But as we shall discover, sodomy also includes oral sex, even when practiced between heterosexuals: men and women. Now the aim of this presentation is not to judge or condemn any particular person or persons who engage in such activities, neither is this a discourse on sex education, even though some of what is said will indeed be quite graphic. Rather, the point of tackling this sensitive subject has the intended goal of objectively looking at what God has said concerning certain sex acts, as taken directly from the righteous teachings found in both the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Bible.

At first glance it may appear, from what is found written in the book of Genesis, that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in response to their shameful acts of unbridled homosexuality. However, another reason for why the Lord rained down fire and brimstone upon the cities of the plain could have been due to their inhospitable treatment towards the poor and needy (Ezekiel 16:49). Now the tradition of displaying hospitality to guests, and even unto strangers, is a praiseworthy virtue which has been upheld by the people of the Middle East, going all the way back to the most ancient of days. For according to the Bible, while the men of Sodom were ignoring the needs of others, the Hebrew patriarch and prophet Abraham showed forth brotherly love and compassion towards three mysterious men who were passing by him in the plains of Mamre (Genesis 18:1-8). This act of kindness demonstrated by Abraham is also referenced in the New Testament, where it is written, "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares" (Hebrews 13:2). On the other hand, these same angels whom Abraham entertained were later sought after by the men of Sodom, but not for tea and the breaking of bread, but in the hopes of gratifying their base, carnal, and abominable sexual desires (Genesis 19:5). So, in the end it is evident that God's decision to destroy the men of Sodom was due to their exceeding wickedness (Genesis 13:13).

To further emphasize how much God detests the sin of homosexuality, it is elsewhere revealed in the law of Moses that even cross dressing is considered as something ungodly and sinful in the eyes of the Lord. For as it is written, "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God" (Deuteronomy 22:5). From this passage it is clearly understood how serious of a sin homosexuality is. For even if one is not engaged in the act of sex with one's same gender, just by the act of a man or woman dressing up in clothing suited for the opposite sex is enough to sorely displease the Lord. So, it is important for men and women to fulfill and embrace the roles that are best suited for the particular gender that they were born with, and not go outside the boundaries of their gender and begin to identify as another gender. Remember, God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them (Genesis 1:27). Since God created only two genders, and made man and woman in His image, then if a man or woman begins to identify as another gender then that person is defying God and is in turn distorting the image of God by which they were originally created in. This is a huge sin, and it can be easily understood why such an action is considered as an abomination unto the Lord.

In the New Testament, Sodom and Gomorrah (and their judgment) are also referenced in a few different places. In 2 Peter 2:6 it is written how God turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, making their fate an example towards all others who would chose to live an ungodly lifestyle. In Jude 1:7 we see that because of giving themselves over to fornication, and going after "strange flesh" Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Even Christ Himself spoke of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and stated how these sinful cities will be punished on the day of judgment (Luke 17:29 & Matthew 10:15). The Apostle Paul also makes mention of the sin of homosexuality practiced by both men and women, and relates that because of these vile affections God has given them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient (Romans 1:26-28). Now some may argue that homosexuals are born that way, and state how they can't help the fact that they are attracted to the same gender as themselves. Yet even if someone was truly born that way, it is their responsibility to struggle to overcome these inherited iniquities, by living a life of repentance according to the Lord's commandments. Just as heterosexuals must struggle not to engage in fornication or adultery, so too must homosexuals deny the flesh presenting their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service (Romans 12:1).

As already touched upon it is not only homosexuals who can engage in sodomy, but it is also possible for heterosexuals to practice unnatural sex acts such as sodomy. For according to the dogma of the Orthodox Church, anal sex between a man and a woman is forbidden along with oral sex between a man and a woman, even if the couples are married. The function of sex is for the procreation of children, so engaging in any type of sexual act that makes it impossible for children to be birthed is considered a sin. For the Church includes oral sex within the definition of sodomy and has emphatically denounced this practice as unnatural and against the law of God. So it is not only homosexuals who are guilty of sodomy, but heterosexuals are also under condemnation if they continue to engage in unnatural sex acts, which are forbidden under the Lord's commandments and by the canons of the Church. Again I am not personally condemning anyone, nor do I think myself more righteous than my neighbor. However, my intention in pointing out these issues is to bring awareness to the general public the dangers of certain activities which people today may not realize are wrong, and therefore I encourage all of us (including myself) to live a life of repentance in devotion to God, His law, and His word.

Now some may say that the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were not actual historical cities, but rather are nothing more than Jewish fables. However, it is believed that the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah have indeed been discovered. For in the Holy Land, near the Dead Sea, there appears to be evidence that at one time there was in fact some type of civilization in this location which corresponds to what is found written in the Bible. For when examining the terrain towards the southern end of the Dead Sea, there seems to be man made structures in which one can find clumps of sulfur embedded in the "walls." These ruined walls by the Dead Sea speckled with sulfur may support the Biblical narrative of God raining down fire and brimstone upon the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24). It is also held that the reason why the Dead Sea gets its name is due to its high concentration of salt, making it impossible for any type of life-form to exist or sustain itself in that intensely saline body of water. This scientific fact could also lend credibility to the Bible story since it is written how the cities of the plain were all joined together by the salt sea (Genesis 14:3). Whether one believes in the Bible or not, it is a fact that the territories surrounding the Dead Sea, where the story of Sodom takes place, are now completely desolate with not even a single blade of grass being able to grow.

In closing I would like to suggest that an event similar to what God did in the distant past to Sodom and Gomorrah could also be done again in the near future if certain individuals do not repent for their perverted sexual immortality. Outside of what is written in the Bible, the Saints of the Orthodox Church have also written about how much God detests the sins of the flesh. A warning of God's judgment towards practicing sodomites has even come forth from the lips of a contemporary holy elder of the Orthodox Church, who reposed in the Lord on the 7th of December in 2019. For a few years before he died, the holy and blessed Elder Ephraim of Arizona spoke to some of his spiritual children concerning the sin of sodomy, and sexual immortality in general. The Elder had this to say: "The Old Testament says: "My spirit will not remain with man because they are flesh." This applies today. Sodom burned just like a nuclear bomb. Christ does not tolerate such sins. Everywhere the sins of the flesh are worshiped. There is no repentance. The Venerable Mary of Egypt repented. All homosexuals will be eliminated. Everything will become dirt, nuclear, all dirt. The war will begin because of our sins." So even coming from such a pure and genuine vessel of the Holy Spirit, like that of Elder Ephraim, do we realize that God is not only love, but that the Lord is also vengeful. God is to be feared and not mocked. For as it is written, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31).

References:

Zondervan. The Holy Bible, King James Version. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2009).

https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2014/08/a-conversation-with-elder-ephraim-of.html?m=1

Origins of The Ishmaelites and The Israelites

 

The tribe of Judah was a subset of the kingdom of Judah, but there were other Hebrew tribes which belonged to the kingdom of Judah which also made them Jewish, such as the tribes of Benjamin and Levi, for example. The English term Jew originates from the Biblical Hebrew word Yehudi, meaning "from the Kingdom of Judah." For a Jew was originally a person from the kingdom of Judah, not the tribe of Judah. What makes things a little confusing is that the kingdom of Judah was named after the tribe of Judah, which was the royal tribe of the kingdom. For the term "Jew" didn’t start out as a descendant identifier, but rather as a national identifier. The word Jew would later go on to include an even broader spectrum which included all the twelve tribes of Israel, but it was never used to identify a single tribe. The attempt of this work will be an effort to clear up the misunderstandings of who is a Jew, and this presentation will also strive to identify the origins of the Ishmaelites, a people group who share the patriarch Abraham as a common ancestor along with the Jews.

Now when it comes to the account of the Ishmaelites, as found in the pages of the book of Genesis, it is clearly understood that Ishmael and his descendants were of both Semitic and Hamitic bloodlines. For example, Ishmael's father Abraham was a Hebrew from the lineage of Shem, and Ishmael's mother was an Egyptian from the lineage of Ham. Going further, we also see that Hagar, Ishmael's Egyptian mother, took for him a wife out of the land of Egypt (Genesis 21:21). So even though Ishmael possessed Hebraic roots through the lineage of his Hebrew father Abraham, Ishmael's descendants would also share strong racial ties to the Egyptians due to the matriarchal elements of both his Egyptian mother and his Egyptian wife. Therefore, the ethnic origins of the ancient Ishmaelites lean more in the direction of the Hamitic races, rather than dominantly stemming from the ancient Semitic people groups. Yet even though the Ishmaelites are of Hamitic stock through their matriarchal DNA, their tribal heritage is firstly Hebraic due to Ishmael's descendant from Abraham who was a Hebrew. For when two people of different ethnicities have children, their offspring are associated with the father's race, due to the dominance of the patriarchal DNA. So even though the Ishmaelites retained much Hamitic blood, they are also classified as Semitic due to their lineage and descent from Abraham.

Concerning Abraham and his people, we see that the geographical area of ancient Mesopotamia was the homeland of the various Semitic tribes which Abraham was a part of. More specifically, Abraham and his entire family originally lived in the Sumerian city state of Ur of the Chaldees, before Abraham was called by Yahweh to leave the land of his birth and go to a land that the Lord would show him (Genesis 12:1). Also in Genesis 14:13 Abraham is called a Hebrew, for it is understood that the title of Hebrew originated with Eber, a distant ancestor of Abraham. Now, the Hebrew word Eber is connected with crossing over. Considering that other names for the descendants of Shem also stand for places, Eber can also be considered the name of an area, perhaps near Assyria. The prevailing view of scholars is that the Hebrews had received their name from Eber, while also pointing out that the name "Hebrew" meant "those who cross", in reference to those who crossed the Euphrates river with Abraham from Ur to Harran, and then to the land of Canaan.

When examining the name "Canaan", we see that it appears all throughout the Old Testament, especially in Genesis where it corresponds to "the Levant", in particularly the areas of the Southern Levant which provides the main setting for the stories found within the Bible. Though the term Canaan referred to a physical location, Canaan was also the name of one of the sons of Ham. For shortly after the Great Flood, the Bible tells us that Noah cursed Canaan the son of Ham, due to Ham uncovering his father's nakedness (Genesis 9:20-27). Now the descendants of Ham are believed to have populated the continent of Africa, and due to the fact that Noah cursed Canaan the son of Ham and prophesied that he would be a servant of servants to his brethren, this has led many to conclude that the plight of the African slave trade can be traced back to the curse placed upon Canaan by his grandfather Noah. However, it is traditionally held that the land of Canaan was not originally populated by Hamites but by Semitic peoples, namely the Phoenicians, within the territory we know today as the country of Lebanon and parts of the modern state of Israel. Additionally, in the Book of Joshua, Canaanites were included in the list of nations that God commanded the Israelites to exterminate. So whether Canaan was African or Lebanese, the fact remains that Canaan was cursed. Yet since the name associated with a generational curse is the same name used to denote a blessed piece of real-estate, described in the Bible as a land flowing with milk and honey, a further study into this anomaly is indeed required, but is beyond the scope of this present work to be expanded upon.

Returning to the origins of the Israelites, the Bible tells us that the second born son of Abraham, and the firstborn to his wife Sarah, was named Isaac who is also known as the child of promise. For it would be through Isaac's bloodline that the promised Messiah would eventually be birthed from, but not through the descendants of Ishmael, Isaac's half-brother. Isaac would go on to father Esau and Jacob. Though Esau was the eldest, the blessing of Isaac was given to Jacob instead through trickery. Esau, in turn, went on to marry the daughter of Ishmael, and his descendants would be known as the Edomites. Jacob, who would later be known by the name "Israel" a name that means to strive or to struggle with God, would father twelve sons which later developed into tribes. And this ancient Biblical family or people group are known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Due to certain circumstances, the initial family of Israel, numbering about seventy souls altogether, found themselves in the land of Egypt and settled there for a period of about 400 years. During their 400-year sojourn in the land of Egypt, the Israelites increased in number and were collectively known as the Hebrews.

After their Exodus from Egypt and their wanderings in the wilderness, the children of Israel established themselves in the promised land around the year 1400 BC or possibly even 1200 BC. At any rate, the Hebrews eventually formed themselves into the united kingdom of Israel around 1000 BC. In approximately 922 BC, the kingdom of Israel split into a northern kingdom, called Israel, and a southern kingdom, called Judah. Although all the twelve tribes were included in the Israelite ethnicity, inhabitants of the northern kingdom were Israelites also by virtue of being from the kingdom of Israel, while inhabitants of the southern kingdom were known as Judeans or Jews by virtue of being from the kingdom of Judah. However, with the destruction of the northern kingdom by the Assyrians in 722 BC, the only Israelites remaining were the Judeans, and thus the terms Israelite and Jew become somewhat interchangeable. The southern kingdom, consisting of two of the twelve tribes (specifically Benjamin and Judah) became known as Judah, and managed to survive until the year 586 BC, when the Babylonians conquered it. Jerusalem fell, the Temple was destroyed, and a large number of Judeans or Jews were deported into Babylon. Thus began the era of Jewish history known as the Babylonian Captivity.

Under Persian rule at the end of the sixth century BC, the Jews were released from their bondage in Babylon. Upon returning to their homeland, the areas around Jerusalem were now named Yehud and the term Yehudi (often translated “Jew” but more properly “Ju-dean”) referred to an inhabitant of Yehud or Judea. Also, it would be some centuries before the term Yehudi was understood to designate an adherent of the tradition of Judaism making one a Jew, rather than an inhabitant of the province of Judea making one a Judean. Concerning the term Hebrew, it is the name employed in some Biblical sources to designate the most ancient ancestors of the Israelite people. It is primarily an ethnic and linguistic term, denoting persons who spoke Hebrew. Now, what happened to the ten tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel after 722 BC, is a bit of a mystery. For it seems that they have been lost to history. But the tribal heritage of the members of the southern kingdom of Judah were preserved. For the inhabitants of Judea were made up of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, along with elements from the priestly tribe of Levi. And these tribes of Judea would now collectively be known simply as Jews.

In conclusion, it can be understood by combing through the entire Bible that a Jew is not just someone belonging to the tribe of Judah, but is a term that can also be applied to designate all those who make up the various tribes of the children of Israel. For in the Old Testament book of Esther 2:5; we see that someone from the tribe of Benjamin was referred to as a Jew. Also in the New Testament the Apostle Paul calls himself a Jew in Acts 21:39, where elsewhere Paul describes himself as "...of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew..." (Philippians 3:5). So from what has been presented in this work the terms Hebrew, Jew, and Israelite may have had different meanings at different times, spanning all throughout the history of the Hebrews, yet all three are appropriate in their various designations. For the names Hebrew and Jew, are both valid in their descriptions, which include all the twelve tribes of Israel.

References:

Hayes, C. Introduction to the Bible: The Open Yale Courses Series. (Yale University Press, 2012).

Strong, J. The New Strong's Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2010).

Zondervan. The Holy Bible, King James Version. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2009).