GOMORRAH

GOMORRAH
(Go·mor´rah).
One of “the cities of the District” probably located near the southern end of the Dead Sea. (Ge 13:12) Sodom and Gomorrah were apparently the chief of these cities. Their ruins are believed by many scholars to be presently submerged under the waters of the Dead Sea, though some others recently have claimed that the ruins of the cities may be identified with sites along wadis to the E and SE of the Dead Sea. In Abraham’s time the region was described as “well-watered . . . like the garden of Jehovah.” (Ge 13:10; see DISTRICT OF THE JORDAN.) During the time that Lot, Abraham’s nephew, resided in this fertile District, King Birsha of Gomorrah along with the kings of four other cities of the District rebelled against the domination of Chedorlaomer of Elam and three other allied kings. They were attacked and fled, some of their soldiers falling into the numerous bitumen pits in the area. Sodom and Gomorrah were sacked by the Eastern kings, who took Lot captive.—Ge 14:1-12.
More than 14 years later, the outcry of complaint about the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah became so great that Jehovah sent angels to inspect the situation and then to destroy the cities by a rain of fire and sulfur.—Ge 18:20, 21; 19:24, 28.
The thoroughness of the destruction of these cities was afterward used as a symbol of complete and everlasting annihilation. (De 29:22, 23; Isa 1:9; 13:19; Jer 49:18) Jehovah figuratively expressed the depth of wickedness to which the rulers and people of Judah and Jerusalem had sunk when he addressed them through the prophet Isaiah: “Hear the word of Jehovah, you dictators of Sodom. Give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah.”—Isa 1:1, 10; Jer 23:14.
The apostle Peter said that by reducing Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes, God condemned them, “setting a pattern for ungodly persons of things to come.” (2Pe 2:6) This mention by Peter and references by Jesus Christ and Jude prove that Jesus and his disciples acknowledged that these cities of the District had actually existed and that they accepted the Biblical account of them as true. Though the cities underwent “the judicial punishment of everlasting fire” (Jude 7), Jesus indicated that people of Sodom and Gomorrah would experience a resurrection to stand for judgment. He contrasted them with a city that rejected his disciples in their preaching of the Kingdom good news, saying: “It will be more endurable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on Judgment Day than for that city.”—Mt 10:7, 14, 15; see SODOM.