town or village

Gomorrah

• Today in the Valley of Siddim
• Location disputed

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History

Gomorrah is almost never named without Sodom. Genesis lists it at the edge of Canaan, "unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim", and gives its king a name, Birsha, who joined the four other kings of the plain against Chedorlaomer; when they were beaten in the vale of Siddim, the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fell into its slime pits. Like Sodom, Gomorrah has never been located, and this map marks it at the same point, at the south end of the Dead Sea.

Among the Early Bronze Age sites east of the southern Dead Sea, the one most often proposed for Gomorrah is Numeira, a small walled town on the Wadi en-Numeira that the Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain of Walter Rast and Thomas Schaub excavated between 1977 and 1983. It was lived in only during the Early Bronze III period, a matter of a few centuries at most, and ended in fire, never to be resettled. Those who pair it with Bab edh-Dhra as Gomorrah and Sodom point to the burning; others object that it was a village, not a city, and that its end, in the third millennium BC, is hard to fit with the patriarchal stories. Others link the name of the wadi with the waters of Nimrim in Isaiah's oracle on Moab.

In Genesis the Lord rains brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, and in the morning Abraham sees the smoke of the land go up "as the smoke of a furnace". After that Gomorrah lives on as a word for judgement: Deuteronomy pictures a land of brimstone and salt like the overthrow of the four cities; Isaiah says that without a remnant Judah would have been like unto Gomorrah, a verse Paul quotes in Romans; Jeremiah likens the inhabitants of Jerusalem to Gomorrah; Amos and the Gospel of Matthew name it beside Sodom.

Ancient writers still looked for the five cities by the Dead Sea. Josephus said traces of them could be seen; in the fourth century Eusebius' Onomasticon calls Gomorra one of the five cities of Sodom, destroyed together with the rest, and names Zoar as the only one that survived.

Scripture: Gen 10:19; Gen 14:2; Gen 14:10; Gen 19:24–28; Deut 29:23; Isa 1:9; Rom 9:29; Jer 23:14; Amos 4:11; Matt 10:15; Isa 15:6

Checked against its sources; not yet read by a historian.

Verses (24)

Gen 10:19

And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha.

Gen 13:10

And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar.

Gen 14:2

That these made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar.

Gen 14:8

And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar;) and they joined battle with them in the vale of Siddim;

Gen 14:10

And the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain.

Gen 14:11

And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way.

Gen 18:20

And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;

Gen 19:24

Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;

Gen 19:28

And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.

Deut 29:23

And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:

Deut 32:32

For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter:

Isa 1:9

Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.

Isa 1:10

Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.

Isa 13:19

And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.

Jer 23:14

I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.

Jer 49:18

As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, saith the LORD, no man shall abide there, neither shall a son of man dwell in it.

Jer 50:40

As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, saith the LORD; so shall no man abide there, neither shall any son of man dwell therein.

Amos 4:11

I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.

Zeph 2:9

Therefore as I live, saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, even the breeding of nettles, and saltpits, and a perpetual desolation: the residue of my people shall spoil them, and the remnant of my people shall possess them.

Matt 10:15

Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.

Mark 6:11

And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.

Rom 9:29

And as Esaias said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Gomorrha.

2 Pet 2:6

And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;

Jude 1:7

Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

King James Version