Ask most people why God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and they will tell you that it was homosexuality. In fact, homosexuality has become so popular of an answer that its own popularity has established it as absolute. It's one of those issues that if you say something enough it becomes unquestioned fact. In the following study, I am not looking to justify or attack homosexuality; I am only looking at how the Bible writers used the story of Sodom and Gomorrah to speak to the issues of their own day.
But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good...(1 Thessalonians 5:21).
What I am looking for in this study is what the Old Testament tells us about Sodom and Gomorrah. Does it tell us that homosexuality was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah? Does it mention its brutality and gang rape? What did those two cities do that deserved total destruction? What sins destroy any country?
GENESIS
Genesis never comments on or explains anything about what happened at Sodom and Gomorrah. We get no further lessons or explanations...just the story.
Although Genesis offers us nothing more than the story, Genesis does give us a look into why God would destroy the entire world and all of its civilizations.
In the story of Noah, there was one sin mentioned that caused the destruction of the entire world. I'm sure there were plenty of other sins not mentioned, but only one was pointed out - violence (Genesis 6:11-13). In following context then, it would seem that violence was a major problem with Sodom and Gomorrah as well. At least, that is probably one of the reasons they faced certain destruction.
One thing to remember: The sexual violence of a mob was what sealed the doom of Sodom and Gomorrah. However, the angels came to Sodom and Gomorrah, not because of that sin, but rather because of the sins of those cities that had already committed before the angels visited. What those sins were, were never mentioned in Genesis.
DEUTERONOMY
In Deuteronomy God warned His people to stay away from idolatry, breaking the Covenant of Moses, and following other gods. To emphasize His point, Moses told he people that if they followed other gods and broke God's covenant, their land would become like Sodom and Gomorrah (IE: it would be uninhabitable and unable to produce).
Using Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of how powerful God's wrath can be is typical for most of the Old Testament. Deuteronomy is also typical for the Old Testament, because it says nothing about why God destroyed the two cities. Instead, the OT writers use the Sodom and Gomorrah story as a lesson against the sins of their own day. In the day Deuteronomy was written, the issue of homosexuality was not as important as the issue of idolatry or breaking the covenant that Israel had with God.
We will see from other OT passages that when the OT writers thought about Sodom and Gomorrah, they looked at their own day and saw how their own issues (issues usually unrelated to homosexuality) led to a Sodom and Gomorrah, fire and brimstone/wrath of God destruction.
ISAIAH
The very look on their faces gives them away. They display their sin like the people of Sodom and don't even try to hide it. They are doomed! They have brought destruction upon themselves (Isaiah 3:9).
Like Deuteronomy, Isaiah uses the Sodom and Gomorrah story as a lesson for his own people in his own time. Isaiah says that God's people parade their sins just like Sodom and Gomorrah (whose sin he does not mention) - thus giving an indirect warning of destruction with the rebuke. But what is the sin or what are the sins in Isaiah's day? The verse immediately before Isiah 3:9 says that what the people were saying and doing were evil... but what were they saying and doing? It doesn't say. But the verses following summarize what was on Isaiah's heart from the very beginning of the book:
The LORD comes forward to pronounce judgment on the elders and rulers of his people: "You have ruined Israel, my vineyard. Your houses are filled with things stolen from the poor. How dare you crush my people, grinding the faces of the poor into the dust?" demands the Lord, the LORD of Heaven's Armies (Isaiah 3:14-15).
Isaiah 1 also uses the example of the two cities for the same purpose and because of the same sin. In a nutshell, according to Isaiah, Israel's sin was their poor treatment of the poor.
In other Isaiah passages:
1. In chapter one (verse 10), Isaiah calls the leadership of Israel "Rulers of Sodom and Gomorrah," who practice God's Law in sacrificing and festivals but ignore the needs of the poor and the powerless.
2. In the same chapter (1:9), Isaiah uses Sodom and Gomorrah as examples of what Israel would become if the Lord did not intervene and leave behind a remnant of survivors.
3. Babylon will be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah because of its pride and because it conquered Jerusalem and its temple (Isaiah 13-14).
JEREMIAH
Chapter 23
Like Isaiah, Jeremiah used the story of Sodom and Gomorrah for the sins of his own time. The sins in Jeremiah 23 were:
1. Prophets committed adultery.
2. Prophets lied.
3. Prophets led people astray.
4. Prophets didn't warn people about the consequences of their sins, instead they encouraged them.
5. Prophets didn't warn people of God's coming wrath.
6. Prophets said they spoke for God when they did not know what God really wanted to say. In other words they spoke from what was on their own hearts.
In other Jeremiah passages:
1. Because Edom terrified people and was proud, God will make it like Sodom and Gomorrah - nobody will live there again (Jer. 49:15-19).
2. Because Babylon gloated over the taking of Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and grew fat from the spoils, God will make them like Sodom and Gomorrah - nobody will live there again (Jer. 50).
EZEKIEL
Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen
(Ezekiel 16:49-50).
Although every other biblical writer mentioned above and below focused on the sins of their own day, and compared those sins to the undefined evil of Sodom and Gomorrah; Ezekiel took this to a whole new level. Indeed, we will see that in other verses Ezekiel used the Sodom and Gomorrah story in the same way as the other writers - pointing out that like Sodom and Gomorrah they will fall, and like those two cities, evil has permeated his present era - but in this passage, Ezekiel sees the sins of his own day, and says those same sins are the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. In doing this, Ezekiel is the first and only Old Testament writer to tell us the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were.
What were the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah?
1. The sins were the same sins we see everywhere in our own day - people in Sodom and Gomorrah were living a good life while they were unconcerned about the needs of the poor and the needy.
2. They were arrogant.
3. They practiced detestable things.
Even though detestable things are not defined, I would assume that they are related to Sodom's men wanting to rape the two visitors of Sodom.
It is possible that Ezekiel felt that homosexuality was detestable (as the writer of Leviticus did - although both of these are under debate), but homosexuality is not openly stated in Ezekiel.
It is highly likely that Ezekiel named the sins that compelled two angels to come into Sodom in order to judge whether or not to destroy the cities. These were the sins that reached to the heavens because they were so evil and had built up to an incredibly burdensome amount. Homosexual rape was only the outward manifestation of deeper evil that had been brooding within the culture of Sodom and Gomorrah... the sins of injustice and pride.
THERE ARE SINS WORSE THAN SODOM AND GOMORRAH'S
You not only walked in their ways and copied their detestable practices, but in all your ways you soon became more depraved than they (Ezekiel 16:47).
In the same context of the previous section, Ezekiel tells his audience that Israel's sinfulness, corruption and depravities are worse those of Sodom and Gomorrah's. This means there ars sins that are worse than neglecting the poor and worse than homosexual rape. In fact, Israel's sins during the time of Ezekiel were so bad than it made Sodom and Gomorrah righteous in comparison (Ezekiel 16:51-52).
WHAT IS THE SIN WORSE THAN SODOM AND GOMORRAH'S?
Ezekiel 16:59 briefly mentions breaking the Covenant, which is possibly the sin that Ezekiel believes is worse than Sodom and Gomorrah's sin. I say "possibly" because although it is the only sin mention in this section, it is very possible that Ezekiel was generalizing about all types of sin. And yet, it is intriguing that he does mention breaking the covenant....
If breaking the covenant is worse than any sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, we have a whole new can of worms, a whole new study; how was Israel breaking the covenant? For that you will need to look elsewhere.
OTHER BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Amos 4:11 uses Sodom and Gomorrah as comparisons to the overthrow of Jerusalem.
"I destroyed some of your cities, as I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Those of you who survived were like charred sticks pulled from a fire. But still you would not return to me," says the LORD.
In Zephaniah 2:9, Moab is compared to Sodom, and Edom is compared to Gomorrah because they will be destroyed.
Neither of these two verses reveal anything new about Sodom and Gomorrah.
CONCLUSIONS
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah must have been a popular story in Israel. After Genesis the writers of the Bible never needed to retell the story because their audience knew it already.
We cannot go back and ask the common person what lessons and warnings they gleened from the story of the two cities; but we do have a few writers who gave their own commentaries on the story. For these writers the lessons were not about homosexuality, violence, treatment of the stranger or rape. For them the lessons from Sodom and Gomorrah were precisely this: God can and will destroy a city or a nation when it becomes too sinful.
The sins that destroy any nation depended upon the time the writer was writing. Throughout the Old Testament, idolatry, breaking God's covenant, corrupt leadership and neglecting the needs of the poor were on top of the list of the sins that best mirrored the evil of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The only place in the Old Testament that clearly mentions the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah is found in Ezekiel. Surprisingly, Ezekiel does not point to the rape, homosexuality, or violence of Sodom; rather he focuses on the economic immorality going on in Sodom and Gomorrah more than anything else. As a sidenote he mentions that they also committed detestable things. Unfortuneately, "detestable things' is left undefined, leaving us to our assumptions.
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