Genesis 19:24

A consideration of the probable nature of this awful visitation will explain the vivid statement of the text. As was pointed out in Genesis 14, the whole neighbourhood of the Dead Sea abounds in sulphur and bitumen, furnishing the materials for the terrible conflagration which ensued. Probably a convulsion of the earth released some springs of naphtha which flowed through the cities and ignited. In our own days when the petroleum springs at Baku in the Caspian become accidentally ignited, they burn for days. The note on Genesis 14:3 explains in what sense the site of the guilty cities can be said to be covered by the waters of the Dead Sea. Their destruction was due to the agency of fire, not of water. The latter condition of this once fertile and populous district is referred to in Deuteronomy 29:23; Deuteronomy 29:2 Esther 2:8; href='190 2:2'>Est 2:2 Esther 2:9.

On the religious significance Dean Payne Smith says: 'Though God used natural agencies in the destruction of the cities of the plain, yet what was in itself a catastrophe of nature became miraculous by the circumstances which surrounded it. It was thus made the means not merely of executing the divine justice, of strengthening Abraham's faith, and of warning Lot, but also of giving moral and religious instruction for all time.'