The Permanent Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
As I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah along with their neighboring towns,” declares the Lord, “so no one will live there; no people will dwell in it.” – Jeremiah 50:40
In the land of ancient Israel, the site of Sodom and Gomorrah has been discovered. Researchers have suggested that the destruction could have been caused by the mid-air explosion of a massive meteor [1], but the Bible gives us an explanation of what really happened that is even more spectacular. Nevertheless, what they found is evidence of a massive fiery destruction of the entire plain. The area is near the Dead Sea, and to this day it is a wasteland where no one lives, as Jeremiah prophesied when he said that Babylon would be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah. [Some may see this as a trivial fulfillment, but to have declared thousands of years ago that a place would be wasteland forever, and for it to now still be a wasteland, four-thousand years later, seems impressive to me.]
[1] Ted E. Bunch, et al. “A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea.” Scientific Reports, v. 11, n. 1 (2021): 1-64.
The Land a Continual Waste
Ezekiel foretold that not only would there be a return of the Jews to the Holy Land in the last days, but also that when they did return, it would be to a land that had been a continual waste up until that time. It is a striking prophecy, considering that Israel was once a very lush land. It quickly became a wasteland, though, after the destruction of Jerusalem, and it remained that way for almost two millennia. We also see that this is one more verse promising to regather the exiles.
After many days you will be called to arms. In future years you will invade a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate. They had been brought out from the nations, and now all of them live in safety. – Ezekiel 38:8
It is well documented that Palestine was a continual waste up until the time of the creation of the state of Israel. In fact, Mark Twain, in his visit to the Holy Land in 1867, said this to say:
“Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent…It is a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land…Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes… Where Sodom and Gomorrah reared their domes and towers, that solemn sea now floods the plain, in whose bitter waters no living thing exists – over whose waveless surface the blistering air hangs motionless and dead… Nazareth is forlorn; about that ford of Jordan where the hosts of Israel entered the Promised Land with songs of rejoicing, one finds only a squalid camp of fantastic Bedouins of the desert; Jericho the accursed, lies a moldering ruin today, even as Joshua’s miracle left it more than three thousand years ago; Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and their humiliation, have nothing about them now to remind one that they once knew the high honor of the leader’s presence; the hal-lowed spot where the shepherds watched their flocks by night, and where the angels sang Peace on earth, good will to men, is untenanted by any living creature, and unblessed by any feature that is pleasant to the eye. Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and is become a pauper village; the riches of Solomon are no longer there to compel the admiration of visiting Oriental queens; the wonderful temple which was the pride and the glory of Israel, is gone… Capernaum is a shapeless ruin… Bethsaida and Chorazin have vanished from the earth, and the “desert places” round about them where thousands of men once listened to the leader’s voice and ate the miraculous bread, sleep in the hush of a solitude that is inhabited only by birds of prey and skulking foxes. Palestine is desolate and unlovely.” – Mark Twain [2]
Mark Twain was not famously given to an ardent and fanatical faith in God and the Scriptures; but in his account of his visit to the Holy Land, his faith in the events of Scripture is expressed in his recognition of the places where biblical events occurred. For example, he noted that “Jericho the accursed, lies a moldering ruin today, even as Joshua’s miracle left it more than three thousand years ago.” This shows that Twain believed in the miracles of the Bible. Twain refers to Jesus Christ as “the leader,” but with reverence. And Twain indirectly demonstrated that he understood Christ’s prophecy regarding Bethsaida and Chorazin, when he remarked that those two cities had “vanished from the earth,” an allusion to Jesus’ pronouncement in Matthew 11:21-23. But Twain’s descriptions confirm the poor condition of the land prior to the return of the Jews as a nation (as prophesied); however, it is obvious that one could no longer call the land of Israel a wasteland. Once again, it has been built up and is flourishing.
“Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day.” – Matthew 11:21-23
![View looking SW toward Jerusalem circa 1898 [3].](https://s3.amazonaws.com/revue/items/images/015/146/438/mail/Jerusalem_cityscapes_LOC_matpc.08440.jpg?1649352106 "View looking SW toward Jerusalem circa 1898 [3].")
![View looking SW toward Jerusalem in 2011 [4].](https://s3.amazonaws.com/revue/items/images/015/146/398/mail/Jerusalem_Old_City_2011_COLOR.jpeg?1649351891 "View looking SW toward Jerusalem in 2011 [4].")
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