As the story begins, we read that Abraham’s nephew, Lot, who resides in Sodom, is sitting at the city gates when two angels disguised as men arrived. Lot greets them and invites them to his home to spend the night. There were no Hiltons, Motel 6, or even an inn without room in those days, so travelers had to rely on the kindnesses of strangers for lodgings. "Thanks," they say, "but no, thanks. We’ll just spend the night in the square." Not a good idea, Lot thinks to himself and urges the strangers so strongly that they relent and follow him home. Ever the gracious host, Lot feeds them, and then they prepare to retire.

Apparently, word of the arrival of the strangers spread through town like wildfire because pretty soon all the men of the town show up at Lot’s door demanding that the strangers show themselves. Verse 5 in the KJV reads, "…bring them out unto us that we may (yadtha’) know them." In the NIV this same verse reads, "…bring them out to us so that we can (yadtha’) have sex with them."

Lot goes outside to try to calm the townspeople down. "Don’t do this horrible thing," he tells them. He even offers his two virgin daughters to the crowd to do with them what they would, if only they would leave the strangers in peace, "Get out of our way. You’re just a foreigner who came here not so long ago yourself, and now you’re trying to act like a judge. We’ll treat you worse than them." As the crowd moves toward Lot the strangers pull Lot into the house and secure the door. Suddenly all the men outside are struck blind and they wear themselves out trying unsuccessfully to find the door.

With the coming of dawn, the strangers lead Lot, his wife and two daughters out of the city. "Run for your lives! Don’t look back and don’t stop anywhere!" And God rained down burning sulfur (fire and brimstone (KJV)) on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and destroyed them.

Is this condensed version of the Sodom and Gomorrah story about homosexuality? Did God condemn the Sodomites for being homosexual? Would God have destroyed these two cities and all its inhabitants for this one incident of bad behavior? Before we begin to examine this story, I believe it is important to note that in spite of what is written in the first sentence above, except for the most radical of fundamentalists, most religious institutions no longer consider this tale as having any relationship to homosexuality. There is too much evidence to the contrary from several quarters. We will examine them.

Lot was a relative newcomer to Sodom. Genesis 13 tells us that Abraham and his nephew, Lot, had sojourned together, but that their respective entourages had gotten so large that the land they traveled through could not support all of them, so they decided to go their separate ways. Lot and his family chose to migrate toward Sodom. Apparently, they hadn’t been living in the city too long before the strangers (angels) arrived.

It seems to be the nature of people to tend to be suspicious of newcomers. This was especially true in those days where towns often were attacked and raided by roving bands of hooligans. Lot may have been there long enough to have won token acceptance, but when he invited two more strangers to his home, this action drew the immediate attention of the community.

Is it possible that, fearing a threat to the city, the men stormed Lot’s house determined to find out (yadtha’) who these men were and exactly what were their intentions? Did the Sodomites suspect the strangers were a scouting party sent to infiltrate the city to find out its weaknesses and report back to an army waiting outside the city gates to lay siege to it? Could it be that in storming Lot’s door they were saying, "Who are these men? Bring them out here so that we can find out exactly what they are up to?"

Did God decide to destroy the cities because of what the Sodomites said and did as recorded in Chapter 19? No! All the way back in Chapter 13:13 we read that the people of Sodom were wicked sinners against God.

God makes God’s intention known in Chapter 18. There we read that three beings approach Abraham as he rests in front of his tent. Scripture identifies the beings as the Lord and two angels, though Abraham recognizes them as three men. He extends his hospitality to them, and after they eat they tell Abraham that in the next year he will have a son. Sarah, who has been eavesdropping, starts to laugh at the absurdity of her having children at her advanced age. When the Lord confronts Sarah about the laughter she denies it, but the Lord rejects her denial. Now Abraham realizes with whom he is speaking.

Then God tells Abraham that because of their wickedness Sodom and Gomorrah are in danger of being destroyed. God will send the two angels to the city to determine the extent of its wickedness. Immediately Abraham thinks of Lot and his family and begins to try to bargain with God for their safety. "Would you destroy the righteous with the wicked?" Abraham asks. "Would you destroy the city if there were fifty good people there?" "No." "How about if there were forty good people, would you destroy it then?" "No." "Thirty?" "No." "Twenty?" "No." "Ten?" "No." God would not destroy the city if ten good people could be found there. However, as Chapter 19:4 tells us, all the men of the town were gathered there, beating on Lot’s door, sealing their fate. But what was their sin? Was it homosexuality, or something else?

We need to examine this word yadtha,’ which is translated to know in the KJV and have sex with in the NIV. There are many Hebrew words that are translated to know. Used in Scripture, yadtha’ means to have complete and thorough knowledge of something or someone, and includes having sexual knowledge. But, of the 943 times yadtha’ is used in the Hebrew Scriptures, only ten times does it refer to having sexual intercourse. That means there are 933 times when this word is used when it does not refer to sex.

Other than trying to find out the intentions of Lot’s houseguests, what were the townsmen up to when you surrounded Lot’s house? It is easy to understand that if they believed that the strangers were infiltrators, they’d want to overpower and subdue them. How would they do that? It was common practice in the Middle East in those days that when you defeated someone in battle, to humiliate your prisoner you would force him into anal intercourse. You would rape him.

It is evident that Lot assumed that the townsmen were bent on rape, because he offered his virgin daughters to them. While we would find Lot’s offer repugnant today, in Lot’s time the Law of Hospitality and protection of guests superceded love and protection of family. In fact, it correctly can be inferred that the damning behavior of the Sodomites was the breaking of their own Code of Hospitality with regard to the strangers.

The New Oxford Annotated Bible states:  "…the main issue here is hospitality to secretly divine visitors. Here, however, the sanctity of hospitality is threatened by the men of the city who wish to rape (know) the guests. Though disapproval of male homosexual rape is assumed here, the primary point of the text is how this threat by the townspeople violates the value of hospitality. Hospitality is valued so strongly in this context that this text positively portrays Lot’s offer of his virgin daughters in place of his guests."

Was the code of hospitality really that serious in those days? When you realize that travelers left alone overnight on byways or in town squares were vulnerable to attack from thieves and marauders–that a friendly open door could mean the difference between life and death–you readily see the importance of a willingness to be hospitable.

Was breaking the code of hospitality really one of the reasons that Sodom was condemned? Jesus thought so. As reported in Matthew 10 and also in Luke 10, Jesus sends out His disciples and gives them authority to heal the sick, drive out evil spirits and preach the good news. He instructs them that when they go to a town they should find a worthy person and stay at that person’s home. Jesus concludes with, "If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town." (Matt.10:14, 15 NIV) Here, Christ has used the comparison of the punishment awaiting a town which lacks hospitality toward the disciples with that of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Is there other scriptural evidence that what the townspeople were intending was physical violence and rape? In the book of Judges, Chapter 19, we find a companion story to that of Sodom and Gomorrah. A man traveling with his concubine arrives at the town of Gibeah, and verse 16 finds them sitting in the town square. As evening approaches an old man coming home from working the fields discovers them and invites them into his home. Beginning at verse 22, the KJV reads:  Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold the men of the city, certain sons of Belial (the devil), beset the house round about, and beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying, "Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know (yadtha’) him." As before, the NIV translates the quote as:  "Bring out the man who came to your house so that we can have sex with him."

As in the Sodom and Gomorrah story, the old man offers his virgin daughter to the crowd, and the man offers his concubine, but the townsmen aren’t interested. They throw out the concubine anyway, where she is raped and abused the entire night. At daybreak she is freed, but she dies in the doorway of the house.

In spite of the fact that the language used by the crowd in this story is the same as that used in the Sodom and Gomorrah story, I’ve yet to find any scholar or commentary which suggest that the Gibeans were homosexual. Note that while the Sodomites only threatened violence, the men of Gibeah acted on it and caused the concubine’s death. Yet God did not immediately rain down fire and brimstone or sulfur on Gibeah for what the men said. If the language is the same in both stories, why weren’t the Gibeans assumed to be homosexual? Is it because they raped the concubine, which would not have been the behavior of homosexuals, who would probably have merely wanted to trade recipes with her? (Sorry–I just couldn‘t resist.) Perhaps it is because the Gibeah story has one additional piece of evidence which is missing from the Sodom story. When later questioned by the Israelites about what happened, the man replies in chapter 20:5, "During the night the men of Gibeah came after me and surrounded the house, intending to kill me." He wasn’t so much worried about a gang-bang as with murder–his. Even though God didn’t rain fire and brimstone on Gibeah, the end of chapter 20 informs us that everyone there was put to the sword and the town set on fire.

Are there any other relevant scriptural references to the reason God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah? Yes. The great prophet Ezekiel was called on by God to chastise Jerusalem. She once had been a Canaanite city, but she became Jewish. God took care of her and she became prosperous, but it all went to her head. She turned to idolatry, sacrificed children, and formed bad alliances with other nations. So Ezekiel calls her to task and compares her to "her sister" Sodom. Speaking for God, Ezekiel explains to Jerusalem why God destroyed Sodom, "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 disdainful and committed abominations in front of me. Therefore I did away with them, as you have witnessed." (Ezekiel 16:49, 50).

So now we have the word of God’s great prophet, Ezekiel, as to the reasons why God destroyed Sodom. And not one mention of homosexuality. The Sodomites were arrogant, fat, and self-absorbed. They did not help the less fortunate. They acted superior to others and committed abominations. It would serve us well to find out about these abominations.

Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, #8441 tells us the Hebrew word is towebah, or toebah, and defines abomination this way:  something disgusting, i.e. an abhorrence; especially idolatry or (concretely) an idol. So Strong’s tells us that the primary (especially) use of the word (toebah) abomination is to describe idolatry. Remember that the First Commandment is:  I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. (Exodus 10:2-3). In the Hebrew mind this commandment is first and foremost, and anything less than absolute devotion to Yahweh is the worst possible thing you could ever commit–it is detestable. We will examine idolatrous practices when we get to Leviticus.

There is only one other place in the bible where sexual activity is connected with Sodom and Gomorrah and its condemnation, and that is in the book of Jude. We will cover that when we get to the New Testament.

This ends our study for today.

1. How does this study of Sodom and Gomorrah affect your understanding of what the bible has to say about homosexuality?
2. Has it changed whatever opinion you held previously?
3. Did it skip over any points, or did it answer the questions you have had?
4. Please feel free to submit any thoughts, opinions or questions you have on the subject.

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