Passage

Genesis 19.24

Book: Genesis · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

22. Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do anything till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. 23. The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot came unto Zoar.

24. Then Jehovah rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven;

and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. 26. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. (Genesis 19:22-26, ASV)

WEB

22. Hurry, escape there, for I can’t do anything until you get there.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. 23. The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar.

24. Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from Yahweh out of the sky.

He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground. 26. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. (Genesis 19:22-26, WEB)

KJV

22. Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. ^{Zoar: that is, Little} 23. The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar. ^{risen: Heb. gone forth}

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

And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. 26. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. (Genesis 19:22-26, KJV)

YLT

22. haste, escape thither, for I am not able to do anything till thine entering thither;' therefore hath he calleth the name of the city Zoar. 23. The sun hath gone out on the earth, and Lot hath entered into Zoar,

24. and Jehovah hath rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah, from the heavens;

and He overthroweth these cities, and all the circuit, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which is shooting up from the ground. 26. And his wife looketh expectingly from behind him, and she is, a pillar of salt! (Genesis 19:22-26, YLT)

See this page's graph and discover linked topics

Setting

Speaker: the narrator of Genesis
Audience: Israel, as the book's first readers
Location: Sodom and Gomorrah in the Jordan plain
Time period: the patriarchal age, commonly placed in the early second millennium BC

Theological reading

The LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven.

The doubled reference, from the LORD out of heaven, is grammatically odd and has been read since the early centuries as distinguishing two who bear the name. That reading is available and should be offered cautiously: Hebrew narrative does repeat the divine name where a pronoun would serve, and resting a doctrine on the construction alone overstates it. See Two Powers in Heaven Argument for the wider evidence, which does not depend on this verse.

The judgment itself is described in terms of brimstone and fire, and the region's bitumen and sulphur deposits have prompted natural-means proposals; the text is indifferent to the mechanism and attributes the act.

Read with 19:15-22, the sequence is judgment preceded by extraction: Lot and his family are removed first, and the messenger says he can do nothing until they arrive.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

TBD
TBD
TBD
TBD

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Concepts:

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.