4 The Cities of the Plain
There is now a general consent that Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim were situated north of the Dead Sea, in the Kikkar or Plain of the Jordan. There are old maps which represent these cities as situated at the bottom of the Dead Sea waters, and yet enveloped in flames! Popular ignorance imagines that the bitumen which rises to the surface of the waters is a relic of the agency which effected the destruction. And until recently even the best scholars supposed the cities to lie beneath the shallow part of the sea, south of the Lisan peninsula. All such theories are disproved by the geological investigation, which shows that the Dead Sea is much older than any date which can be assigned to the destruction of the cities, and that the surface of the water has been constantly diminishing in area and sinking to lower levels.
There is nothing in the Bible which should lead us to look for the cities south of the Dead Sea, where the Crusaders placed them, or east of it, or anywhere but north and in the Kikkar. When Abraham and Lot talked together concerning the disputes between their herdsmen, and decided to go different ways with their flocks, “Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the Plain of the Jordan, that it was well watered... until thou comest unto Zoar.” It was clearly shown by Sir George Grove, in Smith’s “Dictionary of the Bible,” that the Plain of the Jordan here spoken of is not the Arabah, in which the Dead Sea reposes, but the Kikkar or “Round” of country north of it. The position of Abraham and Lot at the time was on a mount east of Bethel; and as the site of Bethel is known, it was not difficult to find the mount east of it. It was reasonably identified by Rev. Canon Williams, and his conclusions were confirmed in 1865 by Colonel Sir C. Wilson. It has been shown that if the cities had been south of the Dead Sea, human vision could not possibly have extended so far, to distinguish anything. But north of the sea, in the Round or Plain, Lot would be able to perceive them. Accordingly, when the friendly conference ended, he journeyed eastward from the mount near Bethel, in order to reach his new home in Sodom.
The vision of Lot had extended across the plain, to Zoar and no farther, because the plain was bounded by the high mountains of Moab. Dr Tristram believes that he has identified Zoar, the fifth city of the Plain, the “little city” to which Lot fled after the convulsion. Standing on Mount Nebo, he detected the ruins a little in front of him, almost in a line with Jericho. The ruins were on a low brow of ground, and thus correspond to the description that Lot rested in this city on his way to the mountains, and afterwards went up into the mountain and dwelt in a cave. The ruins are still called Ziara, which does not differ much from the Greek spelling Ζωαρα, nor very widely from the Hebrew.
Is it possible to discover any relics of the four larger cities? Although destroyed by fire, they may not have been utterly annihilated, any more than Pompeii; but if their remains are hiding beneath the dust, the dust keeps its secret well. Major Conder rode day by day over almost every acre of ground between Jericho and the Dead Sea, and could not detect any mound or sign of a buried city. The whole was a white desert, except near the hills, where rich herbage grows after the rains. The time of year was most favourable for such exploration, because no long grass existed to hide any ruins. But in all that plain he found no ruin, except the old monastery of St John and a little hermit’s cave.
This description leaves out of account a remarkable group of tells, or mounds of earth and rubbish, strewn over with ruins, existing in the neighbourhood of Jericho. They are seven in number, and one of them is not far from Elisha’s Fountain, now called Ain es Sultan. One would imagine that the exploration of these mounds might yield valuable results; but nobody undertakes the work. It is true that some excavations made by Sir Charles Warren only proved the existence of sun-dried bricks; and because the mounds occur generally where the soil is alluvial, Conder regards them as piles of refuse bricks, and nothing more; but Sir J. W. Dawson, on visiting the place, noticed numerous flint chips in the mound, and Sir C. Warren, when presiding at my Guildford lecture, publicly expressed the opinion that many small objects of great interest would probably be found if the stuff were sifted.
But if the ruins of the Cities of the Plain are not discoverable, their names appear to linger in the district, slightly disguised as Arabic words, and applying to portions of the ground.
Conder justly remarks that the cities would probably be situated near fresh-water springs, and the great spring of ’Ain Feshkhah, on the north-west of the Dead Sea, is a probable site for one of them. The great bluff not far south of the spring is called Tubk ’Amriyeh by the Bedawin, and the neighbouring valley Wady ’Amriyeh. This word is radically identical with the Hebrew Gomorrah, or Amorah as it is spelt in one passage (Gen. x. 19), meaning, according to some authorities, “depression,” according to others, “cultivation.”
Admah means “red earth,” a description which would hardly apply to the ground near the Dead Sea. But there is no reason why all the four cities should be close to the Dead Sea. A convulsion overthrowing cities near the Sea would probably be felt a long way up the Jordan Valley, owing to the line of fault. Conder has pointed out, too, that the term Kikkar is applied in the Bible to the Jordan Valley as far north as Succoth. A “city Adam” is noticed in the Book of Joshua as being beside Zaretan; the name Ed Damieh applies to the neighbourhood of the Jordan ford east of Kurn Surtabeh, about 23 miles up the valley; and it has always seemed possible to Conder that Adam and Admah were one and the same. I would add a suggestion of my own in support of the view that Admah was some distance up the Jordan Valley. The passage Gen. x. 19 describes the boundary of Canaan, beginning at Sidon, following the coast line to Gaza, striking thence eastward to the Plain of the Jordan, and then proceeding up the Jordan Valley to Dan or Lasha—and the passage may be freely rendered thus,—“And the border of the Canaanite was from Sidon; thence you go towards Gerar, as far as Gaza; thence you go toward Sodom; then by Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboim, unto Dan.”14 As Gerar was beyond Gaza southward, the boundary only went toward it; and as Sodom was beyond Jordan eastward, the boundary only went toward Sodom; there was no need to say it stopped at the river, for that was obvious. It then follows the course of the river from the Dead Sea to the source of the stream. And then the northern boundary is known without description. If this rendering holds good, then Gomorrah was north-west of the Dead Sea, on a line joining Gaza with Sodom; and the boundary of the Canaanites, after reaching Gomorrah, touched Admah and Zeboim, and continued northward to the grotto at Banias.
Zeboim means “hyenas,” and is identical with the Arabic Dub’a. For this reason Conder asks whether it may not have been situated at the cliff just above the plain, near the site of Roman Jericho, for that is now called Shakh ed Dub’a, “lair of the Hyena.” If I am right in my reading of Gen. x. 19, Zeboim should be northward of Admah—unless two names so often coupled together may have their order transposed. Grove reminds us that the Valley of Zeboim (the name spelt a little differently) was a ravine or gorge apparently east of Michmas, described in 1 Sam. xiii. 18. It appears to be overlooked in the discussion that Zeboim is mentioned in Nehemiah xi. 34, in the same group with Hadid, Lod, and Ono, among the places occupied by the children of Benjamin, while in Neh. vii. 37, these three places are named between Jericho and Senaah. But if the Lod in this passage is to be regarded as Lydda in the Plain of Sharon, the grouping of the places affords us no guidance.
Sodom alone, as Conder goes on to say, remains without a suggestion, and he finds no trace of it west of the Jordan. He notes, however, that the word Siddim is apparently the same with the Arabic Sidd, which is used in a peculiar sense by the Arabs of the Jordan Valley as meaning “cliffs” or banks of marl, such as exist along the southern edge of the plains of Jericho, the ordinary meaning being “dam” or obstruction. Thus the Vale of Siddim might well, so far as its name is concerned, have been situated in the vicinity of the northern shores of the Dead Sea.
Dr Selah Merrill, in his “East of the Jordan,” also discusses the site of the Cities of the Plain. He says:—“Since Zoar was one of them, a hint as to their situation may be derived from Gen. xiii. 10, where Lot and Abraham are represented as standing on a hill near Bethel, and looking down the Jordan Valley towards the Dead Sea. As this verse is rendered in our English Bible, the meaning is not clear; but it will become so when all the middle portion of the verse is read as a parenthesis, as follows: ‘And Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the Plain of Jordan (that it was well watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt), until thou comest to Zoar.’ The last clause qualifies the first. Lot saw all the Plain of Jordan as far as Zoar, or ‘until you come to Zoar.’ Zoar was both the limit of the plain and the limit of vision in that direction, so far as the land was concerned.”
Dr Merrill then shows that nothing could have been distinguished at the southern end of the Dead Sea; and quotes early writers to show that Zoar existed near the northern end.
Regarding the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, it is not sufficient to say briefly that it was a miracle, and assume that no further explanation can be given. A rain of brimstone and fire is spoken of, and it is legitimate to look for the source of it. With the instance of Pompeii in our minds it is natural to suggest volcanic agency, especially as the region north-east of the Dead Sea affords evidence of volcanic action. But Sir J. W. Dawson (a well-known American geologist), in his volume on “Egypt and Syria,” ingeniously argues for a petroleum explosion. The “slime pits” spoken of as abounding in the Vale of Siddim (Gen. xiv. 10), he regards as petroleum wells, and then traces a parallel as follows:—“Regions of bitumen, like that of the Dead Sea, are liable to eruptions of a most destructive character. Of these we have had examples in the oil regions of America. In a narrative of one of these now before me, and which occurred a few years ago, in the oil district of Petrolia, in Canada, I read that a borehole struck a reservoir of gas, which rushed upward with explosive force, carrying before it a large quantity of petroleum. The gas almost immediately took fire, and formed a tall column of flame, while the burning petroleum spread over the ground and ignited tanks of the substance in the vicinity. In this way a space of about fifteen acres was enveloped in fire, a village was burned, and several persons lost their lives. The air flowing toward the eruption caused a whirlwind, which carried the dense smoke high into the air, and threw down burning bitumen all round.
“Now, if we suppose that at the time referred to, accumulations of inflammable gas and petroleum existed below the Plain of Siddim, the escape of these through the opening of a fissure along the old line of fault might produce the effects described—namely, a pillar of smoke rising up to heaven, burning bitumen and sulphur raining on the doomed cities, and fire spreading over the ground. The attendant phenomenon of the evolution of saline waters, implied in the destruction of Lot’s wife, would be a natural accompaniment, as water is always discharged in such eruptions; and in this case it would be a brine thick with mud, and fitted to encrust and cover any object reached by it.”
An important note, with reference to the destruction of the Cities of the Plain, appears in the statement in Gen. xiv., that the Vale of Siddim had bitumen pits or wells, and that these were so abundant or important as to furnish a place of retreat to, or to impede the flight of, the defeated kings of Sodom and Gomorrah. These bitumen pits have disappeared, unless their remains are represented by the singular pits described by Dr Merrill as occurring near Wady Nimrim. Their existence in the times of Abraham would bespeak a much greater abundance of bituminous matter than that now remaining; and it is possible that the eruption which destroyed the Cities of the Plain may have, to a great extent, exhausted the supply of petroleum.
“There is no reason to think” (adds Dr Dawson) “that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was connected with any important change in the limits of the Dead Sea, though it is highly probable that some subsidence of the valley took place, and may have slightly affected its levels relatively to the Jordan and the sea; but it would appear from Deut. xxix. 23, that the eruption was followed by a permanent deterioration of the district by the saline mud with which it was covered.”
In the Theological Monthly for May 1890, Rev. James Neil declares that no bitumen pits are to be found anywhere in the neighbourhood of the Jordan. The pits spoken of by Dr Selah Merrill were connected with aqueducts, and used for purposes of irrigation. But the asphalt thrown up from the bottom of the Dead Sea may have been employed to render such pits watertight, and to that extent they would be slime pits. He shows that such pits do exist in the Jordan Valley, extending across it in long lines just north of the supposed site of some of the Cities of the Plain; and it is a very curious fact that the Bedawin, who are unacquainted with their nature and purpose, have a legend connecting them with a great battle.
[Authorities and Sources:—Smith’s “Dict. of the Bible.” “Tent Work in Palestine.” Major Conder, R.E. “The Land of Moab.” Rev. Canon Tristram, F.R.S. “East of Jordan.” Dr Selah Merrill. “Egypt and Syria.” Sir J. W. Dawson.]