(471) EMERGING TRENDS IN THE CHURCH TODAY: What is the sin of Sodom?

Today, I would say there is a debate on what the sin of Sodom in Genesis 19 is, but many times, usually what happens with a greater frequency are statements made without recognition of the historic perspective held by the church.  That doesn’t make a statement necessarily right or wrong, but I think it throws some weight into a discussion or perspective.  The bottom line is – what does the Scripture say in regards to how we should view a particular issue.

Here is the first thing that Google states when searching for this question online –

“the sin of Sodom was that “thy sister, Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance ofidleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.”

Pride, idleness, not helpig the poor and needy….etc.  Some may say – “no homosexuality?”  Is this what the Bible refers to as the sin of Sodom?

Maybe we can go back to the 1963 Hollywood movie Sodom and Gomorrah starring Stuart Granger –

Sex, torture and betrayal in Biblical Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot, leader of the Hebrews, believes his people can co-exist with the Sodomites, a disastrous decision:

Ildith: Evil? How strange you are. Where I come from, nothing is evil. Everything that gives pleasure is good!

Lot: Where do you come from?

Ildith: There, not far, just ahead – Sodom and Gomorrah.

The “nothing is evil” and “everything that gives pleasure is good” seems to more common in our society today.  But, obviously, if we want to see what the Bible refers to as the sin (s) of Sodom, then we need to look in the Bible and review the passages relating to this question.

(A) GENESIS 13

The condition of Sodom’s men is first described in Genesis 13:13.

 But the men of Sodom ^twere exceedingly wicked and ^usinful against the Lord. 

^t Gen. 18:20, 21; Ezek. 16:49; 2 Pet. 2:7, 8 ^u Gen. 6:11; 39:9; Num. 32:23   The New King James Version. (1982). (Ge 13:13). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

This verse refers to the wickedness of Sodom.  Specifically, the term used for men is anšê instead of the more generic term “people” (‘am) which is used in other parts of Genesis as a reference to the general inhabitants of a city.

In Genesis 19:4, the same term is used for men (anšê) is used twice referring to men of a particular place.

⁴ Now before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both old and young, all the people from every quarter, surrounded the house. (Genesis 19:4 – NKJV)

At face value, these verses show that these are men (i.e. males) who surrounded Lot’s house.

Genesis 13:13 goes much further in implying or saying that the issue of sin being presented isn’t merely hospitality.  While it doesn’t eliminate it, the same message is presented from the mouth of God in Genesis 18:20 and described their sin as very grave, exceedingly wicked...etc.  One would have to really stretch the point that these are referring to merely lakcing hospitality?  The modern view of these passages are commonly interpreted to say just that – hospitality is what is being referred to and the justification for that comes from a passage in Ezekiel – which we will look at next) –

20 And the LORD said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave, (Genesis 18:20 – NKJV)

 

(B) EXEKIEL 16

The passage in Ezekiel is sometimes used to interpret the sin of Sodom as primarily (or only) hospitality while downplaying or eliminating the homosexuality.

Ezekiel 16:49 –

⁴⁹ Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, ^dexcess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy

^d [Gen. 13:10]. Ezekiel 16:49 – NKJV

The contemporary view is that the people of Sodom were primarily condemned simply because they were selfish, not because they were homosexuals.  This is not the historic traditional view.  In light of the context, the language used in these passages imply at a minimum that they refer to something far worse than selfishness but also to homosexuality. 

Both Giesler and Howe, state that the sin of Sodom was not only selfishness, but also homosexuality.  Genesis 19 reveals that their perversion was real and sexual

They state the following:

1. First of all, the context of Genesis 19 reveals that their perversion was sexual (see comments on Gen. 19:8).
2. Second, the sin of selfishness related by Ezekiel (16:49) does not exclude the sin of homosexuality. As a matter of fact, sexual sins are a form of selfishness, since they are the satisfaction of fleshly passions.
3. Third, by calling their sin an “abomination,” the very next verse (v. 50, nkjv) indicates that it was sexual. This is the same word used to describe homosexual sins in Leviticus 18:22.
4. Fourth, the notorious nature of Sodom’s sexual perversity is revealed in the very word “sodomy” which has come to mean homosexual activity. 
5. Fifth, the sin of Sodom is referred to elsewhere in Scripture as a sexual perversion. Jude even calls their sin “sexual immorality” (v. 7)

 Geisler, N. L., & Howe, T. A. (1992). When critics ask : a popular handbook on Bible difficulties (p. 285). Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books.

Robert Gagnon states –

“It is true that Ezekiel 16:49-50 refers to multiple offenses at Sodom; but there are a number of strong contextual arguments for concluding that “committed an abomination” refers to attempted man-male intercourse; indeed, that Ezekiel (whom all Ezekiel agree knew the Holiness Code or something very much like it) is connecting the story in Gen 19 to the Holiness Code prohibition of such (Lev 18:22; 20:13) such that he reads the former in light of the latter.

A critique of the revisionist view of Ezekiel 16:  From

De Young, J. B. (2000). Homosexuality: Contemporary Claims Examined in Light of the Bible and Other Ancient Literature and Law (pp. 43–45). Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.

To understand how the destruction of Sodom was interpreted later, we must turn to Ezekiel’s reference. According to the revisionist view, Ezekiel 16 lists the sins of Sodom categorically and finds them less serious than the sexual sins of Jerusalem. Revisionists point to verses 48–49. There, they say, we find that Sodom’s sins were pride, gluttony, idleness, and neglect (or, according to Edwards, oppression) of the poor and needy.⁶⁸ The passage does not mention homosexuality.

However, Boswell and Bailey and others interpret these two verses incorrectly because they fail to consider their context, especially verse 50.⁶⁹ In the passage, Ezekiel compares Jerusalem with her two sisters, the elder Samaria and the younger Sodom. He finds that Jerusalem, is worse than either of the others (note 16:47–52). Sodom obviously is a figurative term here, probably a reference to Judah as a whole.⁷⁰ Ezekiel 16:2 sets forth the argument of the chapter: “Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations” (kjv). In failing to take into account verse 50, Boswell misrepresents the text. There it is written about Sodom and her daughters, “And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good” (kjv). The sins of “Sodom” went far beyond pride and neglect of the poor. These sins gave rise to abominable conduct, and this conduct caused their destruction, as described in Genesis 19. God singles out pride as the root of Sodom’s sin. Pride is frequently linked to homosexuality in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, as well as in the New Testament (Rom. 1:21–22, 28ff.; see p. 160).

Indeed, when one understands that Ezekiel is comparing Jerusalem and Judah with Sodom, one realizes just how appropriate the comparison is. Judah practiced the same sins as Sodom. This observation finds substantiation if the references in Deuteronomy and especially those in 1 Kings and 2 Kings refer to sodomy. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel made frequent comparisons of Judah with Sodom.

Note the terms used to describe “Sodom’s” iniquity in Ezekiel 16. The revisionist view makes much of these terms in the discussion of the prohibitions of homosexuality in Leviticus 18 and 20. The terms include:

1. zōnāh about twenty-one times (“play the harlot, whoredoms, and fornication”; the LXX translates with cognates of porneia and diatheke);

2. toʿeba ten times (“abominations”; the LXX has anomia and anomēma); and

3. zimmah three times (“lewdness”; the LXX has cognates of asebeia).

These terms seem to be synonymous and clearly relate to sexuality and spiritual adultery (idolatry). The Levite uses zimmah to describe the “lewd act” committed by the men of Gibeah (Judg. 20:6; see p. 79).

If someone should protest that Ezekiel 16 does not specifically use the term homosexuality, the reply is that the concept is clearly present. One can assume it under one of the three terms involved, and it is present in the very mention and significance of the term Sodom. Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 support this assertion because they use abomination (Heb. toʿeba; Gk. bdelygma) to denote male homosexual acts. This point is especially significant, for no one term is reserved specifically for this behavior, unless it be dog or changed sex.

⁶⁸ Gay/Lesbian Liberation, 53.

⁶⁹ Countryman acknowledges the use of abominations in verse 50, but he does not believe we can know what Ezekiel had in mind by the term (Dirt, 31–32). Nissinen totally ignores verse 50 in the discussion of Ezekiel 16 (Homoeroticism, 47).

⁷⁰ Sodom might represent the small heathen states and cities left around Israel, as is argued in H. L. Ellison, Ezekiel: the Man and His Message (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), 66. This does not affect the interpretation, or the presence of sodomy in the context.

De Young, J. B. (2000). Homosexuality: Contemporary Claims Examined in Light of the Bible and Other Ancient Literature and Law (pp. 43–45). Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.

 

(C) LEVITICUS 18 & 20

Let’s look at the passages in Leviticus a bit further.  Gagnon’s summary interpretation of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 include:

In taking such a severe and comprehensive stance toward male homosexual behavior, Lev 18:22 and 20:13 represent a level of revulsion toward same-sex intercourse without parallel in the ancient Near East.… [The framer of these laws as part of the so-called Holiness Code] was responding to the conviction that same-sex intercourse was fundamentally incompatible with the creation of men and women as complementary sexual beings. For a man to have sexual intercourse with another male as though the latter were not a male but a female violates God’s design for the created order.… It is nothing short of a rebellion against the way God made humans to function as sexual beings.… [There is solid] evidence for the enduring validity of Lev 18:22 and 20:13.⁷⁴

⁷⁴ Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 156–157.

Davidson, R. M. (2012). Homosexuality in the Old Testament. In R. E. Gane, N. P. Miller, & H. P. Swanson (Eds.), Homosexuality, Marriage, and the Church: Biblical, Counseling, and Religious Liberty Issues (p. 22). Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press.

The argument that the homosexual practice is not being indicted in Gen 19 but rather hospitality makes an either-or out of a both-and: The most effective way of dishonoring male visitors to the city is to treat their masculinity as if it were non-existent by treating them as the receiving partner in an act of intercourse.  Had the visitors consented to such activity they would have contributed to their own self-abasement (that this is the correct interpretation is evident from ancient Near Eastern descriptions of men who play the receptive role in man-male intercourse).”

(D) HISTORY

Gagnon also refers to historic authors such as Philo and Josephus:

“The two most significant (non-Christian) Jewish authors of the first century, Philo and Josephus, who also comment on the sin(s) of Sodom more extensively than anyone else in that time period, use the story as an indictment of homosexual practice.”

Historically, while not absolute, but far more numerous, the church as viewed the sin of Sodom primarily as homosexuality. The emphasis on the other sins of Sodom relating to selfishness, inhospitality, lack of care for the poor…etc. to the exclusion of homosexuality is a more modern view that is popular today.d

There are other sins in Sodom – but they don’t take away from the main sin of homosexuality.  Gagnon refers to the Isaiah passage discussing social injustice: 

“Most texts in the canon of Scripture that refer to Sodom simply mention it and Gomorrah as places of great evil that God utterly destroyed.  Isaiah 1:7-17 alludes to Sodom and Gomorrah in the context of discussing social injustice but this merely picks up one them of the Sodom cycle with excluding other themes.  There are a number of biblical texts that allude to the immorality of homosexual practice at Sodom.”

(E) GENESIS 19

In the context of Genesis 19, R.M. Davidson states –

“But the Achilles’ heel of the argument…….who see only issues of inhospitality in this narrative is the use of “to know” in the immediate context. In verse 8 the verb yādaʿ is used in connection with Lot’s daughters and unmistakably refers to sexual intercourse. The close proximity of its usage in verse 5 to this clear sexual meaning of yādaʿ in verse 8 makes it very difficult to conclude that it has a different, nonsexual meaning in the former. Furthermore, as Sakae Kubo notes, “Bailey’s explanation for the reason Lot offers his daughters to the men of Sodom is simply not convincing.… It is much more difficult to explain why Lot would offer his daughters to people who came only to demand to check up on two foreigners than if they wanted to abuse them sexually.”³¹

There are many attempts to make these verse mean something different than what they plainly state in Scripture.

James De Young shows how the literary macrostructure of Genesis also points to a sexual interpretation for Genesis 19. Following the literary analysis of Robert Alter, he points to the three episodes just prior to the birth narrative of Isaac that delay and pose a threat to the fulfillment of God’s promise of seed for Abraham—Abraham’s intercession and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18–19), the incest of Lot and his daughters as the origin of the Moabites and Edomites (Gen. 19), and the sister-wife episode involving Abraham, Sarah, and the king of Gerar (Gen. 20)—and shows that “Each episode relates sexual sin and its punishment.… The literary structure of the text demands a homosexual meaning for the sin of Sodom. Illicit sexual enjoyment or opportunism connects all three of the episodes”³² De Young, among others, also points out that scholars generally recognize that the narrator of the book of Judges consciously modeled his telling of the story of the disgrace at Gibeah (Judg. 19) after the account in Genesis 19, and since the Judges 19 story clearly has reference to homosexual activity, one should interpret the story of Genesis 19 the same way.³³

Most modern interpreters now acknowledge that homosexual activity along with inhospitality are described in Genesis 19 but insist that the sexual issue is that of rape or violence and that thus this passage gives no evidence for the condemnation of homosexual practice in general.³⁴ It is indeed likely that the specific actions contemplated by the men of Sodom included homosexual rape, but Victor Hamilton points to a fourfold problem with limiting the reference here to only homosexual rape.³⁵ 

First, the verb yādaʿ, which has been translated by some versions as “to abuse” in this passage (e.g., Jerusalem Bible), nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible carries the meaning of “abuse” or “violate.” Second, elsewhere in Scripture, specific terminology besides yādaʿ is used to describe incidents or cases of rape (“to seize,” “to lie with,” “to force”; cf. Gen. 34:2; 2 Sam. 13:14; Deut. 22:25–27). Third, translating yādaʿ as “rape” or “violate” in Genesis 19:5 would force a different meaning on the word than three verses later, where yādaʿ undeniably means “have intercourse with” regarding Lot’s daughters. Finally, Hamilton points out that “such an interpretation forces these incredible words in Lot’s mouth: ‘Do not rape my visitors. Here are my daughters, both virgins—rape them!’ ” In light of these problems, Hamilton concludes—correctly I believe—that “the incident frowns on homosexual relations for whatever reason.”³⁶

Beyond the significance of the word yādaʿ, one must also recognize that in the overall movement of the narrative, this incident is utilized to characterize the depth of depravity in Sodom and Gomorrah. Thus, as Gagnon observes,

“it is likely that the sin of Sodom is not merely inhospitality or even attempted rape of a guest but rather attempted homosexual rape of male guests.…³⁷

What makes this instance of inhospitality so dastardly, what makes the name ‘Sodom’ a byword for inhumanity to visiting outsiders in later Jewish and Christian circles, is the specific form in which the inhospitality manifests itself: homosexual rape.”³⁸

The larger context of the later prophetic passages that refer to this narrative clearly indicates a sexual interpretation (Ezek. 16:43, 50; cf. Jude 6–7; 2 Pet. 2:4, 6–8) and a castigation of homosexual activity per se and not just homosexual rape. ……….In the analysis of Ezekiel 16:49–50, the sin of inhospitality is indeed signaled by the prophet, but this is not all that Ezekiel indicates. Specific terminology in the immediate context of these verses in Ezekiel 16 also indicates the sexual nature of the sin of Sodom. That the opprobrium attached to the Sodomites’ intended activity involved not only rape but the inherent degradation of same-sex intercourse is confirmed by the intertextual linkages between Ezekiel and the sexual “abominations” mentioned in Levitical legislation.

In light of the passage, the most common response to the question “What was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah?” is that it was homosexuality. That is how the term “sodomy” came to be used to refer to anal sex between two men, whether consensual or forced. Clearly, homosexuality was part of why God destroyed the two cities. The men of Sodom and Gomorrah wanted to perform homosexual gang rape on the two angels (who were disguised as men). At the same time, it is not biblical to say that homosexuality was the exclusive reason why God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were definitely not exclusive in terms of the sins in which they indulged.

Ezekiel 16:49–50 declares, “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 haughty and did detestable things before me …” The Hebrew word translated “detestable” refers to something that is morally disgusting and is the exact same word used in Leviticus 18:22 that refers to homosexuality as an “abomination.” Similarly, Jude 7 declares, “… Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion.” So, again, while homosexuality was not the only sin in which the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah indulged, it does appear to be the primary reason for the destruction of the cities.

Those who attempt to explain away the biblical condemnations of homosexuality claim that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was inhospitality. The men of Sodom and Gomorrah were certainly being inhospitable. There is probably nothing more inhospitable than homosexual gang rape. But to say God completely destroyed two cities and all their inhabitants for being inhospitable clearly misses the point. While Sodom and Gomorrah were guilty of many other horrendous sins, homosexuality was the reason God poured fiery sulfur on the cities, completely destroying them and all of their inhabitants. To this day, the area where Sodom and Gomorrah were located remains a desolate wasteland. Sodom and Gomorrah serve as a powerful example of how God feels about sin in general, and homosexuality specifically.

Got Questions Ministries. (2002–2013). Got Questions? Bible Questions Answered. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.