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Bible Dictionaries
Sodom and Gomorrah
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or Sodom and Gomorrah are mentioned in Matthew 10:15, Judges 1:7, 2 Peter 2:6, Revelation 11:8 as affording by their fate a warning against strange sins, whether moral or spiritual. The verb (ἐκπορνεύω) used in Jude is also used in Septuagint of Exodus 34:15-16, Leviticus 17:7, Hosea 4:12, Ezekiel 16:26; Ezekiel 16:28; Ezekiel 16:33, of ‘going after’ other gods, and this seems to explain the use of Sodom in Revelation 11:8. Rome is Sodom because its gods are no true gods. Beyond references in The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (Test. Naph. 3) and in 3 Maccabees 2:4 f. the symbolism of Sodom seems to have been dropped out of sight. It is not used in the Apostolic Fathers, or in any apocalyptic or heretical books of the Apostolic Age. The reason is possibly to be found in the belief (Enoch, lxvii. 4) that the angels who sinned are imprisoned in a subterranean burning valley (Ge-hinnom) which extended to the Dead Sea, so that Gehenna extruded Sodom by assimilating it.
W. F. Cobb.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Sodom and Gomorrah'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/s/sodom-and-gomorrah.html. 1906-1918.
