{"id":64696,"date":"2019-10-23T22:07:24","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T19:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=64696"},"modified":"2023-05-21T09:33:50","modified_gmt":"2023-05-21T06:33:50","slug":"like-sodom-and-gomorrah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/like-sodom-and-gomorrah\/","title":{"rendered":"Like Sodom And Gomorrah"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[460,390],"acf":{"old_id":"64696","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":36147,"related_cahpter":"335","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"As before, the conclusion is clear, but still not internalized: wickedness leads to destruction","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Twice in this chapter, Isaiah invoked the legendary cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. By Isaiah\u2019s time, these cities had been legendary for a millennium or more: their destruction was narrated back in Genesis 19, set in the time of Abraham. The two invocations of the cities make for a powerful pair. The second one, in v. 10, is in an address to the people of Jerusalem and Judah: \u201cHear the word of the Lord, O officers of Sodom \/ give ear to the teaching of God, people of Gomorrah!\u201d The explicit comparison of Isaiah\u2019s audience to those legendarily wicked towns has an immediate effect: without even a word of \u201cthe word\u201d or \u201cthe teaching,\u201d Isaiah has already landed a body blow. The people, in his\/God\u2019s eyes, are no better than those famously evil communities!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The other reference comes in the previous verse. In my understanding, the opening of the book (verses 1-9) comes from the end of Isaiah\u2019s career, from after the Assyrian campaign of 701 BCE. This is the meaning of the lines (7-8): \u201cYour land is a waste, your cities burnt down \/ before your eyes, the yield of your soil is consumed by strangers \u2013 a wasteland as overthrown by strangers! Fair Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a hut in a cucumber field, like a city protected.\u201d This was the situation after 701, with Judah as a whole ravaged, and Jerusalem (= Zion) left standing intact. And here comes the great reveal: \u201cHad not the Lord of Hosts left us some survivors, we would be like Sodom, just like Gomorrah\u201d!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this paragraph, written by Isaiah at the end of his career, he loops back to an image used at the very beginning of his career, perhaps 50 years earlier. Back then, the young prophet was indicting the people, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">wicked<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as Sodom and Gomorrah. Now, weary and retrospective, Isaiah says that the people were very nearly like Sodom and Gomorrah in another way: they were nearly wiped out, obliterated, annihilated, like those wicked cities of old.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In creating this link between verses 9 and 10, then, Isaiah aptly sums up one of the major messages, and one of the major frustrations, of his career. The message is simple: the wickedness of the people leads to their own destruction. The frustration is that he has been preaching the same message for decades, and yet the destruction came anyway, and thus the wickedness still persists. It\u2019s hard work being a prophet.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Image: The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, John Martin, 1852 \/ wikipedia<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":64697,"id":64697,"title":"is1-John_Martin_-_Sodom_and_Gomorrah","filename":"is1-John_Martin_-_Sodom_and_Gomorrah.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/is1-John_Martin_-_Sodom_and_Gomorrah.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/like-sodom-and-gomorrah\/is1-john_martin_-_sodom_and_gomorrah\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"is1-john_martin_-_sodom_and_gomorrah","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":64696,"date":"2019-10-23 19:07:12","modified":"2023-06-25 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