p. 228 | Untitled article

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, September 24, 1867

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. XXX, No. 15

Notes on Genesis.

CHAP. XIX. 25. And he overthrew these cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

The expression, overthrew all those cities and all the plain, indicates a breaking up of the soil, and some geologists think, plausibly enough, that these cities were built upon a fertile soil full of cracks and crevices spread above a vast stratum of bitumen. Malte Brun also suggests that the cities might have been built mostly of this indurated, inflammable substance. These materials being set on fire by God, there was no escape for the inhabitants. The ground, broken up by a bituminous, volcanic explosion, the waters of the Jordan rolled in, helping rather than quenching the conflagration, and at length enlarging a small lake [subterranean, says Jahn], which probably existed there before, into what is now called the Dead Sea; a body of water 60 or 70 miles long and 10 to 15 or 18 wide, and, according to Mariti, 180 miles in circuit. It is bordered on the east and west by lofty hills having rugged and frightful precipices, which help to prevent its surface from becoming agitated by the winds, and give it a gloomy and fearful aspect. The plain of Jericho, through which it receives the Jordan, bounds it on the north; other streams flow into it, but it has no visible outlet. Copious evaporation from its broad surface, caused in part by the subterranean heat, supplies the place of one. Its environs, impregnated with salt, are dull, cheerless and inanimate, no tree is to be seen, and scarcely any vegetation; hence its name. The water is clear and limpid, uncommonly salt, nauseous, and bitter, and of greater specific gravity than any other hitherto discovered. The proportion of the weight of the salts held in solution to the weight of the water, varies, according to different experiments, from 25 to nearly 50 per cent. This explains the difficulty those who have bathed in it found in diving, and the sluggish motion of the waves comparatively undisturbed by the wind; Absurd fables were formerly told of its pestiferous vapors being fatal to birds attempting to fly across. Dr. Clarke says, that its exhalations are most insalubrious, (so Pocoke,) that shells abound on its shores, and that it swarms with fish, while Madden, a less authentic traveler, says the waters appeared to have none. Drs. Pocoke and Shaw seem to have received statements which corroborate Dr. Clarke's assertion. Mines of fossil salt are found on the southwest bank. The waters have a petrifying quality. Asphaltum, or mineral pitch, rises from the depths; melted at the bottom by the heat, it becomes condensed as it rises, and sometimes, near the shore, on reaching the external air, it explodes with great smoke and noise. At greater depths, columns of smoke, which occasionally appear, indicate these eruptions. Masses are seen, says Seetzen, large enough for camel loads, and is an important article of commerce. It is probably accompanied from the bottom with sulphur, as both are found promiscuously on the shore.—Maundrell. Encyc. Amer. Dr. A. Clarke, Calmet, by Rob. Rosenm. &c.

Verse 26. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

Looked back.] Some think she actually attempted to return; and our Lord’s words, “Let him not return back; remember Lot’s wife,” favor this supposition. She was therefore instantaneously struck dead and petrified, and thus remained to after ages a visible monument of the divine displeasure; being punished as a warning to others through successive generations. Perhaps she was a native of Sodom, as nothing is said of Lot having a wife, when with Abraham. Above twenty years had passed, from the time that Lot went to Sodom.—Scott.

A pillar of salt.] Like a pillar of salt. Boothroyd. Opinions are very various on this. Many think she was struck dead, and became incrusted with saline and bituminous matter forming a heap, which Josephus says he saw. So Boothroyd and Carpenter who explain at large. Others understand the Hebrew to mean, she became fixed in the salsuginous soil. Others think she was miraculously changed to a pillar of mineral salt, and seem inclined to suppose the image visible long after (perhaps even to the present day), according to the accounts of some travelers.—Jenks.

Chap. xx, 7. Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore her not, know that thou shalt surely die, thou and all that are thine.

Prophet.] Abraham is the first person called a prophet in the Scripture. The title seems to denote one who is favored with a peculiar intercourse with God, who receives communications from him in his own personal concerns, or is employed to deliver his mind and will to others; whether he utter predictions of future events or not. Various external circumstances attend these communications; and some prophets had more intimate access to God, and explicit discoveries of his will, than others; but this general definition will apply almost to every place in the sacred oracles, where the word is used; except when false prophets are meant, who pretended to that special intercourse with God which the true prophets actually enjoyed. The intercession of prophets was deemed peculiarly effectual.—Scott.