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The question of the site of the cities of the plain is one that cannot be decided with certainty. The prevalent view is, that they were at the southern end of the sea. The correspondence of the names Usdum, Amra, and Zoghal to Sodom, Gomorrah, and Zoar, adds weight to this view. Then there is the existence of the salt mountain above alluded to. On the other hand the passage in Genesis 13:10-12, tends to the conclusion that the plain was to the north of the Dead Sea. Mr. Grove, in the "Bible Dictionary," points out that the mention of the Jordan confirms this: "for the Jordan ceases where it enters the Dead Sea, and can have no existence south of that point"; and on a review of the whole argument he says: "It thus appears that on the situation of Sodom no satisfactory conclusion can at present be come to. On the one hand the narrative of Genesis seems to state positively that it lay at the northern end of the Dead Sea. On the other hand the long continued tradition and the names of existing spots seem to pronounce with almost equal positiveness that it was at its southern end." Canon Tristram, in his "Natural History of the Bible," speaks of "the great Jordan valley and Dead Sea basin" as "the most remarkable geological part of the Holy Land." He holds with M. Lartet that the Dead Sea "is the basin of an old inland sea, larger, indeed, than the present lake, but which has had no connection with the Red Sea since the continent assumed its present form." He mentions that "bitumen is sometimes found in large masses floating on the surface of the Dead Sea, especially after earthquakes"; and that "there are many hot springs and sulphur springs both on the shores of the Dead Sea and also in its basin, some of which deposit sulphur largely on the rocks around. Most of these hot springs are strongly mineral." With reference to the site of the cities, he thinks it evident on geological grounds that "the catastrophe which overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah can no more be ascribed to an ordinary volcanic eruption than can the fire and blackness of Mount Sinai. Those cities were not situated where the Dead Sea now is, nor were they swallowed up by it; but standing in the ciccar, i.e., the plain of Jordan, and probably somewhere between Jericho and the north end of the lake, they were destroyed by brimstone and fire rained down upon them by a special interposition of Divine power. The materials for the fire were at hand in the sulphur abounding near and the bitumen with which, dug from the pits of the plain, the houses were probably constructed, or cemented."

(W. S. Smith, B. D.)

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KJV: Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;

WEB: Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from Yahweh out of the sky.