“And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. Revelation 11:8
Sodom was a city full of injustices written in their laws.
Sodomite laws were completely backward and rewarded wrongdoing.
Details can be found in the Book of Jasher, Hebrew: סֵפֶר הַיׇּשׇׁר.
The Book of Jasher is referenced In Joshua 10:13; 2 Samuel 1:18; And 2 Timothy 3:8.
The following are some examples of the perverted sense of justice of the inhabitants of Sodom.
When Abraham sent his servant Eliezer to Sodom, this is what occurred:
Jasher 19:12-22
12. And Eliezer went to Sodom, and he met a man of Sodom fighting with a stranger, and the man of Sodom stripped the poor man of all his clothes and went away.
13. And this poor man cried to Eliezer and supplicated his favor on account of what the man of Sodom had done to him.
14. And he said to him, Why dost thou act thus to the poor man who came to thy land?
15. And the man of Sodom answered Eliezer, saying, Is this man thy brother, or have the people of Sodom made thee a judge this day, that thou speakest about this man?
16. And Eliezer strove with the man of Sodom on account of the poor man, and when Eliezer approached to recover the poor man’s clothes from the man of Sodom, he hastened and with a stone smote Eliezer in the forehead.
17. And the blood flowed copiously from Eliezer’s forehead, and when the man saw the blood he caught hold of Eliezer, saying, Give me my hire for having rid thee of this bad blood that was in thy forehead, for such is the custom and the law in our land.
18. And Eliezer said to him, Thou hast wounded me and requirest me to pay thee thy hire; and Eliezer would not hearken to the words of the man of Sodom.
19. And the man laid hold of Eliezer and brought him to Shakra the judge of Sodom for judgment.
20. And the man spoke to the judge, saying, I beseech thee my lord, thus has this man done, for I smote him with a stone that the blood flowed from his forehead, and he is unwilling to give me my hire.
21. And the judge said to Eliezer, This man speaketh truth to thee, give him his hire, for this is the custom in our land; and Eliezer heard the words of the judge, and he lifted up a stone and smote the judge, and the stone struck on his forehead, and the blood flowed copiously from the forehead of the judge, and Eliezer said, If this then is the custom in your land give thou unto this man what I should have given him, for this has been thy decision, thou didst decree it.
22. And Eliezer left the man of Sodom with the judge, and he went away.
Imagine being legally forced to pay someone for assaulting you as if they had done you a favor!
One of their laws for instance, forbade its residents to offer assistance to travelers who passed through the city. If one was caught even giving a traveler a drink of water or a morsel of bread, the punishment was death. This is what happened to a daughter of Lot:
Consider Jasher 19:12-24-35
24 At that time the wife of Lot bare him a daughter, and he called her name Paltith, saying, Because God had delivered him and his whole household from the kings of Elam; and Paltith daughter of Lot grew up, and one of the men of Sodom took her for a wife.
25 And a poor man came into the city to seek a maintenance, and he remained in the city some days, and all the people of Sodom caused a proclamation of their custom not to give this man a morsel of bread to eat, until he dropped dead upon the earth, and they did so.
26 And Paltith the daughter of Lot saw this man lying in the streets starved with hunger, and no one would give him any thing to keep him alive, and he was just upon the point of death.
27 And her soul was filled with pity on account of the man, and she fed him secretly with bread for many days, and the soul of this man was revived.
28 For when she went forth to fetch water she would put the bread in the water pitcher, and when she came to the place where the poor man was, she took the bread from the pitcher and gave it him to eat; so she did many days.
29 And all the people of Sodom and Gomorrah wondered how this man could bear starvation for so many days.
30 And they said to each other, This can only be that he eats and drinks, for no man can bear starvation for so many days or live as this man has, without even his countenance changing; and three men concealed themselves in a place where the poor man was stationed, to know who it was that brought him bread to eat.
31 And Paltith daughter of Lot went forth that day to fetch water, and she put bread into her pitcher of water, and she went to draw water by the poor man’s place, and she took out the bread from the pitcher and gave it to the poor man and he ate it.
32 And the three men saw what Paltith did to the poor man, and they said to her, It is thou then who hast supported him, and therefore has he not starved, nor changed in appearance nor died like the rest.
33 And the three men went out of the place in which they were concealed, and they seized Paltith and the bread which was in the poor man’s hand.
34 And they took Paltith and brought her before their judges, and they said to them, Thus did she do, and it is she who supplied the poor man with bread, therefore did he not die all this time; now therefore declare to us the punishment due to this woman for having transgressed our law.
35 And the people of Sodom and Gomorrah assembled and kindled a fire in the street of the city, and they took the woman and cast her into the fire and she was burned to ashes.
Sodomites were completely and demonically backward in their reasoning or more accurately, their lack of reasoning.
Most people think of Sodom in terms of gross sexual immorality; and it was. But their sins were even more extensive.
Remember that God had condemned the City to destruction prior to the two angels arrival after which the men of the city demanded they be brought out to them.
Sodom, according to the Book of Jasher, was a city where adultery (wife swapping) was also a custom. Orgies seemed to big a favorite pastime.
They also tortured strangers when they would happen through:
Jasher 19:3-10
And by desire of their four judges the people of Sodom and Gomorrah had beds erected in the streets of the cities, and if a man came to these places they laid hold of him and brought him to one of their beds, and by force made him to lie in them.
4 And as he lay down, three men would stand at his head and three at his feet, and measure him by the length of the bed, and if the man was less than the bed these six men would stretch him at each end, and when he cried out to them they would not answer him.
5 And if he was longer than the bed they would draw together the two sides of the bed at each end, until the man had reached the gates of death.
6 And if he continued to cry out to them, they would answer him, saying, Thus shall it be done to a man that cometh into our land.
7 And when men heard all these things that the people of the cities of Sodom did, they refrained from coming there.
God and Christ compared Jerusalem to Sodom.
Jerusalem was never known as a city of gross sexual immorality. So on what basis was the comparison made?
God stated the sin of Sodom and it can be read at Ezekiel 16:49:
49 Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
Now we have a basis for comparison.
God declared that the sins of Judah, whose capital was Jerusalem were worse than those of the break away ten tribe kingdom to its north whose capital was Samaria. And that they were even worse than those of Sodom.
And Jesus made a similar comment regarding Jerusalem two times. Once when alive on Earth and a second time after his resurrection to Heaven.
When sending out the 70 disciples to minister ahead of his coming to the towns and villages, this is what he said:
Luke 10:1-14
1 After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come.
2 Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.
3 Go your ways: behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves.
4 Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes: and salute no man by the way.
5 And into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, Peace be to this house.
6 And if the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it: if not, it shall turn to you again.
7 And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the labourer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house.
8 And into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you:
9 And heal the sick that are therein, and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.
10 But into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you not, go your ways out into the streets of the same, and say,
11 Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you: notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.
12 But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom, than for that city.
13 Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.
14 But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment, than for you.
And Christ did so again at the time he gave his prophetic vision to John. He then likens Jerusalem to Sodom:
Revelation 11:8
8 And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
Many believe that the “great city” that is mentioned here is the same great city mentioned in Revelation 16:19, “Babylon the Great”. But it could not be. Why not?
He gives a clue that he is speaking of Jerusalem as he refers to it as the place “where our Lord was crucified”.
The crowd of Israelites who demanded the death of an innocent man in exchange for the release of a guilty murder is very reminiscent of the mindset and behavior of the Sodomites.
Matthew 27:15–18 records the events:
Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. And they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?”
“‘Which of the two do you want me to release for you?’ And they said, ‘Barabbas’”
Jesus had been accused of crimes that could not be proven and were in fact based on a false allegation.
Then there was Barabbas who was basically a terrorist.
The crowd chose a murderer over the one who brings the dead back to life.
They chose evil over the one who loves perfectly.
Pilate knew Jesus was innocent, but the crowds roared to free Barabbas and to crucify Jesus.
It is true that God used this travesty of justice to fulfill his will in that it provided an innocent, pure sacrificial offering to redeem mankind.
This did not relieve his murderers from guilt.
Consider for yourself in what ways the people of Israel (Jerusalem ) manifested a spirit and behaviors like those Sodom was condemned for and how its modern day counterpart is just as reprehensible.
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