Gen 19:24, Jer 23:14, Eze 16:46, Rev 11:8 | JFB | e4.org | 24. Then the Lord rained . . . brimstone and fire from . . . heaven —God, in accomplishing His purposes, acts immediately or mediately through the agency of means; and there are strong grounds for believing that it was in the latter way He effected the overthrow of the cities of the plain—that it was, in fact, by a volcanic eruption. The raining down of fire and brimstone from heaven is perfectly accordant with this idea since those very substances, being raised into the air by the force of the volcano, would fall in a fiery shower on the surrounding region. This view seems countenanced by Job [ ]. Whether it was miraculously produced, or the natural operation employed by God, it is not of much consequence to determine: it was a divine judgment, foretold and designed for the punishment of those who were sinners exceedingly.

‏ Genesis 19:24

24. Then the Lord rained . . . brimstone and fire from . . . heaven—God, in accomplishing His purposes, acts immediately or mediately through the agency of means; and there are strong grounds for believing that it was in the latter way He effected the overthrow of the cities of the plain—that it was, in fact, by a volcanic eruption. The raining down of fire and brimstone from heaven is perfectly accordant with this idea since those very substances, being raised into the air by the force of the volcano, would fall in a fiery shower on the surrounding region. This view seems countenanced by Job [Job 1:16; 18:15]. Whether it was miraculously produced, or the natural operation employed by God, it is not of much consequence to determine: it was a divine judgment, foretold and designed for the punishment of those who were sinners exceedingly.

‏ Jeremiah 23:14

14. "Jerusalem" and Judah were even worse than "Samaria" and the ten tribes; the greater were the privileges of the former, the greater was their guilt. They had the temple in their midst, which the ten tribes had not; yet in the temple itself they practised idolatry.

strengthen . . . hands of evildoers— (Eze 13:22).

as Sodom— (De 32:32; Isa 1:10).

‏ Ezekiel 16:46

46. elder sister . . . Samaria—older than Sodom, to whom Judah was less nearly related by kindred than she was to Samaria. Sodom is therefore called her younger sister; Samaria, her "elder sister" [GROTIUS]. Samaria is called the "elder," because in a moral respect more nearly related to Judah [FAIRBAIRN]. Samaria had made the calves at Dan and Beth-el in imitation of the cherubim.

her daughters—the inferior towns subject to Samaria (compare Nu 21:25, Margin).

left—The Orientals faced the east in marking the directions of the sky; thus the north was "left," the south "right."

Sodom . . . daughters—Ammon and Moab, offshoots from Sodom; also the towns subject to it.

‏ Revelation of John 11:8

8. dead bodies—So Vulgate, Syriac, and ANDREAS. But A, B, C, the oldest manuscripts, and Coptic read the singular, "dead body." The two fallen in one cause are considered as one.

the great city—eight times in the Revelation elsewhere used of BABYLON (Re 14:8; 16:19; 17:18; 18:10, 16, 18, 19, 21). In Re 21:10 (English Version as to the new Jerusalem), the oldest manuscripts omit "the great" before city, so that it forms no exception. It must, therefore, have an anticipatory reference to the mystical Babylon.

which—Greek, "the which," namely, "the city which."

spiritually—in a spiritual sense.

Sodom—The very term applied by Isa 1:10 to apostate Jerusalem (compare Eze 16:48).

Egypt—the nation which the Jews' besetting sin was to lean upon.

where . . . Lord was crucified—This identifies the city as Jerusalem, though the Lord was crucified outside of the city. EUSEBIUS mentions that the scene of Christ's crucifixion was enclosed within the city by Constantine; so it will be probably at the time of the slaying of the witnesses. "The beast [for example, Napoleon and France's efforts] has been long struggling for a footing in Palestine; after his ascent from the bottomless pit he struggles much more" [BENGEL]. Some one of the Napoleonic dynasty may obtain that footing, and even be regarded as Messiah by the Jews, in virtue of his restoring them to their own land; and so may prove to be the last Antichrist. The difficulty is, how can Jerusalem be called "the great city," that is, Babylon? By her becoming the world's capital of idolatrous apostasy, such as Babylon originally was, and then Rome has been; just as she is here called also "Sodom and Egypt."

also our—A, B, C, ORIGEN, ANDREAS, and others read, "also their." Where their Lord, also, as well as they, was slain. Compare Re 18:24, where the blood of ALL slain on earth is said to be found IN BABYLON, just as in Mt 23:35, Jesus saith that, "upon the Jews and JERUSALEM" (Compare Mt 23:37, 38) shall "come ALL the righteous blood shed upon earth"; whence it follows Jerusalem shall be the last capital of the world apostasy, and so receive the last and worst visitation of all the judgments ever inflicted on the apostate world, the earnest of which was given in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. In the wider sense, in the Church-historical period, the Church being the sanctuary, all outside of it is the world, the great city, wherein all the martyrdoms of saints have taken place. Babylon marks its idolatry, Egypt its tyranny, Sodom its desperate corruption, Jerusalem its pretensions to sanctity on the ground of spiritual privileges, while all the while it is the murderer of Christ in the person of His members. All which is true of Rome. So VITRINGA. But in the more definite sense, Jerusalem is regarded, even in Hebrews (Heb 13:12-14), as the world city which believers were then to go forth from, in order to "seek one to come."