Bible Strands
Genesis 19:25
Thus He destroyed these cities and the entire plain, including all the inhabitants of the cities and everything that grew on the ground.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrator records God’s immediate action following the sulfur and fire He rained on Sodom and Gomorrah, positioned between the initial judgment and Lot’s wife looking back.
The words — The verb וַיַּהֲפֹךְ (wa.ya.ha.foKh) literally means “and he overthrew,” and it grammatically governs two direct objects: “these cities” and “all the plain” (הַכִּכָּר, ha.ki.Kar).
The thread — The destruction of fertile land matches the pattern in Psalms 107:34, where fruitful ground becomes salt fields because of its inhabitants’ wickedness, and recalls the earlier description of the plain and Valley of Siddim in Genesis 13:10 and 14:3.
Why it lands — The text states that the judgment eradicated the urban centers, the agricultural plain, its residents, and all vegetation, requiring the reader to recognize that divine punishment in this account is geographically and materially total.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.
Cross-references
- Psalms 107:34 and fruitful land into fields of salt, because of the wickedness of its dwellers.
- Genesis 14:3 The latter five came as allies to the Valley of Siddim (that is, the Salt Sea).
- Genesis 13:10 And Lot looked out and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan, all the way to Zoar, was well watered like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)