Genesis 14:8

14:8 Then the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar) went out and prepared for battle. In the Valley of Siddim they met ¹ 

Genesis 14:10

14:10 Now the Valley of Siddim was full of tar pits. ²  When the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, they fell into them, ³  but some survivors ⁴  fled to the hills. ⁵ 

Genesis 14:22

14:22 But Abram replied to the king of Sodom, “I raise my hand ⁶  to the Lord, the Most High God, Creator of heaven and earth, and vow ⁷ 

Genesis 19:1

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

19:1 The two angels came to Sodom in the evening while ⁸  Lot was sitting in the city’s gateway. ⁹  When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face toward the ground.

Genesis 19:4

19:4 Before they could lie down to sleep, ¹⁰  all the men – both young and old, from every part of the city of Sodom – surrounded the house. ¹¹ 

Genesis 19:28

19:28 He looked out toward ¹²  Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of that region. ¹³  As he did so, he saw the smoke rising up from the land like smoke from a furnace. ¹⁴ 

[14:8]  ¹ tn Heb “against.”

[14:10]  ² tn Heb “Now the Valley of Siddim [was] pits, pits of tar.” This parenthetical disjunctive clause emphasizes the abundance of tar pits in the area through repetition of the noun “pits.”

[14:10]  ³ tn Or “they were defeated there.” After a verb of motion the Hebrew particle שָׁם (sham) with the directional heh (שָׁמָּה, shammah) can mean “into it, therein” (BDB 1027 s.v. שָׁם).

[14:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “the rest.”

[14:10]  ⁵ sn The reference to the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah must mean the kings along with their armies. Most of them were defeated in the valley, but some of them escaped to the hills.

[14:22]  ³ tn Abram takes an oath, raising his hand as a solemn gesture. The translation understands the perfect tense as having an instantaneous nuance: “Here and now I raise my hand.”

[14:22]  ⁴ tn The words “and vow” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[19:1]  ⁴ tn The disjunctive clause is temporal here, indicating what Lot was doing at the time of their arrival.

[19:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “sitting in the gate of Sodom.” The phrase “the gate of Sodom” has been translated “the city’s gateway” for stylistic reasons.

[19:4]  ⁵ tn The verb שָׁכַב (shakhav) means “to lie down, to recline,” that is, “to go to bed.” Here what appears to be an imperfect is a preterite after the adverb טֶרֶם (terem). The nuance of potential (perfect) fits well.

[19:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “and the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, from the young to the old, all the people from the end [of the city].” The repetition of the phrase “men of” stresses all kinds of men.

[19:28]  ⁶ tn Heb “upon the face of.”

[19:28]  ⁷ tn Or “all the land of the plain”; Heb “and all the face of the land of the circle,” referring to the “circle” or oval area of the Jordan Valley.

[19:28]  ⁸ tn Heb “And he saw, and look, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace.”