Wicked Sinners (Gen 13:13)

¹³ (Now the people of Sodom were evil, great sinners against YHWH.)

וְאַנְשֵׁ֣י סְדֹ֔ם רָעִ֖ים וְחַטָּאִ֑ים לַי׳הוָ֖ה מְאֹֽד׃

This is a background verse — in more ways than one. Let’s talk about them.

First, and most obviously, it doesn’t have a verb. I used one in English for grammatical reasons. The original King James version used to italicize such words so readers would know they had been added:

But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.

The people of Sodom are not doing anything. This is merely a description of them, presumably because Lot has just moved nearby. What he wanted was fine pasture land for his flocks, and their city was one of those in the vicinity. They have played no role in our story so far and will not appear until ch. 19. Yet somehow our chapter has found it necessary to let us know that (1) Sodom is going to be in ruins before our story is concluded and (2) they deserve it!

Share The Bible Guy

Oh, yes — have we mentioned that Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, the four cities that will be destroyed, are in Canaanite territory? It’s hard to imagine that has nothing to do with this topic. Apparently being רע ra ‘evil’ is even worse than we thought. Come to think of it (oops), we actually don’t know anything about what being “evil” means.

Clearly, it’s the opposite of good; we know that from the famous tree. And we know that the people of Sodom were evil for the simplest of reasons: they are people. YHWH has already expressed his opinion of us: