Chapter Eight: The Excess of Sodom

Abstract

First, we must ask about the verse, now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against YHVH. What evil did the people of Sodom do? We are told they are wicked sinners, but it is not yet clear exactly why they are bad. Later, it is mentioned that they want to know the men/angels who are Lot’s guests (and here, too, we may play the innocent and ask what is the meaning of “to know”), but the matter of noise is also mentioned later: Then YHVH said, the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah, because it is great, and their sin, because it is very weighty. I will go down and see whether all they have done is like the cry that has come to me; and if not, I will know (18:20). This means that their overdoing of pleasures disturbs God’s rest, just as the constant noise of the men of Babel disturbed the gods in the ancient extra-biblical myth (perhaps we may conclude from this that the request to know the angels appears to be evil because it shows a desire to know too much about the angels’ bodies, that it shows overflowing, transgressive desire). See also the angels’ words to Lot about the great outcry of the people of Sodom (19:14), and this is an extension of earlier instances in Genesis where man is called sinful: mention is made of badness, but nothing specific is said about evil deeds. Perhaps this is because sin is not to be understood as doing something bad to one’s fellow, as a true (human) moral problem, but rather, as failure to stick to God’s plan, as annoying excessiveness. Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against YHVH. We claim that the emphasis is on “great.”