Fire and Brimstone

Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven (Gen. 19:24)

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is a strange intrusive interlude between the general narrative of Genesis of the birth of the patriarchs leading up to the twelve tribes of Israel. In particular, it occurs in the interlude between the announcement to Abraham and Sarah of the birth of Isaac and his actual birth.

Moreover, it takes place shortly after God has shown the promised Land of Canaan to Abraham where he placed the altar between Beth El and H’Ai, and indeed, as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is taking place, Abraham stands exactly at this same place before God as he watches the smoke rising from Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen.19:27-28).

The significance of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is found in the term Brimstone and Fire.

Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven (Gen. 19:24).

In Hebrew, the term for brimstone and fire is gafrit ve esh גפרית ואש spelled: gimmel-peh-resh-yod-taf-vav-aleph-shin with a gematrical value of:

 3+6+80+10+200+400+6+1+300=1000.  

In Hebrew, the word for 1000 is eleph which in fact has the same Hebrew spelling as aleph with a value of 1. So eleph and aleph (1000 and 1) imply the completion of a circle, going back to the beginning. It is the completion of God’s cycle, starting from the World of Unity (and harmony) in the Garden of Eden prior to the eviction of Adam and Eve, continuing through all the events of Noah, Abraham, Egypt, and the Exodus and then bringing the descendants of Adam back into the Land; back into the Garden of Eden.

The term brimstone and fire is repeated several times in the books of Isaiah, Job, Ezekiel and Psalms as a punishment for those who are wicked in

the sight of God, including the Children of Israel. Moreover, the term also appears in the New Testament in the Book of Revelations. In Revelations 20:1-4 Satan, which has a gematrical value 359, is thrown into a bottomless pit for 1000 years, in the form of a serpent which has a gematrical value 358. The difference between 358 and 359 is 1 and therefore the 1-1000 (aleph-eleph) linkage implied in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah is repeated. In Revelation 21:8 all evildoers are thrown into a lake of fire and brimstone. The same text in Revelations 21:6 also refers to the resurrection, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, again implying the link between 1 and 1000.

However, 1000 is the fourth decane above 1 (1, 10, 100, 1000) and represents the supra-spiritual nature of God, and signifies the transcendence from the physical expression of God (1) to the ultimate and highest expression of God (1000). Yet, in the text, 1000 and brimstone and fire authorizes the ultimate destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah which has become a synonym for evil and decadence.

How can ‘1000’, representing the supra-spiritual nature of God, also be seen to symbolize ultimate destruction? The answer can be seen in the World of Opposites described in the section on Fundaments of Gematria, where an upper, positive, force can and must have an equal and opposite negative and lower force. In this case 1000, the highest spiritual form of God whose essence is the act of Creation, is also seen to represent total destruction and the lowest form of evil. Evil is a necessary opposite of Good and without which Good is unable to exist.

This does not, however, answer the question as to why this peculiar interlude of destruction appears here in the general narrative of the story of the patriarchs and specifically between the announcement that Abraham and Sarah will have a son called Isaac and his later birth. Isaac’s birth is all-important in the sequence of the patriarchs of the Jewish people. Isaac was the first person on Earth born through the circumcision of his father Abraham – the first covenant between man and God. Isaac was therefore born in a state of purity and resulting in a special bond with God not experienced by any man before him and this state of purity was carried over through his seed to the generations of Jacob, the twelve tribes, and thereafter.

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah purged the world of any remnant of evil prior to the birth of Isaac. It is for this reason that Abraham, who, without hesitation obeys God’s command to sacrifice his only son, debates with God about the collateral damage of destroying the ‘righteous with the wicked’ through the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The debate ends with God agreeing not to destroy the two cities if there are 10 righteous people in the cities (Gen. 18:23-33). The sequence of events that follow demonstrates that there were in fact no righteous men in Sodom and Gomorrah, not even the wife of Lot.