eighty feet high, which traverses the | On the southern extremity of the eastvalley El Ghor like a wall, forming a ern shore, the salt is also deposited by barrier to the waters of the Lake when the evaporation of the water of the lake. at their greatest height.' On this plain, The travellers found several of the nabesides the saline appearance left by tives peeling off a solid layer of salt, the retiring of the waters of the Lake, several inches thick, with which they , the travellers noticed, lying on the loaded their asses. At another point, ground, several large fragments of also where the water, being shallow, rock-salt, which led them to exainine retires or evaporates rapidly, a considthe hill, on the right of the ravine by erable level is left, encrusted with a which they had descended to the plain, salt that is but half dried and consolidescribed above, as composed partly of dated, appearing like ice in the comsalt and partly of hardened sand. They mencement of a thaw, and giving way found the salt, in many instances, nearly ankle deep. All these appearhanging from the cliffs, in clear per- ances are surely sufficient to justify the pendicular points resembling icicles. appellation of Plain or Valley of Salt.' They observed also strata of salt of Robinson's Calmet. If then we find considerable thickness, having very lit- the very materials of this awful visitatle sand mixed with it, generally in per- tion at hand in the neighbouring hills, pendicular lines. During the rainy what shall prevent us from supposing season, the torrents apparently bring that a volcanic eruption, perhaps from down immense masses of this mineral. the identical crater, which Clarke deWas, then, this 'gravelly ravine,' the scribes, pouring down upon the guilty particular Valley of Salt?' or was cities a shower of inflamed sulphur or this term applied more generally to this nitre mixed with heated salt, while the whole plain, which exhibits similar whole adjoining plain underwent a characteristics? Strabo mentions, that simultaneous overthrow in consequence to the southward of the Dead Sea there of a bituminous explosion? There is are towns and cities built entirely of nothing, that we can see, in this supsalt; and although,' add the travel- position at variance with the really lers, miraculous character of the event-for it was omnipotence that waked the sleeping subterranean fires at that particular juncture-nothing but what is in strict accordance with the geological phenomena that now distinguish this remarkable region. Indeed the more close and rigid have been the researches into the physical characters of the basin of the Dead Sea, the more clearly have the results appeared to be precisely such as might be expected from the truth of the foregoing hypothesis. The objection stated above by Paxton, that the presence of sulphur and salt would be inconsistent with the asserted primitive fertility of the plain, is obviated at once by the remark, that by our very supposition these substances were not originally found on the plain, but such an account seems strange, yet when we contemplate the scene before us, it did not seem incredible.' The sea had thrown up at high-water mark a quantity of wood, with which the travellers attempted to make a fire, in order to bake some bread; but it was so impregnated with salt, that all their efforts were unavailing. The track, after leaving the salt-hill, led across the barren flats of the back-water of the lake, then left partly dry by the effects of evaporation. They passed six drains running into the sea; some were wet, and still draining the dreary level which they intersected; others were dry. These had a strong marshy smell, similar to what is perceivable on most of the muddy flats in salt-water harbours, but by no means more unpleasant. I is so largely impregnated with saline and sulphureous properties is probably in part at least to the fact that it now extends on either side to the base of the mountains, and thus comes in contact with the materials of which they are composed.-On this whole subject see Mod. Traveller, vol. i. pp. 188, 199, Am. Ed. in the mountains and that the water | its fertility, and submerged the ground itself under the waters of the Jordan, that the foot of man might never tread it more. The destruction was complete and irreparable; the country was in a manner blotted out of the map of Palestine, so fierce was the indignation, so terrible the overthrow. The original word ( yahaphok) is emphatic, and by being applied not to the build ings only, but to the ground on which they stood, would seem to imply that kind of physical disruption which could be caused only by an earthquake or volcano, or the combined action of both, which we have above endeavoured to show to be nearer the truth. Its leading idea in such connections as the present, is that of subversion, and this is obviously an effect additional to any thing that would be caused by the mere descent of a fiery shower from heaven. The catastrophe, therefore, if our interpretation be admitted, was marked with the united horrors of earthquake, and volcano, the latter described as a conflagration from heaven, forming altogether such a scene as baffles conception, and such as the eye of man never witnessed before. Thus were the cities of the plain, and the ground on which they stood, set forth for an example to every succeeding age; and to that awful catastrophe the sacred writers often allude, in their denunciations of the divine judgments against apostate Israel; Deut 23. 23, 'When the generations to come shall see that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning; that it is not sown, nor beareth; nor any grass groweth thereon, (like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and in his wrath); even all nations shall say, wherefore has the Lord done this unto this land?' The prophet Hosea, pathetically describing the great mercy of God toward the people of Is rael, and his unwillingness to punish The Lord rained-from the Lord out of heaven. This phraseology is remarkable, and has led some commentators to understand the words as a distinct intimation of a plurality of persons in the Godhead, q. d. 'The Lord, who appeared and conversed with Lot, the Son of God, rained from the Lord who is invisible, from the Father in heaven, the destroying tempest.' But it is perhaps safer to understand it as a mere Hebraic idiom, equivalent to saying, that Jehovah rained in this fearful manner from himself out of heaven. That is, such was the appearance of the phenomenon. Parallel modes of speech are not unusual in the sacred writers. Thus, Ex. 24. 1, 'And he (the Lord) said unto Moses, Come up unto the Lord,' &c. Hos. 1. 7, 'I will save them by the Lord God.' Zech. 10. 12, 'I will strengthen them in the Lord. 1 Kings, 8. 1, 'Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the chief of the fathers of the children of Israel, unto king Solomon.' The scope of the words is probably to intimate that the fiery shower was extraordinary and miraculous, altogether out of the common course of nature, something to be referred to the hand of Omnipotence. - Upon Sodom and Gomorrah. And also upon the mighty cities Admah and Zeboim, as is evident from Deut. 29. 23. Hos. 11. 5. 25. Overthrow those cities, and all the plain, &c. That is, he consumed its productions, he destroyed its beauty, he extinguished the very principles of 26 But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became 1 a pillar of salt. Luke 17. 32. 27 And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the LORD: ་ m ch. 18. 22. It was total. And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.' It was an utter ruin, and absolutely irreparable. Every habitation was overturned, every animal destroyed, every vegetable consumed, every soul of man, excepting Lot and his party, involved in the dread disaster. Had ten righteous persons been found in it, it would have been preserved for their sakes; but as the degeneracy was universal, so also was the destruction. What a striking demonstration of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and of the direful consequences it draws after it! What a fearful intimation of the final doom of the ungodly, when they shall be condemned to suffer the vengeance of eternal fire! them, notwithstanding their signal ingratitude, breaks out into the following animated address, in the name of the Lord, Hos. 11. 8, 'How shall I give thee up, Ephraim; how shall I deliver thee, Israel? How shall I make thee as Admah, how shall I set thee as Zeboim? My heart is turned within me, and my repentings are kindled together.' But however interesting may be the event geologically or philosophically considered, it is practically fraught with far more important lessons. (1.) The destruction of these fated cities was extraordinary. It was unprecédented; there has been nothing like it, either before or since. It was emphatically destruction from the Almighty. He rained down out of heaven, in the manner above described, fire and brimstone upon their habitations, and at the same time upturned the soil on which 26. His wife looked back from behind they stood by the agency of subter- him. This seems to imply that she ranean burnings and explosions. We was following her husband, as is the can enter experimentally into the feel-custom at this day. When men, or ings of those who are overtaken in a women, leave their house, they never fearful storm of thunder and lightning; look back, as 'it would be very unforbut who can enter into the feelings of tunate.' Should a husband have left the inhabitants of these devoted cities, any thing which his wife knows he will when the Lord himself had become require, she will not call on him to turn their enemy, when he was evidently or look back; but will either take the fighting against them with his great article herself, or send it by another. power, and unlocking the magazines of Should a man have to look back on his vengeance for their total destruc- some great emergency, he will not then tion! The burning of Moscow by the proceed on the business he was about Russians, to prevent its being sacked to transact. When a person goes by the French, was an awful calamity; along the road, (especially in the evenbut then it was not supernaturally ing), he will take great care not to wrought; it was occasioned by human look back, 'because the evil spirits would agency, and the inhabitants might flee assuredly seize him.' When they go to a place of safety. But in the de- on a journey, they will not look bestruction of Sodom and Gomorrah es- hind, though the palankeen, or bandy, cape was hopeless. Divine vengeance should be close upon them; they step closed in its victims on every side, and a little on one side, and then look at as the perdition was inevitable, so (2.) you. Should a person have to leave though her looking back should not be supposed to have inspired a wish to go back, yet still it was disobeying an express command, a command which, for wise reasons, was made the test of obedience, and consequently she sinned after the similitude of Adam's trans goodness and severity of God; towards Lot that went forward, goodness; towards his wife that looked back, severity. Though nearly related to a righteous man, and a monument of distinguishing mercy in her deliverance out of Sodom, yet rebelling against an express mandate of heaven, her privileges and relations availed her nothing; God would not connive at her disobedience; she became a mournful illustration of the truth that the righteous who turn away from their righteousness shall perish! While then we lament her fate, let us profit by her example.-As to the meaning of the phrase, 'became a pillar of salt,' com the house of a friend after sunset, he will be advised in going home not to look back as much as possible keep your eyes closed; fear not.' Has a person made an offering to the evil spirits, he must take particular care when he leaves the place not to look back. A female known to me is be-gression, and what reason had she to lieved to have got her crooked neck by expect any milder doom? We may looking back. Such observations as allow for the strength of natural curithe following may be often heard in osity, for the force of motherly, sisterprivate conversation. 'Have you heard ly, and neighbourly affection, yet with that Comuran is very ill?'-'No, what every abatement, it was a great sin, beis the matter with him?'-'Matter! cause upon her abstaining from it was why he has looked back, and the evil suspended her temporal, if not her spirit has caught him.' Roberts.- -Teternal, salvation. Behold then the And she became a pillar of salt. How fearfully is judgment here mingled with mercy! Lot was himself delivered, but at what an expense ! It was a dismal spectacle to him to behold the city of his residence, his adopted home, including the habitations of his neighbours and probably of some of his own relatives with all their inmates, sinking in the flames of the devouring element. But this was not all. One wave of anguish after another rolled over him. His company, as he left the city, was but small; and now, alas! when he has escaped, one is missing! His wife was the partner of his flight, but not of his preservation. The companion of his youth, the moth-mentators are not agreed. The more er of his children, instead of sharing in the joy of their deliverance, stands a pillar of salt in the way towards Sodom, an awful monument of the danger of disobedience! 'What doth it avail her,' says Bp. Hall, not to be turned into ashes in Sodom, when she is turned into a pillar of salt in the plain?' This may be deemed a hard fate for a mere glance of the eye; but that glance, no doubt, was expressive of unbelief and a lingering desire to return. Certain it is, that her example is held up by our Lord as a warning against turning back, which intimates that such was the meaning of her look. But even ་ common opinion is, that she was suddenly petrified and changed into a statue of rock salt, which either by its own nature or by miraculous power was made capable of continuing undissolved by the action of the elements. In conformity with this is the testimony of Josephus, who says expressly that Lot's wife was changed into a pillar of salt, for I have seen it, and it remains to this day.' Clement, of Rome, also says that it was standing there to his time, which was about the time of Josephus; and Irenaeus says that it was there a century still later. Some modern travellers relate that it . every trace of the material fabric had disappeared. Indeed in this sense Lot's wife is a 'pillar of salt' to us at the present day; inasmuch as her recorded fate teaches us a lesson of perpetual warning against the sin of apostacy. 27. And Abraham gat up early to the place, &c. The narrative now returns to Abraham, to whose history every thing is subservient, and shows that he was far from being unheedfal of the predicted doom of Sodom. For aught that he seems to have known, Lot may have been involved in the common destruction; at least it does not appear that he had before received any assurance of his safety, and we deem it a very probable supposition that he had been engaged a great part, if not the whole, of the previous night in earnest intercession in his behalf. Accordingly he repairs at an early hour the next morning, the very morning, it would seem, on which the judg ment occurred, to the spot where he had the day before held his favoured communion with Jehovah, which was doubtless a position commanding a full view of the cities of the plain and the adjacent valley of the Jordan. And here what a scene of woe bursts upon his sight! 'Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolation he hath remains there still; but the probability is that they were one and all imposed upon by the reports of those who dwelt at or near the spot; just as travellers at this day are often told that such and such objects are real monuments of antiquity when there is not a particle of evidence of the truth of the statement. Josephus and the others no doubt saw what they were told was the pillar of salt into which Lot's wife was turned, and in like manner the traveller is still told that he sees the very water-pot which contained the water miraculously turned into wine in Cana of Galilee. The truth is, the literal mode of interpretation is not demanded by the terms of the text. Salt is a symbol of perpetuity. For this reason the covenant spoken of Num. 18. 19, is called a 'covenant of salt,' i. e. an enduring, a perpetual covenant. Thus too 2 Chron. 13. 5, "The Lord God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David, even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt,' i. e. by the most binding and lasting engagement. See Note on Judg. 9. 45. In like manner a 'pillar of salt' conveys the idea of a lasting monument, a perpetual memorial of the sad consequences of disobedience. We may suppose with great probability that the saline and sulphureous matter which, in conse-made in the earth.' The fertile and dequence of the eruption, was showering lightful vale of Siddim, whose green down from the atmosphere, gathered fields and well-peopled cities had so around the unfortunate woman as a often met his view from the rocky nucleus, forming a thick incrustation, heights of Canaan is now enveloped in which gradually became hardened, till flames! Not the cities only with their at last she stood a massive pillar of buildings and inhabitants are sinking in this mineral matter capable of resist the conflagration, but the very ground ing, perhaps for ages, the action of itself on which they stood shares in the time and the elements. The perpetuity awful catastrophe! Sulphureous smoke however indicated by the use of the mingled with lurid gleams of fire, is term 'salt' is not to be considered as constantly rising up in dense pitchy masdepending upon the actual duration of ses, and constitutes all that Abraham the pillar. That may have worn away is now able to see!- -T Lo, the smoke in time, and yet the record of the event of the country went up as the smoke of may have been a perpetual memorial a furnace. This is rendered by the to subsequent generations long after Septuagint, 'A flame went up out of |