The Wartburg Project

September 30th, 2024

110. The Location of Sodom

I saw on the internet that Sodom is located north of the Dead Sea at a site called Tell Hammam. I always thought it was in the south bay of the Dead Sea where most Sunday School maps show it.

Various scholars defend one of three views about the location of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Cities of the Plain:

  1. All five cities are located south of the deep, northern part of the Dead Sea, perhaps in the former shallow southern bay of the Dead Sea.

  2. All five cities are north of the Dead Sea, in the Jordan Valley.

  3. The cities are spread through the areas north and south of the Dead Sea.

View Number 1 has been the predominant view. There is however a passage that indicates that serious consideration must be given to a location north of the sea, by the Jordan.

Genesis 13:10-12

10Lot looked up and saw the whole region around the Jordan River as you come to Zoar.[] (Before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, it was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt.) 11So Lot chose the region around the Jordan for himself. Lot headed out toward the east, and they separated from each other. 12Abram lived in the land of Canaan, and Lot lived among the cities of the region around the Jordan and moved his tent close to Sodom.
  • 13:10 In the Hebrew text, the words as you come to Zoar are placed at the end of verse 10, but they must refer to the area of Sodom and Gomorrah, not to Egypt. See 14:8.

Another passage seems to support this view:

Deuteronomy 34:1-3

The Death of Moses
341Moses went up from the Plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him the whole land: the territory of Gilead as far as Dan, 2all of Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, the whole land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea,[] 3the Negev, and the Kikkar as far as Zoar (that is, the plain in the valley around Jericho, the City of Palms).
  • 34:2 Hebrew the Western Sea

So how did the theory that places Sodom under or around the south bay of the sea become predominant? It appears that it may be a misreading of the following passage.

Genesis 14:8-11

8The 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 lined up for battle in the Valley of Siddim 9against Kedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goyim, Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar—four kings against five. 10Now the Valley of Siddim was full of tar pits. When the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, they fell there.[] Those who survived fled to the hills. 11The raiders took all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their food, and then they went on their way.

Notice that the text does not say that Sodom was in the south bay of the Dead Sea. It says that the battle took place in the south bay of the Dead Sea.

The map below illustrates the campaign of the kings. The kings traveled through the Transjordan from north to south.  They struck the Rephaim in Ashteroth Karnaim, the Zuzim in Ham, the Emim in Shaveh Kiriathaim. They bypassed Sodom and struck and the Horites in Mount Seir, all the way to El Paran, which is by the wilderness. They returned and came to En Mishpat (that is, Kadesh) and struck all the territory of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites who lived in Hazazon Tamar. They turned north toward Sodom, but the king of Sodom and his allies confronted them south of the sea before they could reach Sodom. After the king of Sodom lost the battle, the cities north of the sea were plundered.

Map from the EHV Study Bible

There is no decisive archaeological evidence to resolve the question. A recent archaeological study at a proposed northern site for Sodom & Gomorrah – at a location in Jordan called Tel el-Hammam – concludes that it is possible that this was the famous city in Genesis 19, but there is no clear evidence to support this identification. A number of cemeteries around the southern rim of the sea have been identified with the Cities of the Plain, but there is no evidence of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah in or around the south bay of the sea.

So where is Sodom, according to the biblical geography of Genesis 13 and 14? Sodom and its sister cities seem to have been located in an oval-shaped, fertile plain just north of the Dead Sea which is called ha-kikkar, or the Disk or the Circle. This well-watered disk-shaped plain, said to have been located east of the highland towns of Bethel and Ai, was an area “like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt.” The biblical texts best seem to support a location for the cities north of the sea and a battlefield south of the sea.