Thus God overthrows those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities and also the vegetation of the land. The totality of the destruction — cities, plain, people, vegetation — mirrors the totality of the flood in Genesis 7. The landscape is transformed: the well-watered plain that Lot chose because it looked like the garden of the LORD (Genesis 13:10) is now a wasteland. The garden became smoke. What appeared most desirable from a distance proved most dangerous at close range. Revelation 18:18 echoes this language when describing the fall of Babylon — the smoke rising, the total destruction of what seemed most powerful and prosperous. The application: the well-watered plain of human choosing, apart from God's guidance, has a different end than it promised at first sight.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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