17:20-37 The kingdom of God was among the Jews, or rather within some of them. It was a spiritual kingdom, set up in the heart by the power of Divine grace. Observe how it had been with sinners formerly, and in what state the judgments of God, which they had been warned of, found them. Here is shown what a dreadful surprise this destruction will be to the secure and sensual. Thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. When Christ came to destroy the Jewish nation by the Roman armies, that nation was found in such a state of false security as is here spoken of. In like manner, when Jesus Christ shall come to judge the world, sinners will be found altogether regardless; for in like manner the sinners of every age go on securely in their evil ways, and remember not their latter end. But wherever the wicked are, who are marked for eternal ruin, they shall be found by the judgments of God.

But the same day Lot went out of Sodom,.... Being plucked and brought from thence by the angels early in the morning; and a fine morning it was; the sun was risen, and shone out upon the earth, as Lot got into Zoar, Genesis 19:15. "The Jews" (i) say it was the sixteenth day of Nisan:

it rained fire and brimstone from heaven; the Syriac version reads, "the Lord rained"; so it is said in Genesis 19:24 "the Lord rained from the Lord"; Jehovah the Son, rained from Jehovah the Father; or the word of the Lord, as the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem render it; and which is no inconsiderable proof of the deity of Christ: and the Persic version here reads, "God rained"; and so this amazing shower of fire and brimstone, and which was a violent storm of thunder and lightning, is ascribed to God in See Gill on 2 Peter 2:6. The Hebrew word, used in Genesis 19:24 though it is rendered in the Targum of Jonathan, and by the Septuagint, both which words signify "sulphur", or brimstone; and which last word is used here, following the Greek version; yet it is observed, by some learned men, that it rather signifies "pitch", or "rosin", which proceeds from some sort of trees; and indeed, by its derivation, it seems to signify something belonging to or that comes out of the wood of Gopher, of which the ark was made, Genesis 6:14 which some think to be the pine tree, from whence comes pitch: and this, though it comes from the inside of a tree, may as well be said to be rained from heaven, as brimstone, which is taken out of the bowels of the earth: and the rather, since pitch is sometimes fluid; and especially it being combustible, may be joined with fire, as well as sulphur, or brimstone; though a shower of neither, can be accounted for in an ordinary way, but must be extraordinary and miraculous: the destruction of this city, with others, by fire from heaven, and the lake Asphaltites, being a bituminous and sulphureous one, into which the tract of land they stood upon was converted, are confirmed by the testimonies of Heathen writers; as Tacitus (k), Solinus (l), Strabo (m), Justin (n), and Pliny (o); as well as by Josephus (p), and Philo the Jew (q).

And destroyed them all; all the inhabitants of Sodom, and all of Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim; and which was an ensample of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the land of Judea. Deuteronomy 29:23 and of the burning of the world, and of the perdition of the wicked in hell, 2 Peter 2:6.

(i) Bereshit Rabba, sect. 50. fol. 45. 3.((k) Hist. l. 5. (l) Polyhistor. c. 48. (m) Geograph. l. 16. (n) Histor. l. 36. c. 3.((o) Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 16. (p) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 11. sect. 4. & de Bello Jud. l. 5. c. 21. (q) De Vita Mosis, l. 2. p. 662.

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