Legends of the Jews, Volume 1 — Chapter 5: Abraham, Part 8

THE CITIES OF SIN

The inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah and the three other cities of the plain were sinful and godless.

In their country there was an extensive vale, where they foregathered annually with their wives and their children and all belonging to them, to celebrate a feast lasting several days and consisting of the most revolting orgies.

If a stranger merchant passed through their territory, he was besieged by them all, big and little alike, and robbed of whatever he possessed.

Each one appropriated a bagatelle, until the traveller was stripped bare.

If the victim ventured to remonstrate with one or another, he would show him that he had taken a mere trifle, not worth talking about.

And the end was that they hounded him from the city.

Once upon a time it happened that a man journeying from Elam arrived in Sodom toward evening.

No one could be found to grant him shelter for the night.

Finally a sly fox named Hedor invited him cordially to follow him to his house.

The Sodomite had been attracted by a rarely magnificent carpet, strapped to the stranger's ass by means of a rope.

He meant to secure it for himself.

The friendly persuasions of Hedor induced the stranger to remain with him two days, though he had expected to stay only overnight.

When the time came for him to continue on his journey, he asked his host for the carpet and the rope.

Hedor said: "Thou hast dreamed a dream, and this is the interpretation of thy dream: the rope signifies that thou wilt have a long life, as long as a rope; the varicolored carpet indicates that thou wilt own an orchard wherein thou wilt plant all sorts of fruit trees."

The stranger insisted that his carpet was a reality, not a dream fancy, and he continued to demand its return.

Not only did Hedor deny having taken anything from his guest, he even insisted upon pay for having interpreted his dream to him.

His usual price for such services, he said, was four silver pieces, but in view of the fact that he was his guest, he would, as a favor to him, content himself with three pieces of silver.

After much wrangling, they put their case before one of the judges of Sodom, Sherek by name, and he said to the plaintiff, "Hedor is known in this city as a trustworthy interpreter of dreams, and what he tells thee is true."

The stranger declared himself not satisfied with the verdict, and continued to urge his side of the case.

Then Sherek drove both the plaintiff and the defendant from the court room.

Seeing this, the inhabitants gathered together and chased the stranger from the city, and lamenting the loss of his carpet, he had to pursue his way.

As Sodom had a judge worthy of itself, so also had the other cities—Sharkar in Gomorrah, Zabnak in Admah, and Manon in Zeboiim.

Eliezer, the bondman of Abraham, made slight changes in the names of these judges, in accordance with the nature of what they did: the first he called Shakkara, Liar; the second Shakrura, Arch-deceiver; the third Kazban, Falsifier; and the fourth, Mazle-Din, Perverter of Judgment.

At the suggestion of these judges, the cities set up beds on their commons.

When a stranger arrived, three men seized him by his head, and three by his feet, and they forced him upon one of the beds.

If he was too short to fit into it exactly, his six attendants pulled and wrenched his limbs until he filled it out; if he was too long for; it, they tried to jam him in with all their combined strength, until the victim was on the verge of death.

Hit outcrles were met with the words, "Thus will be done to any man that comes into our land."

After a while travellers avoided these cities, but if some poor devil was betrayed occasionally into entering them, they would give him gold and silver, but never any bread, so that he was bound to die of starvation.

Once he was dead, the residents of the city came and took back the marked gold and silver which they had given him, and they would quarrel about the distribution of his clothes, for they would bury him naked.

Once Eliezer, the bondman of Abraham, went to Sodom, at the bidding of Sarah, to inquire after the welfare of Lot.

He happened to enter the city at the moment when the people were robbing a stranger of his garments.

Eliezer espoused the cause of the poor wretch, and the Sodomites turned against him; one threw a stone at his forehead and caused considerable loss of blood.

Instantly, the assailant, seeing the blood gush forth, demanded payment for having performed the operation of cupping.

Eliezer refused to pay for the infliction of a wound upon him, and he was haled before the judge Shakkara.

The decision went against him, for the law of the land gave the assailant the right to demand payment.

Eliezer quickly picked up a stone and threw it at the judge's forehead.

When he saw that the blood was flowing profusely, he said to the judge, "Pay my debt to the man and give me the balance."

The cause of their cruelty was their exceeding great wealth.

Their soil was gold, and in their miserliness and their greed for more and more gold, they wanted to prevent strangers from enjoying aught of their riches.

Accordingly, they flooded the highways with streams of water, so that the roads to their city were obliterated, and none could find the way thither.

They were as heartless toward beasts as toward men.

They begrudged the birds what they ate, and therefore extirpated them.

[155] They behaved impiously toward one another, too, not shrinking back from murder to gain possession of more gold.

If they observed that a man owned great riches, two of them would conspire against him.

They would beguile him to the vicinity of ruins, and while the one kept him on the spot by pleasant converse, the other would undermine the wall near which he stood, until it suddenly crashed down upon him and killed him.

Then the two plotters would divide his wealth between them.

Another method of enriching themselves with the property of others was in vogue among them.

They were adroit thieves.

When they made up their minds to commit theft, they would first ask their victim to take care of a sum of money for them, which they smeared with strongly scented oil before handing it over to him.

The following night they would break into his house, and rob him of his secret treasures, led to the place of concealment by the smell of the oil.

Their laws were calculated to do injury to the poor.

The richer a man, the more was he favored before the law.

The owner of two oxen was obliged to render one day's shepherd service, but if he had but one ox, he had to give two days' service.

A poor orphan, who was thus forced to tend the flocks a longer time than those who were blessed with large herds, killed all the cattle entrusted to him in order to take revenge upon his oppressors, and he insisted, when the skins were assigned, that the owner of two head of cattle should have but one skin, but the owner of one head should receive two skins, in correspondence to the method pursued in assigning the work.

For the use of the ferry, a traveller had to pay four zuz, but if he waded through the water, he had to pay eight zuz.

[156] The cruelty of the Sodomites went still further.

Lot had a daughter, Paltit, so named because she had been born to him shortly after he escaped captivity through the help of Abraham.

Paltit lived in Sodom, where she had married.

Once a beggar came to town, and the court issued a proclamation that none should give him anything to eat, in order that he might die of starvation.

But Paltit had pity upon the unfortunate wretch, and every day when she went to the well to draw water, she supplied him with a piece of bread, which she hid in her water pitcher.

The inhabitants of the two sinful cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, could not understand why the beggar did not perish, and they suspected that some one was giving him food in secret.

Three men concealed themselves near the beggar, and caught Paltit in the act of giving him something to eat.

She had to pay for her humanity with death; she was burnt upon a pyre.

The people of Admah were no better than those of Sodom.

Once a stranger came to Admah, intending to stay overnight and continue his journey the next morning.

The daughter of a rich man met the stranger, and gave him water to drink and bread to eat at his request.

When the people of Admah heard of this infraction of the law of the land, they seized the girl and arraigned her before the judge, who condemned her to death.

The people smeared her with honey from top to toe, and exposed her where bees would be attracted to her.

The insects stung her to death, and the callous people paid no heed to her heartrending cries.

Then it was that God resolved upon the destruction of these sinners.

[157] ABRAHAM PLEADS FOR THE SINNERS

When God saw that there was no righteous man among the inhabitants of the sinful cities, and there would be none among their descendants, for the sake of whose merits the rest might be treated with lenient consideration, He resolved to annihilate them one and all.

[158] But before judgment was executed, the Lord made known unto Abraham what He would do to Sodom, Gomorrah, and the other cities of the plain, for they formed a part of Canaan, the land promised unto Abraham, and therefore did God say, "I will not destroy them without the consent of Abraham."

[159] Like a compassionate father, Abraham importuned the grace of God in behalf of the sinners.

He spoke to God, and said: "Thou didst take an oath that no more should all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood.

Is it meet that Thou shouldst evade Thy oath and destroy cities by fire?

Shall the Judge of all the earth not do right Himself?

Verily, if Thou desirest to maintain the world, Thou must give up the strict line of justice.

If Thou insistest upon the right alone, there can be no world."

Whereupon God said to Abraham: "Thou takest delight in defending My creatures, and thou wouldst not call them guilty.

Therefore I spoke with none but thee during the ten generations since Noah."

[160] Abraham ventured to use still stronger words in order to secure the safety of the godless.

"That be far from Thee," he said, "to slay the righteous with the wicked, that the dwellers on the earth say not, 'It is His trade to destroy the generations of men in a cruel manner; for He destroyed the generation of Enosh, then the generation of the flood, and then He sent the confusion of tongues.

He sticks ever to His trade.'

" God made reply: "I will let all the generations I have destroyed pass before thee, that thou mayest see they have not suffered the extreme punishment they deserved.

But if thou thinkest that I did not act justly, then instruct thou Me in what I must do, and I will endeavor to act in accordance with thy words."

And Abraham had to admit that God had not diminished in aught the justice due to every creature in this world or the other world.

[161] Nevertheless he continued to speak, and he said: "Wilt Thou consume the cities, if there be ten righteous men in each?"

And God said, "No, if I find fifty righteous therein, I will not destroy the cities."

[162] Abraham: "I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, I who would have been turned long since into dust of the ground by Amraphel and into ashes by Nimrod, had it not been for Thy grace.

[163] Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous for Zoar, the smallest of the five cities.

Wilt Thou destroy all the city for lack of five?"

God: "I will not destroy it, if I find there forty and five."

Abraham: "Peradventure there be ten pious in each of the four cities, then forgive Zoar in Thy grace, for its sins are not so great in number as the sins of the others."

God granted his petition, yet Abraham continued to plead, and he asked whether God would not be satisfied if there were but thirty righteous, ten in each of the three larger cities, and would pardon the two smaller ones, even though there were no righteous therein, whose merits would intercede for them.

This, too, the Lord granted, and furthermore He promised not to destroy the cities if but twenty righteous were found therein; yes, God conceded that He would preserve the five cities for the sake of ten righteous therein.

[164] More than this Abraham did not ask, for he knew that eight righteous ones, Noah and his wife, and his three sons and their wives, had not sufficed to avert the doom of the generation of the flood, and furthermore he hoped that Lot, his wife, and their four daughters, together with the husbands of their daughters, would make up the number ten.

What he did not know was that even the righteous in these sin-laden cities, though better than the rest, were far from good.

[165] Abraham did not cease to pray for the deliverance of the sinners even after the Shekinah had removed from him.

But his supplications and his intercessions were in vain.

[166] For fifty-two years God had warned the godless; He had made mountains to quake and tremble.

But they hearkened not unto the voice of admonition.

They persisted in their sins, and their well-merited punishment overtook them.

[167] God forgives all sins, only not an immoral life.

And as all these sinners led a life of debauchery, they were burnt with fire.

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