What Does Genesis 19:28 Mean?
And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and saw, and look, the smoke of the land rose like the smoke of a furnace.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.THE KEY
The smoke is the land’s witness: devastation becomes visible across the distance that separates the viewer from it.
THE MEANING
The gaze runs across the whole plain, and what it discloses is smoke lifting like a furnace plume. The devastation remains visible at a distance, carried by what the burning sends upward.
THE ROOT
קִיטֹר
qitor
GROWS FROM
קטר
qatar
to make smoke; to burn incense
The word for smoke belongs to the same root family as a verb for making smoke or burning incense and a noun for incense. That family keeps the visible plume bound to burning: what rises here is the material trace of fire, in a word family that also names smoke raised as incense.
ALSO GROWS
qatar: to burn incense; to make smoke
קָטַר
The verb names the burning process from which the verse’s plume rises.
qetoret: incense
קְטֹרֶת
This noun shares the smoke-making root family, linking a rising plume with material made by burning.
THE PATTERN
Rising smoke makes the force and devastation of burning visible, even from a distance.
And Mount Sinai smoked all over, because the LORD came down upon it in fire, and its smoke went up like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount trembled greatly.It does not go out night or day, and its smoke rises for the ages. From generation to generation it lies dry, and no one passes through it for ages and ages.And again they say, Hallelujah. And her smoke rises up into the ages of the ages.THE THREAD
And Mount Sinai smoked all over, because the LORD came down upon it in fire, and its smoke went up like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount trembled greatly.The furnace comparison repeats almost word for word: here the plain’s smoke rises like a furnace; at Sinai, smoke ascends as one when the LORD descends in fire. The echo makes the power at work visible through the same image, while leaving the scenes distinct.
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