What Does Genesis 19:24 Mean in the King James?
Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew keeps the word for rain while changing what rain delivers: sulfur and fire descend from heaven.
THE MEANING
This verse makes destruction impossible to soften into abstraction: sulfur and fire fall over Sodom and Gomorrah as rain. The repeated naming of the LORD places this devastation under divine agency, with its source stated as the heavens.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that rain language always signals nourishment: here the rain carries sulfur and fire.
THE ROOT
הִמְטִיר
himṭîr
GROWS FROM
מטר
To rain; in its causative form, to make rain fall.
“rained” in this verse is himṭîr. The verb הִמְטִיר (himṭîr, to cause rain to fall) keeps its ordinary rain identity even as sulfur and fire replace water as what it delivers. The root holds the familiar descent of rain together with this devastating downpour.
ALSO GROWS
māṭār: Rain
מָטָר
The noun shares the root and names rain itself; the verse uses that same rain-root for the falling of sulfur and fire.
himṭîr: To cause rain to fall
הִמְטִיר
This causative form is the verb used here, making rain the shape of the destruction’s descent.
THE PATTERN
What descends from heaven can provision the living or destroy it; what it carries gives the descent its force.
For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven: and the LORD sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground; and the LORD rained hail upon the land of Egypt.That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.THE THREAD
For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.The phrase “cause it to rain” uses the same root מָטַר (māṭar, rain) as הִמְטִיר (himṭîr, to cause rain to fall) here. Both passages let that rain-word carry destruction, making the familiar form of rainfall the shape of what falls.
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