Text: Isaiah 1:10
OT Text Referred to: Deuteronomy 29:23
Subject: destruction of cities of the plain
Source: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Analogy
Significance: Isaiah shocks his audience by addressing Jerusalem's leaders as "rulers of Sodom" and its people as "people of Gomorrah" (קְצִינֵי סְדֹם, qetzinei Sedom; עַם עֲמֹרָה, am Amorah), echoing Deuteronomy 29:23 where Moses warned that covenant unfaithfulness would make Israel's land resemble the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah. Deuteronomy 29 presented this as a future curse for abandoning the covenant; Isaiah declares that Jerusalem has become so corrupt that it now merits the very comparison Moses threatened. The preceding verse (Isa 1:9) acknowledges that only the LORD's preservation of a remnant has prevented literal Sodom-like annihilation, making the Sodom epithet in v. 10 all the more devastating — Jerusalem has already arrived at the moral condition the covenant curses anticipated.