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Real Life Biblical Kings and Other Historic Bible Facts and Figures

Khalid Elhassan April 25, 2025 18 min

Bible - Yul Brynner as the pharaoh in 'The Ten Commandments' — Yul Brynner as the pharaoh in 'The Ten Commandments'. Wikimedia

6. The Fall of Jericho’s Walls and the Sodom and Gomorrah Accounts

The fall of Jericho’s walls. Times of Israel

In the Old Testament, Joshua and the Israelites besieged the walled city of Jericho, marched around it while blowing horns, and the walls came tumbling down. Elsewhere in the Old Testament, Sodom and Gomorrah are cautionary examples of divine destruction as punishment. Both tales might have a common origin in a real life ancient natural disaster. In the Book of Genesis, God informs Abraham that Sodom and the nearby city of Gomorrah are to be destroyed for their wickedness. Abraham pleads for the lives of righteous inhabitants, especially his nephew Lot and his family. The Lord agrees to spare the cities if fifty good people could be found in them – a figure that Abraham bargains down to ten. Two angels disguised as men are sent to Lot in Sodom, only for a depraved mob to demand that he hand over his guests so they could slake their lusts upon them.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.