But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter.
World English Bible
Genesis 19:4
This verse is examined in more than one Scripture Analysis section. Each lens is shown on its own terms, in the section's own words; GEBible reaches no verdict of its own.
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WEB World English Bible Public Domain ✓ - Modern English
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- TCENT Text-Critical English New Testament A modern reasoned-eclectic New Testament (2022) · CC BY 4.0
- F35 Family 35 New Testament Wilbur Pickering's Byzantine-priority New Testament, with text-critical commentary notes · CC BY-SA 4.0
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- KJV King James Version Public Domain
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Examined in Scripture Analysis
Contradictions (2)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
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Do angels have sex?
Genesis 6:2-4 and Jude 6-7 describe angelic beings (the 'sons of God') having sex with human women and producing Nephilim. Genesis 19 has the Sodomites attempting to rape two angelic visitors.
Critical scholarship: Widely regarded as a genuine contradiction.
Theology
More on this question
The proposed answers and sources for each reading are on the question page.
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What was Sodom's sin?
The Bible names at least six different sins as the reason Sodom was destroyed: same-sex intercourse (Leviticus 18:22 read into Ezekiel 16:50), inhospitality (Matthew 10, Luke 10, Wisdom 19:13), seeking sex with angels and 'strange flesh' (Genesis 19, Jude 7), pride and neglect of the poor (Isaiah 1, Ezekiel 16:49), adultery and lying (Jeremiah 23:14), and generic ungodliness (2 Peter 2). The 'homosexuality' reading is a late interpretive overlay that the Hebrew Bible's own internal cross-references don't support.
Critical scholarship: Usually considered reconciled.
Historical detail
More on this question
The proposed answers and sources for each reading are on the question page.
Each section sets the viewpoints side by side; you weigh the evidence. Here, "critical scholarship" means academic study, not a value judgment. How this is built →
Other verses examined for the same kind of question or claim
Within each section, grouped by shared field or question type — not a cross-section comparison.
Cite this page
This citation refers to this GEBible page — the verse and the analysis gathered here. To cite the underlying scholarship, cite those sources directly.
"Genesis 19:4 — Scripture Analysis" GEBible, https://gebible.app/analysis/verse/genesis/19/4?version=WEB (retrieved 27 August 2026).