Admah
Admah is an ancient city mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Judea in modern-day Israel. Known today as south of the Lisan. It appears across 5 verses in Scripture.
Biblical History
Admah was one of the five cities of the plain, alongside Sodom, Gomorrah, Zeboiim, and Zoar, situated in the fertile Jordan Valley that the patriarch Lot chose when separating from Abraham (Genesis 13:10–12). Genesis 14 records that Admah and its king, Shinab, joined the coalition of five kings who were defeated by the four kings from the east led by Chedorlaomer, resulting in the capture of Lot and necessitating Abraham's famous night rescue. The city met its ultimate fate alongside Sodom and Gomorrah in the catastrophic divine judgment described in Genesis 19. Deuteronomy 29:23 invokes the destruction of Admah and Zeboiim alongside Sodom and Gomorrah as the supreme paradigm of divine wrath. Most poignantly, Hosea 11:8 records God's anguished cry: "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim?", employing Admah as the ultimate image of total annihilation that God in his compassion refuses to visit upon his wayward people.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
The exact location of Admah remains disputed and unconfirmed archaeologically. The traditional area of the five cities of the plain is associated with the southern basin of the Dead Sea, south of the Lisan Peninsula, where the shallow waters may conceal submerged ruins. Surveys by archaeologist Walter Rast and Thomas Schaub in the 1970s–1980s identified five Early Bronze Age sites (Bab edh-Dhra, Numeira, Safi, Feifeh, and Khanazir) on the southeastern Dead Sea plain, each showing evidence of violent destruction around 2350–2350 BCE. Some scholars assign these sites to the cities of the plain, though the correlations remain debated. The geological and sulfur-rich landscape of the Dead Sea region continues to generate research into the possible catastrophic event underlying the biblical narrative.
Verse Appearances (5)
References
- Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
- OpenBible.info (n.d.) Bible Geocoding. Available at: https://www.openbible.info/geo/. [CC BY 4.0]
- Bagnall, R. et al. (eds.) (n.d.) Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. Available at: https://pleiades.stoa.org. [CC BY 3.0]
- Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]