Genesis 19:25 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And he overthrew those cities, and all the inhabitants of them, the plain, and all that grew upon the ground It was an utter ruin, and irreparable; that fruitful valley remains to this day a great lake, or dead sea. Travellers say it is about thirty miles long, and ten miles broad. It has no living creature in it: it is not moved by the wind: the smell of it is offensive: things do not easily sink in it. The Greeks call it Asphaltis, from a sort of pitch which it casts up. Jordan falls into it, and is lost there. It was a punishment that answered their sin. Burning lusts against nature were justly punished with this preternatural burning.