Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 19:24 preserves one of the most heartbreaking traditions in all of rabbinic literature about the destruction of Sedom and Amorah.
"And the Word of the Lord had caused showers of favour to descend upon Sedom and Amorah, to the intent that they might work repentance, but they did it not: so that they said, Wickedness is not manifest before the Lord. Behold, then, there are now sent down upon them sulphur and fire from before the Word of the Lord from Heaven."
Before the sulphur, there was rain. Before the fire, there was favor. The Targum insists that God sent mitrei r'ava — showers of grace, gentle rain on a parched plain — as a final invitation to repentance. And the cities looked at the blessing, and they said, "If God were really watching, He would strike us. Since He does not strike, wickedness must not register with Him. Therefore we may do as we please."
They read mercy as proof of indifference. That, the Targum is teaching, was Sodom's final and fatal theological error.
Only after that response did the brimstone come. The rabbis underscore: the fire was not God's first move. It was God's last move, after the rain had been ignored.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan's phrase "the Word of the Lord from Heaven" (memra da-Hashem min shmaya) is its signature way of describing direct divine action. This is God speaking and acting, through His Memra, in real space and time.
The takeaway: when mercy falls and you mistake it for permission, you have set yourself up for the next thing falling from the sky.