<b>And the two angels came to Sodom (Gen. 19:1).</b> May it please our master to teach us the number of death penalties the Beth Din (the court of seventy-one members) was empowered to impose? Our masters taught us as follows: Four death penalties were imposed by the Beth Din: stoning, burning, decapitation, and strangulation. Which one is the most severe? The rabbis held that death by stoning was the most severe, since it was the punishment inflicted upon blasphemers and idolaters. R. Simeon the son of Yohai maintained that death by fire was the severest punishment because it was inflicted upon the daughter of a priest who was guilty of unchastity. Proof of the seriousness of unchastity is that it was punishable by death through fire. R. Joshua the son of Levi declared in the name of Bar Kappara that the Holy One, blessed be He, forgives everything but licentiousness. R. Judah the son of Nehemiah stated: The Holy One, blessed be He, rained fire and brimstone upon the inhabitants of Sodom, and burned them to death, because they committed acts of sexual immorality, as it is said: <i>And the Lord caused to rain down upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire</i> (Gen. 19:24).
After they sinned, the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded his angels: “Go, destroy it.” Then they fulfilled their mission, as it is said: <i>And the two angels came to Sodom</i>. Scripture states elsewhere in allusion to this verse: <i>He sent forth upon them the fierceness of His anger, wrath, and indignation and trouble</i> (Ps. 78:49). What is meant by <i>the fierceness of His anger</i>? R. Simeon the son of Yohai said: Five plagues resulted from His anger, as it is said: <i>How much more when I send My four judgments against Jerusalem, the sword and the famine and the wild beast and the pestilence</i> (Ezek. 14:21). What is the fifth plague? The drought. How do we know this? R. Simeon the son of Yohai explained: It is written: <i>The anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and He shut up the heavens, so that there shall be no rain</i> (Deut. 11:17).
The word <i>wrath (avera)</i> indicates that He was filled with wrath against them, just as a pregnant woman (<i>uvara</i>) (is filled out). The word <i>anger (zaam)</i> implies that the Holy One, blessed be He, cursed them (from <i>zaam</i> = “curse”), as it is said: <i>How shall I curse them whom the Lord hath not cursed?</i> (Num. 23:8).
However, even when the Holy One, blessed be He, is angry, He remains merciful. He remembered Lot and rescued him because of the merit of Abraham, as is said: <i>And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the Plain, that God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow</i> (Gen. 19:29). In the Mishnah it was said that one should save the Sefer Torah case as well as the Sefer Torah, and the tefillin case as well as the tefillin. It teaches us: Happy are the righteous and those who cling to them. Scripture states: <i>And God remembered Noah and every living thing and all the cattle</i> (ibid. 8:1), all because of the merit of Noah. Similarly, <i>God remembered Abraham and sent out Lot</i> (ibid. 19:29). Woe to the wicked and to those who cling to them, as it is said: <i>And He blotted out every living substance which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle</i> (ibid. 7:23). Furthermore, it states: <i>I will blot out man whom I have created</i> (ibid. 6:7). The angels of destruction came as the emissaries of the Holy One, blessed be He, in order to destroy Sodom.