To overturn, overthrow — THE Sodom verb (19:21, 25, 29). In verse 29 the event becomes a noun, 'the overthrow' (hahafekhah), and from then on 'like the overthrow of Sodom' is the Bible's standing measure of total ruin (Deuteronomy 29:23; Isaiah 13:19). Jeremiah's chapter of the stocks is bracketed by this root: the mahpekhet ('twister,' 20:2) that bent the prophet, and the birth-curse's 'cities that Jehovah overthrew' (20:16). → first discussed at Gen 19:25