Lives of Scripture

Birsha was king of Gomorrah, one of five kings of the cities of the plain (with Sodom, Admah, Zeboiim, and Bela) who had served King Chedorlaomer of Elam for twelve years before rebelling in the thirteenth (Genesis 14:1-4). In the fourteenth year, Chedorlaomer and three allied kings marched against the rebels, and Birsha, together with Bera king of Sodom and the kings of Admah, Zeboiim, and Bela, met them in battle in the Valley of Siddim, a valley full of tar pits (14:8-9). The battle went against them: "the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled and fell into" the tar pits, while the rest escaped to the hills (14:10). The victors plundered Sodom and Gomorrah of their goods and provisions and carried off Abram's nephew Lot, who was living in Sodom (14:11-12). Scripture does not record what became of Birsha after this; it is the king of Sodom, not Birsha, who reappears later to meet Abram after Abram's rescue of Lot (14:17). Birsha's brief, defeated appearance sets the stage for Abram's decisive intervention and for Sodom and Gomorrah's later, greater judgment (Genesis 19).