The destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah was a demonstration of God’s wrath and anger.
The rabbis asked about this anger and poured over the scripture to understand it better.
God is a righteous judge,
And a God who shows indignation every day.
Psalm 7:11 (NASB)
On the one hand, Psalm 7 teaches us that God is angry every day. In verse 11, some translations say “anger at the wicked,” but this is not what the text says.
It says anger. Every day.
So in response, the rabbis then ask, “if God is angry every day, surely God is not angry all day long.”
In Psalm 30, they point out that God’s anger only lasts “for a moment.” (phew!)
For His anger is but for a moment,
His favor is for a lifetime;
Weeping may last for the night,
But a shout of joy comes in the morning.
Psalm 30:
But then, how long is “a moment?”
There are several answers they provide as possibilities. Among them, this is my favorite:
“One fifty-eight thousand, eight hundred and eighty-eighth of an hour, that is a moment.”
God’s anger lasts a moment. And how long is a moment? One fifty-eight thousand, eight hundred and eighty-eighth of an hour, that is a moment.
Berakhot 7a:8
This translates into 1.01 seconds. God is angry for just one second per day! But… when?
Which second of the day is reserved for God’s anger?
One teaching says that nobody knows, except for one person in the world: Balaam, the wicked. If you recall, he’s the one who tried to curse Israel, but God flipped the script on him, causing him to bless Israel instead.
Then he took up his discourse and said,
“The declaration of Balaam the son of Beor,
And the declaration of the man whose eye is opened,
The declaration of him who hears the words of God,
And knows the knowledge of the Most High,
Who sees the vision of the Almighty,
Falling down, yet having his eyes uncovered:
Numbers 24:15-16
The teaching says Balaam had secret knowledge of the exact moment God would be angry. Balaam tried to focus that anger at Israel to curse them, but he was unsuccessful. And so they suggest that even though Balaam knew the moment of God’s anger, God simply withheld his anger during that time, leaving only blessings available for Balaam to use on Israel. They point to Micah 6:5 as a remembrance of God witholding His anger.
It’s a fun thought, but it’s weird to think that Balaam would have this secret knowledge. It feels like a stranger-than-normal kind of thing.
Another teaching says that God’s anger occurs specifically at sunrise, linked to the kings of the earth setting their crowns on their heads at sunrise, giving their worship to the sun, and this teaching points to Sodom and Gomorrah.
The sun had risen over the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of heaven,
Genesis 19:23-24 (NASB)
There’s a figure of speech that’s related to this: “the moment of God’s anger,” which is tied to when the sun rises, or more specifically, “when the rooster crows.”
And this is also tied to when a curse is possible, tying back to Balaam’s story.
A certain heretic who was in Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi’s neighborhood would upset him by incessantly challenging the legitimacy of verses. One day, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi took a rooster and placed it between the legs of the bed upon which he sat and looked at it. He thought: When the moment of God’s anger arrives, I will curse him and be rid of him. When the moment of God’s anger arrived, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi slept. When he woke up, he said to himself: Conclude from the fact that I nodded off that it is not proper conduct to do so, to curse people, even if they are wicked.
Berakhot 7a:19
Isn’t that interesting?
