Albert Barnes Commentary Luke 17:28-29

"Likewise even as it came to pass in the days of Lot; they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all:" — Luke 17:28-29 (ASV)

They did eat, etc. They were busy with the affairs of this life, as if nothing were about to happen.

The same day, etc. See Barnes on Genesis 19:23-25.

It rained. The word used here could have been translated "He rained." In Genesis, it is said that the Lord did it.

Fire and brimstone. God destroyed Sodom because of its great wickedness. He took vengeance on it for its sins; and the example of Sodom is set before people to deter them from committing great transgressions, and as a full proof that God will punish the guilty. See Jude 1:7; Isaiah 1:10; Jeremiah 23:14.

Yet, in overthrowing it, He used natural means. We should not suppose Him to have created fire and brimstone for the occasion, but rather to have directed the natural means at His disposal for their overthrow; just as He did not create the waters to drown the world, but merely broke up the fountains of the great deep and opened the windows of heaven.

Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim (Deuteronomy 29:23), were four great cities on a plain where the Dead Sea is now located, in the south-east of Palestine, and into which the Jordan River flows. They were built on ground that, doubtless, abounded (as all that region still does) in bitumen or naphtha, which is easily kindled and burns with great intensity.

The phrase "fire and brimstone" is a Hebrew expression denoting sulfurous fire, or fire having the smell of sulfur. It may denote a volcanic eruption or any burning like that of naphtha. There is no improbability in supposing either that this destruction was accomplished by lightning, which ignited the naphtha, or that it was a volcanic eruption that, by God's direction, overthrew the wicked cities.

From heaven. By God's command, or from the sky. To the people of Sodom, it had the appearance of coming from heaven, as all volcanic eruptions would. Hundreds of towns have been overthrown in this way, and all by the agency of God. He rules the elements and makes them His instruments, at His pleasure, in accomplishing the destruction of the wicked.