Amorah (Gomorrah)

עמרה


Amorah is the corrrect Yehudit pronunciation, though we know it as Gomorrah; it was one of the five Cities of the Plain, along the edge of the Dead Sea, destroyed, probably by volcanic eruption, in Genesis 18 and 19.
The error, incidentally, is a consequence of a very different pronunciation of Yehudit in the Arabic (Mizrachi) world, than in either the Spanish (Sephardi) or northern European (Ashkenazi). Where the Ayin (ע) is difficult to distinguish from an Aleph (א) for Ashkenazi and some Sephardi Jews, it is so much more glottoral in the Arabic pronunciation that the difficulty there is distinguishing it from a Gimmel (ג). So we have Azah, which we pronounce as Gaza; so we have Amorah, which we pronounce as Gemorrah. This may also explain why, on the modern Ivrit keyboard, the Ayin is the equivalent key to a G in English.

Genesis 10:19 places it at the south-eastern point of the Kena'ani (Cannanite) border.

Genesis 13:10 describes Lot and Av-Ram parting company there.

Genesis 14:2 tells of its involvement in the War of the Kings at the time when Birsha was king of Amorah.

Genesis 18:16 ff describes the destruction of the city in the Vale of Sidim.

Amorah means "habitation".

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