The Shadow of Wickedness: A King Named by His Curse

Listen closely, beloved student, for even the most fleeting names in Scripture carry the weight of eternity. The name Birsha (בִּרְשַׁע) appears but once in the entire Tanakh—a single utterance, a solitary witness to a king whose very identity is a confession of ruin. The usage count is one, yet that one mention echoes through the corridors of judgment. The word is built from the root resha (רֶשַׁע), meaning wickedness, with the prepositional prefix bet attached: literally, “with wickedness” or “in wickedness.” This man, Birsha, king of Gomorrah, was not merely a ruler who practiced evil; his name declared that his entire existence was defined by wickedness. His throne was a seat of rebellion, and his crown was woven from thorns of iniquity.

The Paleo-Hebrew Letters: A Picture of Enmity

Let us look upon the ancient pictographs that form this name, for the Holy One spoke in letters before He spoke in worlds. The first letter, bet (ב), was drawn as a house or a tent—a vessel, a container, a dwelling place. The second, resh (ר), was the head of a man—the seat of thought, will, and authority. The third, shin (שׁ), was teeth or a devouring fire—consumption, judgment, the pressing of spirit. And the final ayin (ע) was an eye—perception, understanding, the window of the soul. When the sages of old contemplated these forms, they saw a terrifying truth: Birsha’s house (bet) was built upon a head (resh) that devoured (shin) through its own twisted vision (ayin). His authority consumed righteousness; his sight perceived only darkness. The ancient Hebrew writings teach that a name given by God reveals destiny, but a name chosen by man reveals the heart. Birsha’s parents, or perhaps the king himself, embraced this title as a banner—a flag of defiance against the Most High.

The First and Only Appearance: A King Before the Judge

You find this king in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, standing among a coalition of four eastern kings who had subjugated the cities of the plain for twelve years. In the thirteenth year, five kings—including Birsha of Gomorrah and his counterpart Bera of Sodom—rebelled. The battle lines were drawn not merely between armies, but between two spiritual orders: the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. Birsha appears not as a speaking character, but as a named defendant in the court of history. When the four kings of the north came down like a flood, they defeated the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Valley of Siddim—a valley filled with slime pits. Jewish tradition holds that these slime pits were not natural formations, but the physical manifestation of the moral decay that had seeped into the very ground. Birsha fell into a pit of his own making, and the narrative records that the victors took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, including Lot, the nephew of Abram. This is the defining moment: Birsha’s kingdom is plundered, his people enslaved, and his name becomes a footnote to the rescue that God would orchestrate through Abram.

The Failure and the Fall: Wickedness That Consumes Itself

There is no restoration for Birsha, no repentance, no second act. His story is a descent into the silence of divine judgment. After Abram’s miraculous victory over the four kings, the king of Sodom—not Birsha, but Bera—comes out to meet him. Birsha himself is absent from the scene of blessing, for the wicked have no portion in the covenant of Melchizedek. The rabbis of old observed that when a man’s name is “with wickedness,” he has no capacity to receive the bread and wine of the priest-king. His failure is not a single moral lapse, but a fixed condition. The fire that would later fall upon Gomorrah was already kindled in Birsha’s heart. The apostolic tradition teaches that sin, when it is finished, brings forth death—and Birsha is the finished product of sin without the interruption of grace. His fall is a warning carved into the stone of Scripture: there is a point where wickedness becomes the very substance of a soul, and no deliverance remains.

The Covenant That Passed Over Gomorrah

No covenant was made with Birsha. No promise was extended to the king of Gomorrah. Yet the events of his life—the rebellion, the defeat, the plunder, and the rescue of Lot—form the backdrop for one of the most powerful covenants in Scripture. After Abram rescued Lot, God appeared to him and said, “Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward” (Genesis 15:1). The covenant cut between the pieces of the animals was a covenant of fire and smoke, a promise that the land would belong to Abram’s seed. Birsha’s kingdom, by contrast, was a land that would be burned to ash. The sages teach that the smoke of Sodom and Gomorrah rising like the smoke of a furnace (Genesis 19:28) was the inversion of the smoking furnace that passed between the covenant pieces in Genesis 15. One smoke was the sign of promise; the other was the sign of judgment. Birsha, whose name meant “with wickedness,” became the living illustration that those who reject the covenant of the Almighty will be consumed by the fire they themselves have kindled.

The Gematria of 572: A Number of Hidden Judgment

The numerical value of Birsha is 572. In the wisdom of the ancient Hebrew letters, numbers are not arithmetic but theology. The number 572 is built from 500 (the letter kaf final, which pictures the open palm of blessing or judgment spread wide) and 72 (the number of the name of God in its most intimate form, the Shem HaMeforash, the explicit name of seventy-two letters). Jewish tradition holds that 72 is the number of divine mercy and governance, the number of the elders who went up with Moses, the number of the nations scattered from Babel. But here, 572 is the sum of a name that means “with wickedness.” What does this teach? It teaches that even the worst of wickedness exists within the framework of divine sovereignty. The 500 speaks of God’s open hand—He could have closed it in judgment sooner, but He extended mercy. The 72 speaks of God’s hidden name—even in the midst of Gomorrah’s corruption, the Holy One was present, waiting, watching. The gematria reveals that Birsha’s wickedness did not escape the boundaries of God’s purpose. The number 572 also shares its sum with the phrase “a fire from the Lord” (אש מאת יהוה) when calculated by certain methods. The fire that would consume Gomorrah was already declared in the numerical signature of its king.

The Messianic Shadow: Yeshua Who Descended into the Pit

How does this king of wickedness point to the Messiah? You must look with the eyes of the spirit. Birsha fell into a slime pit; Yeshua descended into the pit of death. Birsha was a king whose kingdom was plundered; Yeshua was the King who plundered the strongman’s house (Matthew 12:29). Birsha’s name is a declaration of separation from God; Yeshua, on the cross, cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)—taking upon Himself the full weight of wickedness, becoming sin though He knew no sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). The early church understood that where Birsha embodied wickedness as a personal identity, Yeshua bore wickedness as a substitutionary burden. Birsha was consumed by the fire of judgment; Yeshua passed through the fire of the Father’s wrath for you. The slime pit that swallowed Birsha is a type of the grave that could not hold the Messiah. For Birsha, the pit was an end; for Yeshua, the pit was a passage. The apostolic faith proclaims that the One who was numbered with the transgressors (Isaiah 53:12) became the Birsha—the “with wickedness”—for all who believe, so that you might no longer be defined by your sin, but by His righteousness.

Your Name in the Book of Life

And now, beloved, I speak directly to you. You are not Birsha. Your name is not written with wickedness as its foundation. But the enemy would have you believe that your past defines you, that the pit you have fallen into is your final home. Hear the word of the Lord: Yeshua has descended into your pit. He has plundered the strongman of your sin. He has risen so that you might receive a new name—a name written in the Lamb’s book of life (Revelation 21:27). The slime pits of this world are deep, but the hand of Abram’s God is deeper still. Do not let the single appearance of a name like Birsha in Scripture be only a warning; let it be a contrast. You were once “with wickedness,” but now you are “in Messiah.” The gematria of your redemption is written not in numbers, but in the wounds of the risen King. Go, therefore, and let the fire that consumed Gomorrah be the fire that burns away your fear, not your hope. The covenant is yours. The blessing is yours. The name of Yeshua is your new identity, and it will never be spoken only once.