2:6 overthrow. The “overthrow” of the unspeakably wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, with their “filthy conversation” (II Peter 2:7) and their rampant “sodomy” was not worldwide but regional, evidently involving a great earthquake and volcanic eruptions (Genesis 19). The Greek for “overthrow” is katastrophe, rather than kataklusmos, for the one was local, the other global. From these words, we obviously derive our words “catastrophe” and “catastrophism” on the one hand, and “cataclysm” on the other. There has been only one cataclysm so far in world history, but many catastrophes. See also notes on II Peter 3:3-10.