Now the Valley of Siddim was full of tar pits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and they fell into them. But those who survived fled to the hill country.
Genesis 14:10 (NASB)So they took Jeremiah and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the king’s son, which was in the court of the prison, and they let Jeremiah down with ropes. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire. So Jeremiah sank in the mire.
Jeremiah 38:6 (NKJV)He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,
Out of the miry clay,
And set my feet upon a rock,
And established my steps.
Psalm 40:2 (KNJV)
“Tar pits” (or bitumen pits) can also be understood as “pits of miry clay,” which we see echoed in Jeremiah 38:6 and Psalm 40:2.
The rabbis say that the kings mentioned here did not “fall in,” but threw themselves in, in the way one “falls upon their face” (Numbers 16:4).