We've read that “all Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching” (2 Timothy 3:16), but today, as we hear from Genesis 19:30-38, we may be putting that conviction to the test. But first we have to understand how we got here. Decades earlier, Lot parted ways with his uncle Abraham, choosing to travel east to claim the Jordan River Valley; he nestled in a rich basin there, and inched his tents down to Sodom. Then came an invasion from Iran – that's where Chedorlaomer was from, remember – which nearly destroyed everything, until Abraham came to the rescue and defeated them and set Lot and the Sodomites free. Lot returned to the city and resumed his life there, and the city continued to just degenerate around him. Now two angels went there in disguise to test the city and see if there was any way to justify God's sparing it the consequences of its toxic culture. Subsequent events made clear that there wasn't. And so the angels revealed to Lot that the end was nigh, and that he should gather those who'd follow him and make his exit a hasty one. With enough poking and prodding, Lot left Sodom behind at the last minute; Sodom and three associated cities, plus the entire basin where they rested, were stricken with divine disaster, scorching flames and stinking sulfur bombarding it all from above like missiles, leaving an ex-Eden a desolate waste.
Lot, his wife, and his daughters fled. Lot is elsewhere in the Bible described as righteous (2 Peter 2:7), and while nothing of the sort is said of his wife, God had promised to spare any righteous 'found' in Sodom (Genesis 18:32), while Lot's daughters were 'found' with him (Genesis 19:15), hinting that, at least by Sodomite standards, they're what counts for righteous in this chapter.1 As we also heard last Sunday, Lot's wife failed to persevere to salvation (Genesis 19:26), but Lot and his daughters made it to the city of Bela (Genesis 14:2), which they'd renamed Zoar on account of its little size (Genesis 19:22-23).
Remember, though, that Zoar wasn't where Lot was originally meant to go. When the angels had dragged him and his family out of Sodom, what did they tell him? “Escape for your life! Don't look behind you, and don't stop anywhere in the plain; escape to the hills, lest you be swept away!” (Genesis 19:17). It was Lot who pled that the hill life just wasn't his style. “I am not able to escape to the hills, lest the evil cling to me and I die. Behold, please, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me please escape there – isn't it little? – and my soul shall live” (Genesis 19:19-20). He appealed twice to the town's tiny size, as if that made it too insignificant for the Lord to judge.2 But the Lord had indulged Lot, agreeing to spare the city as a safe zone for Lot & Co. (Genesis 19:21). So that's where Lot had gone, “a tiny spot forming an oasis in the flames.”3
Now, though, when we pick up with Lot an unknown amount of time later, “Lot went out of Zoar, and he dwelt in the hills” (Genesis 19:30), the place he was previously afraid to go (Genesis 19:19). This man can't make up his mind, can he? But now as he leaves, the catastrophe is over. Without time constraints, he's got a free choice where to travel. So consider what we could have read here. We could have read, “Lot went out of Zoar, and he went back to Harran, and he dwelt with his uncle Nahor.” Or, more easily, we could have read, “Lot went out of Zoar, and he dwelt with Abraham his uncle at Mamre.” Remember, the reason Lot left Abraham was because natural resources couldn't support both their herds of livestock. Well, now Lot has no herds, no flocks. So the prodigal nephew to opt to head home instead of settling amidst the pigsties of a far country. But Lot does not do that. Consciously or not, he (fatefully) avoids reunion with the House of Abraham.4 And now he trades Zoar, the destination he chose, for the same mountain he refused to ascend when the Lord first bade him to.5
But why make any trade at all? Lot picked Zoar; why give it up? “Zoar did not prove to be what he expected.”6 How do we know? Because, it turns out, “he was afraid to dwell in Zoar” (Genesis 19:30). The place he chose as refuge, the place he begged to be, scared him – and the Bible doesn't lay out exactly why. Maybe he realized too late that a town can be as corrupt as the big city, that there's a reason Zoar sat at the same defendants' table with the big boys – the Zoarite mob showed strong suspicion to these sole survivors of Sodom,7 and Lot worried “perhaps now the inhabitants would turn on them” if they tried to stay long.8 Or maybe Lot retained “a lively fear of the punishment inflicted on Sodom” and didn't think Zoar was safe for long,9 especially if he could still feel tremors from the earthquake trigger God pulled to set the fires in motion.10 Maybe, given his wife's fateful glance back to Sodom, Lot decided urban life was too strong a temptation to withstand if he and his assimilated into Zoar.11 Or maybe a certain pillar of salt loomed outside the city gate, and the sight of it day in and day out was so heartbreaking that Lot's resolve crumbled in terror of the inevitability of loss.
Whatever his rationale, Lot quit town and headed for the hills. In the eastern mountains, not that far away, “he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters” (Genesis 19:30), perhaps “in extreme isolation and solitude” from society.12 Consider what they've been through. Take Lot – once a wealthy chief, a prominent urban figure, now suddenly cast down as an impoverished caveman. Every neighbor he interacted with during those years is dead – that'd yield serious survivor's guilt. Then he's been freshly bereaved of his wife of many years; those thus widowed know that pain. One ancient reader described Lot as now “severely distressed and beside himself after losing everything all at once.”13 Isn't that right? It's like his plot points are ripped from the prologue to Job!
And I would submit to you this morning that, whatever else this story is also about, Lot was sorely heartbroken and scared out of his mind. He'd been scared even before the fires fell, anxious over falling short in attaining his salvation. After reaching haven in Zoar, he'd become afraid again, “in the utmost fear and anguish.”14 He's drowning in his sorrows, he's crippled by his fear. So he chooses a cave, “the refuge of wild creatures,” a place decidedly beyond urban civilization.15 People in the Bible tend to hide in caves temporarily when at their most desperate (1 Samuel 13:6).16 But Lot puts down roots there. Caves were traditionally places to bury the dead (Genesis 23:19), being suitable symbols for the underworld. Functionally, “to live in a cave is to live in death.”17 Choosing the caveman life is Lot's retreat from the world of the living; he makes his home in a tomb.18 Effectively, like Job cursing the day of his birth, Lot has decided that death is the only option for peace and rest – so he lives as though dead.19 And he's “allowed himself to become oblivious to the surrounding reality.”20
This is a poignant profile of grief and fear and despair. Lot's grief has greyed out the world to him – that much is only natural. Lot's fear has infected his decision-making. He views all options as dangerous. He's fixated on worst-case scenarios. But what really gets him, when he gets to the cave, is despair. “There, isolated from mankind..., he passed a miserable existence.”21 It's understandable for Lot to be depressed. Of course he would be. Life is flavorless without his salty spouse. But Lot has chosen now despair. He gives up interest in present and future, forsakes his stake in the world, cancels his heart's subscription to hope. He nails shut his horizons. Not so many verses ago, Lot credited God's mercy and God's grace as keeping him alive (Genesis 19:19); now, having seen judgment cut too close, a sullen Lot lets go of the divine lifeline; he conforms his appetite to the falsehood that there's for him nothing to live for, no hope for him in the God of Abraham – now that's despair.22
Now let's step into the sandals of Lot's daughters. These girls grew up in Sodom; it's probably the only place they've ever been. But every familiar landmark is ashes now, dust in the wind. They'd been engaged to be married; their fiancés are now both dead, burned to a crisp. During their escape, their own mother was caught up in the destruction, entombed in a pillar of salt. As they came to Zoar, “they saw the fire, they saw the sulphurous flames, they saw all things devastated.”23 They, too, are traumatized – and still likely in their upper teen years. Plus, the dad they lean on has stopped being a pillar of their family, at the very time mom takes 'pillar of the family' too literally. They've seen their solo dad in an absolute panic, watched him break down, felt the void created in their lives as he withdraws. What do they take away? Lot's fear is bound to be infectious. Read this as a tale of what goes wrong when fear metastasizes throughout the family body.
Into the void of responsibility, the firstborn sister asserts herself by default. “The firstborn said to the younger, 'Our father is old'” (Genesis 19:31). Just look at Lot. He's worn out, broken by the passage of time and all its troubles. Given his probable outlook, his daughters have to take seriously the prospect that his time is short.24 It is beyond their fear-tinted imaginations to suppose that he can be pulled back from the pit, that he has a chance to renew his youth like the eagle's, to start over and contribute again to the world (Psalm 103:4-5).
She goes on: “And there is not a man on earth...” (Genesis 19:31) – that's not the end of her sentence, but let's pause the tape there. We mentioned last Sunday that, almost inevitably, these chapters are shaped like the story of Noah. There's a society corrupted beyond renewal, the choice to save somebody by extraction with their family, the falling of judgment, the aftermath. Lot's daughters definitely feel the resonance with the Flood. Now, consider how that resonance is impacted when Lot's daughters contract their father's fear vision. Might that vision tempt them to draw the parallels closer than they need to be?
Nearly all readers of this story through the ages have reckoned that Lot's daughters themselves reckoned “that total destruction had taken place and no one was left alive,”25 “that the whole of humanity had perished,”26 that the three in the cave were “the last humans on earth.”27 For “they thought that all men had perished, just as the Sodomites had, and that God's wrath had descended on the entire earth,”28 so that “all creation had come to an end in a flood of fire as the generation of Noah did in a flood of water.”29 Of course, creation hadn't yet come to its fiery end. God's wrath wasn't on the whole earth. Humanity hadn't all but perished, and they weren't the lone survivors. “However, like Lot, they misperceive and misjudge,” reading the world through their father's fear and using that to extrapolate from the desolation they've seen and heard.30
In the apparent end of the world, Lot has given up hope; a new world is the farthest thing from his mind. What about his daughters? What matters to them now? The firstborn daughter makes a comment, at the end of her speech to little sister, about the paramount goal of “preserving seed alive” (Genesis 19:32). That's exactly what Noah was called to do with the animals on the ark, “to preserve alive their seed on the face of all the earth” (Genesis 7:3).31 So this daughter is stepping up to take over the Noah role from her despairing dad, and her focus is on preserving alive human seed, her father's family line. The hour seems dire, the stakes seem high, but “they desired that the world should continue to exist.”32 Though infected by fear, they reject Lot's despair.
So their motive in what follows – remember as we hear the scripture – is a good goal. At minimum, they want the continuation of their family, which is “human and a natural inclination.”33 “They acted thus to prevent the extinction of the race,”34 maybe even working “for the conservation of the human race.”35 It is unquestionably a noble motive. So was Lot's determination to protect the guests who entered his house. But we know that, if there's one irritating trait Lot has, it's his notorious weakness in moral reasoning. He shoots for good ends, “sincerely desiring to do right, but failing miserably” due to some misjudgment, some false premise, some shocking blind spot in his conscience.36 It's what makes him such a parody of Abraham. As his daughters begin to discuss how life can be preserved alive in a desolate world, we have to ask: will they show wisdom in their moral reasoning, or have they inherited or even (God forbid!) amplified their father's misdirection?
Well, we get a hint from the elder's comment, that the trouble is that “there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the way of all the earth” (Genesis 19:31). Focus on that last clause. Do you remember Abraham's aim? His task was “to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice” (Genesis 18:19). Here we have a hint already that Lot's daughters are missing the mark. Where Abraham is to teach his house the way of God, “the daughters of Lot still seek the way of all the earth.”37 Widespread human custom is the standard by which Lot's firstborn daughter evaluates what's worth doing and how to get there.38 When Abraham follows the way of the LORD, he perpetuates his seed supernaturally; but when Lot's daughters assume the truthfulness of their post-apocalyptic nightmare, they have a subnatural and uncustomary means in mind for perpetuating seed.39
Flash back to Noah and his family leaving the ark. What followed their salvation? Well, after the covenant, we found a troubling episode where Noah drank wine to the point where he passed out in his tent; and his son Ham, chancing on his father disrobed and vulnerable, took advantage of him – the details are hotly debated, but some sexual overtones are clear (Genesis 9:20-22). So if the fires of Sodom replay the waters of Noah, and if Lot's escape is a replay of the ark, and if they're now on the mountain as Noah and his family were, then we expect the plot to continue with flowing wine and a family scandal.40 Which is exactly what then happens.
We already knew Lot's firstborn believed the principle that custom makes right. Now she unites it with a new principle, that necessity makes right, which calls for “exceptional measures in exceptional times,” so exceptional that they suspend other moral norms – or so she thinks.41 By these principles' powers combined, the young lady can rationalize her plan – actually, any plan – as a selfless act of self-sacrifice for the greater good.42 Having children is what everybody does; there is only one chance to make that happen (again, so she thinks); therefore, it must be done. So, she says: “Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve alive seed from our father” (Genesis 19:32).
...Ew, to put it mildly. Today's passage is “certainly disturbing.”43 The story's action is littered with unthinkable “crimes, transgressions, and taboos.”44 Remember, as we read, that “these things are narrated, not praised.”45 The firstborn daughter of Lot proposes here “an immoral scheme, born out of fear, not faith.”46 But that's just the point. That's what spreading fear can do. If not for Lot's fear infecting his daughters, if not for the stage set by Lot's plunge into despair, this ugly tale would have been a much different thing – perhaps something glorious and triumphant. But this most definitely isn't that.
And yet there's a tragic poetry to it. Earlier in the chapter, when Lot confronted the men of Sodom by night, insisting he couldn't surrender to them the male strangers who'd taken refuge in his home, he offered them an alternative to satisfy their appetites: “Behold please, I have two daughters who have not known any man; let me please bring them out to you, and do with them according to what is good in your eyes” (Genesis 19:8). He was willing, in desperation, to serve up his own daughters as substitute victims – as St. Augustine puts it, he “wanted to prostitute his daughters as an exchange.”47 Lot's offer valued neither his daughters' chastity, nor their safety, nor their dignity, nor their personhood. Now, they “in effect reverse the power dynamic” from that night, turning the tables on Lot.48 Earlier, a father offered his daughters as victims; now the daughters scheme over that same father, to exchange their virginity not for the security of guests (as he planned) but to salvage a future they see he will not fight for. Some call it “a deed of fitting payback” against Lot,49 “poetic justice for Lot's previous behavior,”50 in that “he experiences what he had proposed his daughters should experience.”51 In doing so, their plan ultimately makes a real man of Sodom out of him in the end.52 They may not have connived at this connection consciously, but sin's consequences have a tendency to loop back around on us.53 What Lot was willing to subject his daughters to at the hands of others, they will now do to him, and make him do to them.
So the plan is put in motion. The firstborn daughter had proposed a conspiracy of sisters: “Let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him” (Genesis 19:32). How'd it play out? Well, “they made their father drink wine that night” (Genesis 19:33). It likely wasn't hard to get Lot imbibing, given how depressed he was.54 At his daughters' suggestion, “Lot drank in order to forget,” and forgot to slam on the brakes while yet he could.55 For “when hope is given up, men rush headlong into sin, and... to despair is to fall into hell.”56 (No wonder they call despair a mortal sin.) The daughters' plot couldn't have succeeded if they “had not first made him drunk and overcome by sleep.”57 If only Lot had kept sober! If only he'd known when to quit, if only he'd cared! But such is despair.
So then “the firstborn,” though until now a virgin, “takes the sexual initiative” as the active party – she “went in and lay with her father” (Genesis 19:33).58 Note how the proposal was 'we,' but she goes in solo; little sister helped with step 1, but backed out of step 2.59 The firstborn daughter did that part alone. And because Lot was so severely intoxicated, “he did not know when she lay down or when she arose” (Genesis 19:33). “Lot was deceived through sleep.”60 Maybe he was scarcely conscious at all, exhibiting involuntary reactions to stimuli.61 Or maybe, in the darkness of eyes and minds, he was so drunk he forgot his wife had died, and instinctively reacted as though she were back with him, and, on waking, assumed it was a dream. Either way, in one ancient reader's colorful but creepy phrase, the firstborn daughter “stole seed from the sleeping farmer.”62
Here, by the way, is a big difference between Lot and Noah. When Noah fell into a drunken stupor undressed in his tent, Ham entered and Ham departed, but when Noah had sobered up, he “knew what his youngest son had done to him” (Genesis 9:24). But when Lot awoke the next morning with a heavy hangover, he was oblivious, having zero knowledge of what his eldest daughter had done to him.63 Lot, in the place of Noah, is no Noah.
The next day, as the sisters sneak away to talk, “the firstborn said to the younger, 'Behold, I lay last night with my father'” (Genesis 19:34). The little sister doesn't ask, content to leave the matter in the dark night past, forgotten. But the firstborn initiates a new day's deeds.64 “Let us make him drink wine tonight also.” She's convinced Lot's none the wiser, that he'll fall for it again. “Then you go in and lie with him.” She isn't happy the younger daughter backed out; the firstborn insists her little sister be fully involved, that she double their chances “that we may preserve alive seed from our father” (Genesis 19:34). Switching adeptly from 'my' to 'our,' and from 'father' to simply 'him,' the firstborn shields her sister from thinking too hard about what this planned action will really entail.65
So what happens next? “They also that night made their father drink wine, and the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose” (Genesis 19:35). They've done it again! Ham violated his father Noah, but his elder brothers refused to imitate him; instead, they redressed his wrong. Lot's firstborn daughter violated her father, and her younger sister reluctantly imitates her crime, redressing nothing. In their muddled way, they meant to be doing Lot a favor, after all.66 But however well-meaning, both “Lot's daughters perpetrate sexual assault against their father..., sexual violence.”67 Within this cave, each has committed incest and rape. To whatever extent Lot was active but delusional, he “committed incest with his daughters and did not know his mistake,”68 being “the victim of a plot and cunningly ensnared.”69
The bombardment of Sodom and Gomorrah has, sadly, not closed the door on the program of perversion they pioneered.70 But this story is a complex one, full of sinful deeds and mitigating factors for everyone involved. Some readers have judged it a new frontier in human evil;71 others excused even the daughters' actions as an error born out of “simplicity and innocence.”72 Still others have hoped that the daughters would be forgiven their deed because of the merit they earned when Lot offered them as substitutes for angels, and that from then onward they lived a chaste and virtuous life.73 Maybe that's so; maybe it isn't.
What is so is that their ends, very much not justifying the means, are nonetheless fulfilled. “Both the daughters of Lot conceived from their father” (Genesis 19:36) – a grotesque phrase. The next verse leaps forward nine months, leaving us to pause in the gap and wonder what went through Lot's mind when both daughters began to show their condition. Did he assume at first that they'd been impregnated before they left Sodom?74 Did he begin to question them? If he did, did they tell him the truth? When he learned the truth, did he have enough care in him left to be disgusted? Did he scream, did he cry, did he cast them out, did he forgive and reconcile himself to this? Or did he simply sink inward, cold and numb to it all, collapsing on his heart like a dying star?
Each pregnancy was carried to term. “The firstborn bore a son,” and “the younger bore a son” (Genesis 19:37-38). Two new boys, simultaneously sons and grandsons of Lot, offspring of the house of Terah, second cousins to Israel. Who are they? “The firstborn bore a son, and she called his name Moab” (Genesis 19:37). The name 'Moab' sounds like a Hebrew saying 'from father.' Here it's a name that quite openly proclaims what the daughter had done, clear and unapologetic.75 And this boy “is the father of Moab to this day,” Moab being one of Israel's near neighbors. The Moabites lived in the mountains east of the Dead Sea, around a river valley called the Arnon. What about the little daughter, the more reluctant one? “The younger one also bore a son, and she called his name Ben-ammi” (Genesis 19:38), which in Hebrew sounds like 'son of my people,' a bit more circumspect a designation. “He is the father of the Sons of Ammon to this day,” that is, the Ammonites.76 The Ammonites set up their kingdom north of Moab; their main river, the Jabbok, flowed west and fed into the Jordan. Their capital, Rabbah or Rabbat-Ammon, is to this day the capital city (Amman) of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
Here's where the story's been driving. For the first time, we're introduced to two of Israel's neighbor nations at their birth: Moabites and Ammonites, placed by the Bible on Abraham's family tree as sons-grandsons of his nephew Lot, conceived in a manner most foul. In the wake of Ham's sin against his intoxicated father Noah, we heard, “Cursed be Canaan,” Ham's son (Genesis 9:25). If the sin against the intoxicated father Lot is parallel, we're waiting to hear a word on Moab and Ammon – are they new Canaans, ripe for a similar curse?77
Well, Genesis doesn't answer that question. Here's where Lot's story cuts off, “on an inglorious and ironic note,”78 and perhaps “Lot's honor is shattered permanently.”79 What happens to him personally after this, the Bible declines to report.80 After Israel leaves Egypt, they sought to treat Lot's descendants kindly. They asked the Moabite king's permission to pass through his land, and when he said no, they went around his far east side instead (Judges 11:17-18). Israel even defeated their oppressor, the Amorite king Sihon (Numbers 21:24-30); and as Israel camped in the plains of Moab across the Jordan from Jericho (Numbers 22:1), God instructed, “Do not harass Moab or contend with them in battle, for I will not give you any of their land for a possession, for I have given Ar to the people of Lot for a possession” (Deuteronomy 2:9); and “when you approach the land of the Ammonites, do not harass them or contend with them, for I will not give you any of the land of the Ammonites as a possession, because I have given it to the sons of Lot for a possession” (Deuteronomy 2:18-19). So “Israel did not take away the land of Moab or the land of the Ammonites” (Judges 11:15).
Among Moses' final words, though, were a lament that, during Israel's move to their promised land, Moab and Ammon “did not meet you with bread and water on the way when you came out of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 23:4). They didn't remember the hospitality of their ancestor Lot; instead, they betrayed it, imitating the Sodomite side of their spiritual heritage instead.81 And that's saying nothing of how Lot's legacy of fear resurfaced in Moab, spurring them to attack Israel with ritual cursing and seductive sabotage (Numbers 22:4-6; 25:1-3). As a result, Moses laid down that “you shall not seek their peace or their prosperity all your days forever” (Deuteronomy 23:6). They'd become “Moab and Ammon, Israel's enemies.”82
Things didn't go well from there. When Israel turned to evil, the Moabites and Ammonites “went and defeated Israel..., and the people of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab for eighteen years” (Judges 3:12-14). But God raised up Ehud to assassinate Eglon, rally Israel, subdue Moab, and secure peace for eighty years (Judges 3:15-20). When Israel worshipped “the gods of Moab and the gods of the Ammonites” (Judges 10:6), God sold them into “the hand of the Ammonites..., so that Israel was severely distressed” (Judges 10:7-9); then God raised up Jephthah to fight back, “so the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel” (Judges 11:32-33). King Saul “fought against Moab and against Ammon” (1 Samuel 14:47), as did David, who made Moabites and Ammonites into tribute-bringers or laborers for Israel (2 Samuel 8:2; 12:26-31). But Solomon “built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem” (1 Kings 11:7), tolerated for centuries until Josiah ended it (2 Kings 13:13).
Israel's kingdom broke in two, and both tangled with the Moabites and Ammonites. Israel held the Moabites down, and their king Mesha son of Chemoshyatti owed massive tribute to Israel's king Ahab; “but when Ahab died, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel” (2 Kings 3:4), leading Ahab's son Jehoram to ally with the Jews. Elisha promised that “the LORD will also give the Moabites into your hand” (2 Kings 3:18), but Israel ultimately retreats (2 Kings 3:27). Archaeologists have since found Mesha's side of the story, where he claims Israel began oppressing Moab under Ahab's dad Omri because Chemosh was angry at his Moabite people, but now Chemosh had given Mesha victory “and Israel suffered everlasting destruction.” He brags about slaying the people of Gad east of Jordan and carrying away Israel's “Davidic altar hearth,” while from other Israelite shrines he took the vessels of the LORD and captured Israelites as forced laborers.83 Amos and other prophets chronicled the atrocities of Moab and Ammon alike (Amos 1:13; 2:1).
A generation later, Judah's king Joash was assassinated by two of his servants, a Moabite and an Ammonite (2 Chronicles 24:25-26). A psalmist tells of a conspiracy of Moab and Ammon appealing to Assyria to save them from Israel, turning the vicious empire into “the strong arm of the children of Lot” (Psalm 83:5-8). Babylon was aided in conquering Jerusalem by “bands of the Moabites and bands of the Ammonites” (2 Kings 24:2), and they gloated over the Temple of God in ruins: “You clapped your hands and stamped your feet and rejoiced with all the malice in your soul against the land of Israel” (Ezekiel 25:3-6). For this, they should feel the fire their ancestresses escaped (Amos 1:14-15; 2:2-3), should be made as helpless as their father Lot (Jeremiah 48:26), should “flee [back] to Zoar” (Isaiah 15:5). Ultimately, when they stood against the rebuilding of the city of God, the LORD vowed that “Moab shall become like Sodom, and the Ammonites like Gomorrah” (Zechariah 2:9). Lot and his daughters only delayed their fate for a season, it seems. No wonder Moses had ruled that “no Ammonite or Moabite may enter the Assembly of the LORD; even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the Assembly of the LORD forever” (Deuteronomy 23:3). What good could come of them?
But this is the Bible. Since when is bad news the whole of the story? Even the prophets who most fiercely called for fire and brimstone on Moab and Ammon heard a further word: “I will restore the fortunes of Moab in the latter days,” and “I will restore the fortunes of the Ammonites, declares the LORD” (Jeremiah 48:47; 49:6). In “the days when the judges ruled,” there was a woman of Moab who, widowed from her Jewish husband Mahlon, followed her mother-in-law Naomi to his hometown. There, her late father-in-law's kinsman Boaz purchased the family property and wedded the widow of Mahlon “to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance” (Ruth 4:9-10). Boaz took Ruth, “and he went in to her, and the LORD gave her conception, and she bore a son” (Ruth 4:13), who turns out to have been a grandfather of David – meaning David was one-eighth Moabite, a descendant of Lot. When temporarily ousted by his son Absalom, one of those who sought David out to provide hospitality was the new Ammonite king Shobi (2 Samuel 17:27-29), recovering the better side of Lot's legacy. So when Solomon married wives from the nations, it was an Ammonite princess named Naamah who gave birth to his heir Rehoboam, who was therefore up to half Ammonite as well as one-thirty-second Moabite (1 Kings 14:21).
And from Rehoboam – and, therefore, from Moabite and Ammonite women, so from Lot and his two daughters – descended the line that led to the birth of Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:5-16). One ancient Christian wrote – and I almost can't believe it – that, as a kindness and reward for Lot, “God granted that... from the seed of Lot and Abraham,” Christ would be born, the Promised Seed brought into the world partly by what Lot's daughters had done.84 Lot and his daughters objectively sinned (albeit with variously mitigated subjective culpability for said sins), and yet “by the Lord's coming,” which was in part their sin's consequence and effect, “the sins were forgiven them,” so that they can now freely “give thanks and rejoice in our salvation” and theirs!85 This isn't just a story of a repulsive sin; it's a story of a happy fault (O felix culpa!) that called forth such an incredibly great Redeemer, a Redeemer sufficient to pour out spiritual hope mightier than despair and all-surpassing peace more potent than fear, a Redeemer born in a cave and buried in a cave and breaking forth in forgiveness and light and life! Let us dwell no more in darkness and its deeds, our terror and despair; let us resurface into redemption. Amen.
1 Megan Warner, “What If They're Foreign? Inner-Legal Exegesis in the Ancestral Narratives,” in Mark G. Brett and Jakob Wöhrle, eds., The Politics of the Ancestors: Exegetical and Historical Perspectives on Genesis 12-36 (Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 85.
2 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 278.
3 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.204, in Loeb Classical Library 242:101.
4 James B. Jordan, Primeval Saints: Studies in the Patriarchs of Genesis (Canon Press, 2001), 80.
5 Augustine of Hippo, Questions on the Heptateuch 1.46, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/14:32.
6 Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 186.
7 Alex Varughese and Christina Bohn, Genesis 12-50: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Beacon Hill Press, 2019), 121.
8 Tremper Longman III, Genesis (Zondervan Academic, 2016), 241.
9 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 44.17, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:463.
10 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 139.
11 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 19:30, in Luther's Works 3:307.
12 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 44.17, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:463.
13 Theodoret of Cyrus, Questions on Genesis 71, in Library of Early Christianity 1:145.
14 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 19:30, in Luther's Works 3:307.
15 Ronald Hendel, “Politics and Poetics in the Ancestral Narratives,” in Mark G. Brett and Jakob Wöhrle, eds., The Politics of the Ancestors: Exegetical and Historical Perspectives on Genesis 12-36 (Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 22.
16 John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 309.
17 James B. Jordan, Primeval Saints: Studies in the Patriarchs of Genesis (Canon Press, 2001), 81.
18 John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 310.
19 R. R. Reno, Genesis (Brazos Press, 2010), 189.
20 Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 231.
21 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.204, in Loeb Classical Library 242:101.
22 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q.20, a.1, in The Works of St. Thomas Aquinas 17:187-188.
23 Origen of Alexandria, Homilies on Genesis 5.4, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 71:116.
24 Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 219.
25 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 44.19, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:464.
26 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.205, in Loeb Classical Library 242:101.
27 Suzanne Scholz, Sacred Witness: Rape in the Hebrew Bible (Fortress Press, 2010), 169.
28 Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 4.31.2, in Ancient Christian Writers 72:87.
29 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 16.8, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:162; and see also Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 209.
30 R. R. Reno, Genesis (Brazos Press, 2010), 189.
31 Megan Warner, “What If They're Foreign? Inner-Legal Exegesis in the Ancestral Narratives,” in Mark G. Brett and Jakob Wöhrle, eds., The Politics of the Ancestors: Exegetical and Historical Perspectives on Genesis 12-36 (Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 86.
32 Origen of Alexandria, Against Celsus 4.45, in Owen Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum (Cambridge University Press, 1953), 221.
33 Augustine of Hippo, Answer to Faustus the Manichean 22.43, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/20:327.
34 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.205, in Loeb Classical Library 242:101.
35 Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 4.31.2, in Ancient Christian Writers 72:87.
36 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 282.
37 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 116.
38 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 280.
39 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 123.
40 James McKeown, Genesis (Eerdmans, 2008), 109; Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 230.
41 Johanna Stiebert, Fathers and Daughters in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford University Press, 2013), 135.
42 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 209-210.
43 Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 212.
44 Chris Greenough, The Bible and Sexual Violence Against Men (Routledge, 2021), 40.
45 Augustine of Hippo, Answer to Faustus the Manichean 22.45, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/20:328.
46 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 280.
47 Augustine of Hippo, Questions on the Heptateuch 1.42, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/14:31.
48 Steffan Mathias, Paternity, Progeny, and Perpetuation: Creating Lives After Death in the Hebrew Bible (T&T Clark, 2020), 191.
49 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 327.
50 Ronald Hendel, “Politics and Poetics in the Ancestral Narratives,” in Mark G. Brett and Jakob Wöhrle, eds., The Politics of the Ancestors: Exegetical and Historical Perspectives on Genesis 12-36 (Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 22.
51 Terence E. Fretheim, Abraham: Trials of Family and Faith (University of South Carolina Press, 2007), 90.
52 Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 233.
53 John C. Lennox, Friend of God: The Inspiration of Abraham in an Age of Doubt (SPCK, 2024), 199.
54 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 44.20-21, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:465.
55 James B. Jordan, Primeval Saints: Studies in the Patriarchs of Genesis (Canon Press, 2001), 82.
56 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q.20, a.3, in The Works of St. Thomas Aquinas 17:191.
57 Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 2.9 §81, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 23:163.
58 Johanna Stiebert, Fathers and Daughters in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford University Press, 2013), 133.
59 Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 227.
60 Ambrose of Milan, Second Defense of David 3 §18, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 140:160.
61 Chris Greenough, The Bible and Sexual Violence Against Men (Routledge, 2021), 13-14.
62 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 16.9.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:163.
63 Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 230.
64 Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Bookd, 2023), 221.
65 Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 221-223.
66 Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 186.
67 Chris Greenough, The Bible and Sexual Violence Against Men (Routledge, 2021), 39-40.
68 Leander of Seville, The Training of Nuns 19.9, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 62:213.
69 Origen of Alexandria, Homilies on Genesis 5.3, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 71:114.
70 Brian Neil Peterson, What Was the Sin of Sodom: Inhospitality, Homosexuality, or Something Else? Reading Genesis 19 as Torah (Resource Publications, 2016), 30.
71 Jubilees 16:8, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:88.
72 Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 4.31.2, in Ancient Christian Writers 72:87.
73 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 16.13, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:164.
74 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 16.11.1-2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:163-164.
75 Johanna Stiebert, Fathers and Daughters in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford University Press, 2013), 133.
76 Tel Siran Inscription, in Shmuel Ahituv, Echoes from the Past: Hebrew and Cognate Inscriptions from the Biblical Period (CARTA Jerusalem, 2008), 363.
77 Brian Neil Peterson, What Was the Sin of Sodom: Inhospitality, Homosexuality, or Something Else? Reading Genesis 19 as Torah (Resource Publications, 2016), 44.
78 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 140.
79 Ronald Hendel, “Politics and Poetics in the Ancestral Narratives,” in Mark G. Brett and Jakob Wöhrle, eds., The Politics of the Ancestors: Exegetical and Historical Perspectives on Genesis 12-36 (Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 22.
80 Martin Luther's dogmatic guess that Abraham hunted him down, brought him back to live with him (in the background during the events of Genesis 20-25), and absolved them all of their guilt as their “supreme bishop,” is – as so often with Luther – totally without basis in Bible, tradition, or reason. See his Lectures on Genesis 19:31-33 and 20:8, in Luther's Works 3:312, 346.
81 Megan Warner, “What If They're Foreign? Inner-Legal Exegesis in the Ancestral Narratives,” in Mark G. Brett and Jakob Wöhrle, eds., The Politics of the Ancestors: Exegetical and Historical Perspectives on Genesis 12-36 (Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 82; Nechama Price, “Complexity or Simplicity: The True Character of Lot,” Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought (Fall 2020): 147.
82 Jerome of Stridon, Letter 22.8, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers II/6:25.
83 Mesha Inscription, in Shmuel Ahituv, Echoes from the Past: Hebrew and Cognate Inscriptions from the Biblical Period (CARTA Jerusalem, 2008), 394-395.
84 Cave of Treasures 33.8-13, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures 1:565.
85 Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 4.31.1, in Ancient Christian Writers 72:86-87.
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