*Sacred Scripture* Lot and His Daughters – Cavallino

This painting by Bernardo Cavallino illustrates an episode from the Bible shortly after the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah, when Lot’s daughters believe that they and their father are the sole survivors of the human race.

Gn 19:30-38

Moabites and Ammonites.^*

30Since Lot was afraid to stay in Zoar, he and his two daughters went up from Zoar and settled in the hill country, where he lived with his two daughters in a cave.

31The firstborn said to the younger: “Our father is getting old, and there is not a man in the land to have intercourse with us as is the custom everywhere.

32Come, let us ply our father with wine and then lie with him, that we may ensure posterity by our father.”

33So that night they plied their father with wine, and the firstborn went in and lay with her father; but he was not aware of her lying down or getting up.

34The next day the firstborn said to the younger: “Last night I lay with my father. Let us ply him with wine again tonight, and then you go in and lie with him, that we may ensure posterity by our father.”

35So that night, too, they plied their father with wine, and then the younger one went in and lay with him; but he was not aware of her lying down or getting up.

36Thus the two daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father.

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/19

Chapter Context

Two angels, disguised as men, visit Abraham’s nephew, Lot, in the city of Sodom. After the men of Sodom attempt to rape the angels in Lot’s home, the angels rescue Lot and his family, forcibly removing them from the city. Then God sends fire and sulfur from heaven. This destroys all of the land and people in and around the cities. As stated in earlier verses, this is the result of their great and ongoing wickedness. Lot’s wife is turned to a pillar of salt when she disobeys the angels by looking back on the destruction. Lot and his daughters flee first to Zoar, then to a cave in the hills. There, Lot’s confused and frightened daughters get him drunk, have sex with him, and each become pregnant.

Context Summary

Genesis 19:30–38 describes the humiliating, horrific fate of Lot and his daughters. Having lost everything and living in a cave in the hills with their aging father, the two daughters assume no man will ever marry them or give them children. Their plan to remedy the situation is shocking, but not impossible for children raised in a culture like that of Sodom. Lot’s daughters get their father drunk on two consecutive nights, each having sex with him and becoming pregnant.

So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab; he is the father of the Moabites of today. The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the Ammonites of today.

Footnote:

The nations of Moab and Ammon battled over boundary lines for centuries, doing their best to destroy Israel. Balak, king of Moab, once hired a prophet to curse Israel, although it backfired and God brought blessing instead (Numbers 22-24). The nation of Moab invited the Israelites into idol worship (Numbers 25). According to the teachings of the Torah, Balak’s grandson was Eglon, king of Moab who met his death at the hand of Israel’s judge, Ehud (Judges 3:15-25). The Torah also teaches that Eglon had a very special granddaughter, whose name might be familiar to you: Ruth.

Ruth was a Moabitess, the heroine in the one of the Bible’s most famous love stories. She met and married her husband, the son of Elimelech and Naomi, who had fled to Moab to survive during a famine. When her husband and father-in-law died, she returned to the land of Judah with Naomi, where the sovereign hand of God guided her to meet Boaz, her kinsman redeemer. Boaz and Ruth had a son named Obed, a grandson named Jesse, and a great grandson, David, through whom Jesus the Messiah would come. God indeed had the last word to say on Lot’s family.