Lot and his two daughters now sought shelter in Zoar. They were first told
by the angels who were about to destroy Sodom, to flee to the mountains. But
for fear that they could not make it there, Lot requested to go to Zoar, an
insignificant and small city. The angels consented and here they were in Zoar.
With his wife gone, Lot was left with his two daughters. As he smelled the
smoke from the devastation of Sodom and Gomorrah, he must have felt the wisdom
of the angels’ instruction to go up to the mountains. So Lot and his two daughters
went up to the mountains and settled in a cave. From his high society life, Lot
was now reduced to a mundane, lonely existence in a cave. We can be sure that he
did not expect to be where he was. He was in a pitiful state. Here’s a lesson, we
like Lot, have the freedom to choose what we want, but we must remember we do not
have the freedom to choose the consequences. Like Lot, we will have to live with the consequences
of our choice.
We cannot fathom how the older daughter thought. But like Lot, they too did
not consider the consequence of their choices. So they plotted to have their
father drunk and then have incestuous relationship with him, with the hope that
they could each bear him a son. So the first night the older daughter carried out
the plan, had the father drunk and slept with him. The next day they did the same thing, got
their father drunk, and then the younger daughter went in and slept with him.
Although the law against incest had not yet been given, they obviously knew
what they were doing was wrong. That’s the reason they had to have their father
drunk in order to carry out their plan. This account, though in the Bible, does
not mean that God approves of the act. Had
Lot’s wife been around, this would not have taken place.
Coming to Lot, he obviously had poor judgement of his situation and
circumstances. He had no ability to appraise life wisely. He was not careful
about how he should live. His miscalculation took him to Sodom. Now his senselessness
was again playing itself out. Hence the daughters could get him drunk and have
sexual relationship with him. And each had a child by their father. The son of
the first daughter was named Moab and the child by the second daughter was called
Be-Ammi. The descendants of these two sons of Lot, the Moabites and the
Ammonites, became bitter enemies with the descendants of Abraham. Conflicts
between Abraham’s and Lot’s descendants persisted for a long time. Numbers
23-25 give detail of the most horrendous carnal seduction the children of
Israel had at the hand of the Moabites. In Leviticus 20, we are told that many
Israelites would actually sacrifice their children to Molech in flames. This offering
of children in the worship of the god of Molech was an invention of the Ammonites.
Every wrong decision in life has its attending
consequence. When Lot started out, he probably did not anticipate such a result.
He made his decision without calculating the cost. He certainly had every right
to choose, but he didn’t realize that he couldn’t control or choose the result.
It’s the principles of cause and effect. Remember that bad choices do exact a
price!
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