Genesis 19.30-38-Drunkenness and Incest in the Home of Lot
Tuesday February 14, 2006
Genesis: Genesis 19:30-38-Drunkenness and Incest in the Home of Lot
Lesson # 99
Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 19:30.
This evening we will study Genesis 19:30-38, which records Lot’s two daughters getting him drunk and having sex with him in order to preserve the family line and thus committing incest.
Two sons were born as a result of the incestuous union between Lot and his daughters, namely, Moab and Ammon, whose descendants later on became the enemies of Israel (1 Sam. 14:47; 2 Kings 3:5; 2 Chron. 20:1, 22) and yet from this lineage came Ruth, and so Jesus Christ (see Ruth 4:18-22; Matt. 1:5).
Genesis 19:30, “Lot went up from Zoar, and stayed in the mountains, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to stay in Zoar; and he stayed in a cave, he and his two daughters.”
What a difference a day makes.
Just the day before, Lot was a man with position and power and possessions and great wealth living in the penthouse in Sodom.
But now we see him living in a cave and having lost everything in the destruction of the cities of the plain.
Lot has gone from being a city councilman to a caveman!
Notice, that Lot leaves Zoar and stayed in a cave in the mountains because he was afraid that Zoar would be destroyed as well.
But in Genesis 19:21, the Lord gave permission to the angels to spare the city of Zoar so that Lot could stay there.
The fact that he leaves Zoar in fear that the Lord would destroy the place demonstrates his lack of faith in the Lord meaning he did not take the Lord at His Word that He would not destroy Zoar.
This is another manifestation that Lot is out of fellowship and under divine discipline because he would not operate in faith.
Lot is a “double-minded” believer because of his lack of faith.
James 1:6, “But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.”
James 1:7, “For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord.”
James 1:8, “being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”
Now, you will notice that throughout Genesis 19:30-38, the names of Lot’s daughters are never given since Moses under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is indirectly censuring them.
Genesis 19:31, “Then the firstborn said to the younger, ‘our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of the earth.’”
Genesis 19:32, “Come, let us make our father drink wine, and let us lie with him that we may preserve our family through our father.”
Family and preservation of the family line was important in ancient times.
Lot and his two daughters settled in an area that was largely uninhabited.
Now, since Lot was old and now poor because he lost all his possessions in the destruction of Sodom, Lot neither had the inclination nor the opportunity to make arrangements for his daughters to be married.
Now, this scheme by the oldest daughter of Lot to commit incest to carry out their family line seems shocking to us in the 21st century but in those days, it happened all the time and was not yet prohibited by God!
As we have noted in our previous studies in the book of Genesis, since God created only one man and one woman, it was essential for brothers to marry sisters in order to continue the human race.
In the first generations, all marriages were brother and sister marriages and there were no mutant genes in the genetic systems of any of these children so that no genetic harm could have resulted from close marriages.
Many, many generations later, during the time of Moses, such mutations had accumulated to the point where such unions were genetically dangerous so that incest was thenceforth prohibited in the Mosaic Law (Lev. 18:9).
Since earth’s population was still relatively young in the days of Lot, there was as yet no genetic danger from inbreeding.
After many further centuries had elapsed, however, the accumulation of mutations and the associated danger of congenital defects had become sufficiently serious to cause God to declare incestuous marriages illegal (Lev. 18:6-14).
Now, since there were no prohibitions in writing from God regarding incest does not mean that God agreed with this incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughters.
The great sin of the daughters was their lack of faith in waiting on God to provide husbands for them.
The fact that the daughters attempted to do things independently of the Lord and the way heathen society did things was a manifestation of the fact that they were totally and completely influenced by the evil of Satan’s cosmic system, which was so rampant in Sodom and in the life of their father.
Therefore, it should not surprise the reader that the older daughter suggested incest to her younger sister in order to preserve the family line.
They also knew that Lot would never consent to this and so they concocted a scheme to get him drunk in the hopes of getting to forget and lower his moral standards.
We can infer that Lot who did not trust the Lord, was discouraged and depressed since everything that he owned was gone and his wife and sons were killed in the destruction of the cities of the plain.
Therefore, his daughters suggested the drinking of alcohol to ease his pain and suffering.
Also, we must remember that while in Sodom, Lot’s daughters were virgins and were engaged so they must have retained the standard of morality of their father and his love for the cosmic system.
The character of Lot’s daughters and their solution to their problem simply reflected their father and his way of dealing with his problems.
From Lot, his two daughters learned that morality must sometimes be sacrificed to practicality.
Lot was willing to turn over his own daughters (who were as yet sexually pure, not corrupted by the sins of Sodom) to the Sodomites instead of two strangers.
They learned from Lot that morality must sometimes be set-aside in emergencies.
Once they saw their father’s plight (and their own) as an emergency, incest was no longer a moral problem, for morality must yield to practicality in emergencies according to them.
Many Christian fathers are greatly concerned about the world in which their children live.
The temptations are infinitely greater today for children than let’s say twenty years ago.
But in our concern for what is happening in the cities, let us not think we can save our children by restricting them to a cave since in the cave, they are still being influenced by us.
Let us be mindful from the tragedy, which occurred in Lot’s family that many of the sins of our children are not learned from the world, but from the fathers.
They had kept themselves pure for their husbands but now suddenly with the destruction of Sodom, it seemed to them that they would never have husbands and children at all.
The latter of which would have caused them to be ridiculed.
So we see them not having faith in the Lord to provide them husbands and walking by faith in the Lord was not something that they were accustomed to doing.
Therefore, they chose to solve their problem of not being married independently of the Lord and chose incest with their father.
Genesis 19:31, “Then the firstborn said to the younger, ‘our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of the earth.’”
The statement by the oldest daughter of Lot, “there is not a man on earth” indicates that there was a complete and total destruction of the cities of the plain so that there was no male in the area for her and her sister to procreate with.
The expression “come in to us after the manner of the earth” is a reference to marriage and implies sexual intercourse.
This statement by the oldest daughter of Lot demonstrates the impatience of unbelief and not waiting on the Lord to provide her and her sister a husband.
The oldest daughter is desperate to get married and therefore fails to wait on the Lord to provide her with a husband.
Psalm 27:14, “Wait for the LORD; Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the LORD.”
Genesis 19:32, “Come, let us make our father drink wine, and let us lie with him that we may preserve our family through our father.”
The statement by Lot’s oldest daughter, “let us lie with him (Lot)” is a euphemism for sexual intercourse and her stated purpose is to preserve the family line through their father.
Genesis 19:33, “So they made their father drink wine that night, and the firstborn went in and lay with her father; and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.”
So Lot’s two daughters get him so drunk that he wasn’t even aware that his oldest daughter had sex with him and got up later.
Therefore, we see Lot’s sin is drunkenness.
He was drowning his sorrows in alcohol and was feeling bitter and sorry for himself because he lost everything in the destruction of Sodom.
His daughters fed his self-pity by giving him more and more to drink so that eventually he has sex with his daughters, which he would not have done while sober.
This reveals a principle that drunkenness destroys the norms and standards that reside in that part of the soul called the “conscience.”
The believer’s norms and standards are to be formed in accordance with teaching of the Word of God.
Lot has gotten so drunk that he doesn’t have his norms and standards circulating in his soul to prevent him from having sex with his daughters because the alcohol is controlling him and not the Word of God.
A number of passages warn against the dangers of drunkenness.
Drunkenness causes people to stagger (Ps. 107:27; Prov. 23:34), it makes them sick (Is. 28:8; Jer. 25:27), it makes the eyes red (Prov. 23:29), it puts a person into a stupor (Jer. 51:39, 57), it makes a person poor (Prov. 23:21), it interferes with a leader’s work (Prov. 31:4f).
The foolishness of drunkenness is shown by the examples of Noah (Gen. 9:21), Lot (Gen. 19:31-38), Nabal (1 Sam. 25:36-39), David (2 Sam. 11:13), Absalom (2 Sam. 13:28) and Belshazzar (Dan. 5:2).
The Bible does “not” prohibit drinking alcohol but it “does” prohibit drunkenness.
Ephesians 5:18, “And do not permit yourselves to get into the habit of being drunk with wine because that is non-sensical behavior, but rather permit yourselves on a habitual basis to be influenced by means of the Spirit.”
Believers are not to associate with believers who are drunks (1 Cor. 5:9-11).
Drunkenness is a manifestation of the old Adamic sin nature (Gal. 5:19-21).
Genesis 19:33, “So they made their father drink wine that night, and the firstborn went in and lay with her father; and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.”
Now, notice that Lot is not so drunk so that he can’t perform sexually.
Genesis 19:34, “On the following day, the firstborn said to the younger, ‘Behold, I lay last night with my father; let us make him drink wine tonight also; then you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve our family through our father.’”
Genesis 19:35, “So they made their father drink wine that night also, and the younger arose and lay with him; and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.”
Once again, it appears that Lot falls for the scheme of the daughters and this time has sex with the youngest of the two daughters but more than likely, he had himself a good time the night before and decided to give it a go again.
Thus, revealing the principle that you can take Lot out of Sodom and the cosmic system of Satan but you can’t take Sodom and the cosmic system out of Lot.
Genesis 19:36, “Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father.”
Genesis 19:37, “The firstborn bore a son, and called his name Moab; he is the father of the Moabites to this day.”
Genesis 19:38, “As for the younger, she also bore a son, and called his name Ben-ammi; he is the father of the sons of Ammon to this day.”
Bruce K. Waltke, “This typical genealogical conclusion begins the story of the bitter animosity of Moab and Ammon against Israel (see Num. 23-25; 2 Kings 3). The Moabites and Ammonites were rejected by God, however, not because of their questionable lineage but because of their mistreatment of Israel (see Deut. 23:3-6). Yet from this lineage will come Ruth, and so Jesus Christ (see Ruth 4:18-22; Matt. 1:5). Because of Ruth’s faith, she will be reckoned among the tribe of Judah” (Genesis, A Commentary, Zondervan, page 280).
This account of Lot’s incest appears in the Bible in order to give the origin of the Moabite and Ammonite nations that played major roles as long established enemies in the history of Israel.
This account of Lot’s incest and his drunkenness illustrates the degrading effect that living in Sodom according to the standard of the evil of Satan’s cosmic system had on Lot's daughters.
2 Peter 2:6-9 records that Lot was a “righteous” man meaning a believer and yet he chose to live as a “cosmic” believer (1 Cor. 3:3).
In Genesis 19, we see the end of a downward progression in the life of Lot since Genesis 13:12 records that Lot “moved his tents as far as Sodom.”
Then, we see him “living in Sodom” according to Genesis 14:12 and finally we read in Genesis 19:1 that Lot was “sitting in the gate of Sodom.”
Then he hesitated as Sodom's destruction loomed (19:16) and finally he ended up committing incest with his daughters in a cave (19:30-38).
Lot illustrates graphically how far a believer can fall if he departs from doing God’s will and chooses to be seduced by the temptations of Satan’s cosmic system.
The major revelation of this chapter is that it is foolish for a believer to become attached to the things of this world since they will corrupt him, ending up in dying discipline.