What is Wrong with This Story

Abraham’s nephew Lot was a sheepherder that lived in the city of Sodom.  Lot was a righteous man, but he allowed his family to become entrenched in the licentious behavior that was going on in this city and its culture.  God decided to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of all the sin that existed in these cities, so He sent two angels to Sodom to rescue Lot and his family from the fate of the city.  Lot gave them a meal and a place to sleep, when a crowd of men came to Lot’s house demanding to have sex with the angles.  Lot wanted to protect the men under his roof, so he offered his two virgin daughters to the men.  The crowd of men were not interested in Lot’s daughters, so they tried to break into Lot’s house.  The two angels struck all the intruding men with blindness and told Lot that it was time to leave.  Lot’s wife was not destroyed in the devastation of these cities, but she didn’t make it too far, as she love the city of Sodom and she had to look back at it as it was being bombarded with fire and brimstone.  The angles told Lot and his family not to look back and when Lot’s wife disobeyed, she was punished.  Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt, which always seemed kid of severe to me.

If these angles were able to blind the wicked men, then they didn’t need any protection from Lot.  At this time, women were not held in very high regard, so they were easily replaceable, and Lot told the crowd of men that they could gang rape his daughters to protect his guests.  Women were so insignificant that Lot’s wife was never mentioned by her name and his daughters were only referred to as the oldest and the youngest.  The Jewish people have something called midrash, which goes beyond the scriptures and interprets meaning in the stories and in this tradition Lot’s wife is called “Ado” or “Edith”.  According to some stories, Lot had four daughters, two of whom were married, and the other two were betrothed.  The two married daughters and their husbands, along with the two future bridegrooms, remained in Sodom and perished, leaving Lot with only two daughters after the city was destroyed.

These Sodomites wanted to commit sodomy and they were not interested in having any type of sex with women.  I wonder how Lot’s daughters felt about the decision that their father made, as I don’t think they would have given their consent.  Since everyone in Sodom was having sex with everyone else, it could be that Lot’s daughters may have been homely looking as they seemed to be of age, and they were still virgins.  When Lot’s wife turned to salt after leaving Sodom, Lot did not think he could escape to the mountains in time, so he pleaded to be allowed to take refuge in the little town of Zoar, which was also destined for destruction.  Some stories say that Lot was told to hurry to get to Zoar, as God didn’t want to destroy anything until he arrived there.  This makes me wonder if Lot’s wife looked back at the destruction of Sodom after she arrived in Zoar, which was only 5 miles away.  It is possible that Lot’s wife may have been looking back to see if her other daughters and her sons-in-law changed their minds and decided to flee.

Lot decided that it wasn’t safe for them to be in Zoar, so he and his two daughters went to live in a cave up in the hills far away from any civilization.  Lot’s daughters saw the destruction of Sodom and they may have believed that they were the only people left on earth, but they just came from Zoar which was spared.  During this period of history, society placed an inordinate amount of value on having male posterity, and Lot’s daughters probably thought it was their duty to have offspring, as a way of preserving humanity.  Anyway, the eldest daughter decides to get her father drunk on wine, so she can lay with him.  She may have figured that since he was old that he didn’t have too many more romps left in him and she went for it.  Because of his drunken condition, Lot did not realize what was happening, which seems highly unlikely.  The next day the older sister tells her younger sister what she did, and she suggests that she do the same thing.  This results in another drunken night for Lot, and it ends up with each daughter having a baby.

They both had sons and the oldest named her son Moab and the younger sister named her son Ben-Ammi, and this is where the Moabites and the Ammonites come from.  Some people have said, “Lot was able to take his daughters out of Sodom, but he was not able to take Sodom out of his daughters, because they maintained the city’s wicked ways.”  I don’t blame the daughters one bit for what they did, and I think that no man should get so drunk that he doesn’t realize that he is having sex with his own daughters.  I tried to find out some information on how Lot died, but I came up with nothing, so I decided to make up my own story.

When Lot noticed that his daughters were pregnant, he questioned them how this happened.  The eldest daughter spoke and told her father that it was a miracle and they both prayed to God that He allow them to carry on their father’s linage.  Lot thought that was wonderful news and he prayed to God to thank him for blessing his family.  God told Lot that he should stop drinking, because he was getting stupid in his old age and then he let Lot know that he was the one who impregnated his daughters.  Lot clutched his heart and keeled over and then God asked the elder daughter why she lied to her father.  She replied, “I was happy on Sodom as I had a boyfriend and I had freedom and now I am living in a damp cave with my dad and my sister.  I did what I did, because I thought it was the right thing and I certainly didn’t enjoy it.  I don’t feel that telling a lie is such a bad sin, considering the way I was treated and offered up as a sacrifice to the mob.  I am not proud of deceiving my father, getting him drunk and taking advantage of him.  I didn’t tell him about my plan of getting pregnant, as I thought he might not be interested in that, and some things are better left unsaid.”

Written for Wednesday Thoughts where the phrase this week is “Better Left Unsaid”.