Genesis 19:30-38. 30Now Lot went up out of Zoar and lived in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to live in Zoar. So he lived in a cave with his two daughters. 31And 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 all the earth. 32Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father.” 33So they made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father. He did not know when she lay down or when she arose. 34The next 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 offspring from our father.” 35So 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. 36Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. 37The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. 38The younger also bore a son and called his name Ben-ammi. He is the father of the Ammonites to this day.
We might have hoped that “righteous” Lot would have learned some sort of redeeming lesson after fleeing Sodom and its destruction. God’s mercy kept him alive and he was even allowed to go to the small city of Zoar for protection. But now, for some reason, Lot fears living in Zoar too. Is this paranoia? PTSD? Did he face blame and threats in the little town of Zoar? We may never know, but it is off to the caves Lot goes with his two daughters that survived Sodom alongside him.
Did it ever cross Lot’s mind to return to Abraham? To go back to the Promised Land? To plead for forgiveness, throw himself at Uncle Abe’s feet and plead to start over amongst his kinsman? How much shame, jealousy, anger, embarrassment, would there have to be to choose cave dwelling over tent dwelling inside the covenant mercy of God and his servant, Abraham?
This is going to be the end of Lot, the end of his legacy. Lot, who refused to be Abraham’s legacy, his heir, has no heir. His wife and sons are dead. Lot will die in this cave with no one to carry on his name. In this time and place this is the greatest of shames. Consider Abraham and Sarah’s shame from infertility and now old age. Abraham and Sarah took matters into their own hands, the Hagar and Ishmael saga is far from over. And now Lot’s daughters will take matters into their own hands too. Not Lot, he seems resigned to his fate. Lot’s daughters, however, have no issues with abusing their own father in order to solve an earthly problem. Surely, the ends justify the means, don’t they? Do they?
Scholars for generations have debated Lot’s own culpability in all this. How drunk was he really? Is it reasonable to think he had no memory of what happened the night before when he got drunk again on the second night? Many Jewish midrashim (commentaries) place the blame squarely on Lot and not his daughters. In fact, many Jewish scholars over the centuries have seen the daughters as those that are simply trying to honor their father by preserving his line. The fact that Lot’s daughters don’t hide their son’s incestuous origin with the names Moab (from my father) and Ben-Ammi (son of my clan), is also telling us something, I suppose.
By the end of Genesis 19, the reader of Genesis can see that the decisions of Lot over time have had incredibly terrible consequences. Lot, whose “tribe” once consisted of so many servants and so many possessions that he had to break away from Abraham is now reduced to these three pathetic individuals. Lot, a ruler in the gates of Sodom has now lost control over his own body. Yes, Lot’s lineage will live on, but at what cost. The Moabites and the Ammonites are his offspring and they will both be a thorn in the flesh of Israel for centuries to come. Lot’s story of poor hospitality and sexual seduction will be bred into the Moabites and Ammonites. These cousins of the Hebrews will fail to provide food, water, and safety to Israel on their wilderness journey. In Numbers, the king of Moab hires the prophet Balaam to curse Israel, while the Moabite women seduce the men of Israel into idolatry and sexual immorality. And the Ammonites seduce Israel, including King Solomon, into the monstrous worship of Molech whose blood thirstiness required child sacrifice (a fitting god for the descendants of Lot who would have sacrificed his own daughters).
Lot will forever be a warning to us all of what happens when we put the glory of self over the glory of God. There is no happy ending to his story. No, the ends do not justify the means. No, taking matters into our own hands is never a good idea. No, we can’t outrun or out strategize the consequences of our sin.
And yet with God the end of the story is never the end of the story is it?
Years later the story of Ruth, the Moabitess, will reveal the grace of God, not just to a poor young widow but to the whole world. By her very ethnicity she is forbidden from entering into the covenant community of God, cursed by God for simply being from Moab, the nation whose failure to show kindness to Israel and whose women have seduced Israel into gross immorality has left them on the outside looking in forever.
Deuteronomy 23:3-4. 3“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, 4because they did not meet you with bread and with water on the way, when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.
But curses were meant to be broken.
Isn’t that what the story of Ruth teaches us. Ruth is our example of what happens when our faith collides with God’s mercy. Every step Ruth took with Naomi on that bitter road back to Bethlehem was a step of trust in Yahweh that would demonstrate her kindness to Israel. Each step was Ruth turning back the clock on the sins of her ancestors. Just as Balaam could not curse Israel, Ruth could not be cursed. Why not? Because she chose to trust in the loving kindness of Naomi’s God. She chose to live as though she was already blessed rather than as if she was perpetually cursed.
As a result, this precious and protected daughter of Lot, will become the “mother” of King David, and more importantly, King Jesus. Ruth and Boaz represent the reunion of Abraham and Lot; Lot’s offspring being brought back into the tent of righteousness. Of course, Jesus is the offspring of Lot that ultimately broke our curse and welcomed us into the family of faith as the seed of Abraham. Our union with Christ is the final redemption of every tragic choice and every failed attempt at running our own lives that would threaten to leave us drunk in a cave, unaware that we are even being abused sin and Satan. Union with Christ makes us Ruth, “friend,” not Moab, “son of our father” the devil.
To live is Christ is to know once and for all that we are redeemed and that all our idol factories have been burned down by God’s holy fire. It is knowing that every time we’ve taken matters into our own hands or attempted to make the ends justify the means, God has transformed those times into another of Christ’s victories. Victories that make us cursed Moabites into blessed members of the household of God.
You: Where have you been taking matters into your own hands lately, rather than stepping back and trusting God?
You in Christ: How can you celebrate your movement from cursed to blessed?
Christ in you: What would it look like if you stopped letting the ends justify the means in your relationships, ministry, workplace?
Prayer: Father, I am no longer a son of my father, the devil, but I am your ransomed and adopted child full of promise. Make me like Ruth – able to walk out of my curse and into your blessing through Jesus. Amen.
To Live is Christ 