“Lot left Zoar and went into the mountains to live with his two daughters; he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his daughters.” (Genesis 19:30, Msg)
When we first meet
Lot he makes up part of his grandfather’s Terah’s entourage that is emigrating up the ancient trade route which connects the cities of the southern Mesopotamian plain with the communities far to the north. Like everyone else in his party, he is from the city-state of Ur, a sprawling metropolis of wealth, culture and influence, the center of military might in the region. Among the company traveling up the
Euphrates River are his uncle and aunt, Abram and Sarai. They have no children and
Lot’s father is dead. Between them a bond of filial attachment has grown, Abram the surrogate dad and Lot the hoped-for son.
When Abram receives the call of God to leave Haran, where the clan had settled until Terah’s death, Lot chooses to accompany his uncle on this pilgrimage south into the land of Canaan. Of Abraham’s journey the biblical author simply tells us “and Lot went with him” (Gen 12:4, NIV). He is there when his uncle takes his first steps on the road whose end they cannot say. Wherever their caravan stops, he is in camp when his uncle offers a sacrifice to this Unknown God who has called Abram into such a life. He is there when they move south into the lush grazing fields along the Nile to escape the famine that grips the land. He witnesses the subterfuge that his uncle successfully carries out against the king of Pharaoh to escape his untimely demise. And when inexplicitly Pharaoh finds out about the little ruse of his uncle playing off Aunt Sarai as his wife, Abram is evicted from Egypt and once again “Lot went with him” (Gen 13:1).
But neither of them leave empty handed. In fact, they emerge from their stay in Egypt far wealthier than when they had come, their herds and households built up with the goods received from Pharaoh as part of the dowry he had paid for Sarai. Inevitably, this is what leads to their need to separate from each other. In the arid region of the Negev where they dwell following their stay in Egypt, there is just not enough pasture land for their growing herds. And when tension begins to rise between their herdsmen it is time to part ways. As family head, it was Abram’s prerogative to choose first but maybe because he loves Lot as the son he and Sarah seem not to be able to produce, he offers his nephew first choice. It’s the choosing that reveals the man.
Lot looked. He saw the whole plain of the Jordan spread out, well watered (this was before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah), like God's garden, like Egypt, and stretching all the way to Zoar. Lot took the whole plain of the Jordan. Lot set out to the east.
That's how they came to part company, uncle and nephew. Abram settled in Canaan; Lot settled in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent near Sodom.
(Gen 13:10-12, Msg)
Lot looks and is captivated by the green of the fields below him, the sunlight sparkling on the waters of the Jordan and envisions larger and fatter herds in his near future. The choosing is easy and so he embraces his aunt and uncle and moves his company into the plain of the Jordan.
How fateful is that choice. The narrator foreshadows the folly of being captivated by such visions as prosperity and wealth for he alludes to how the plain used to look before the future cataclysm that will consume the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. What’s more, Lot pitching his tent near Sodom, a city already renowned for wickedness, is a counterpoint to his uncle living near the Oaks of Mamre and devoting his life to Yahweh. Though related by blood and lineage, these are two different men being shaped by two very different visions.
From the heights above the plain where he and Abram part company, the view must have been tantalizing to a young man intent on coming out of the shadow of his uncle and making a name for himself. But now that he is a resident of the valley he learns that he has entered a region rife with political tension as well. Sodom is part of a confederation of city-states that are subject to Kedorlaomer, a regional overlord. When Sodom and her sister city, Gomorrah, along with the other members of their alliance, decide to rebel against their rule, the lush fields of the Jordan turn red with blood as war ensues. In the following conflagration, Lot and his family, who are now residents of Sodom (14:12), are captured and like everyone else from their city, are driven north to receive the penalty for their rebellion. Lucky for him, his uncle has become a man of some stature in the hill country and organizes a rescue force that is successful in routing Kedorlaomer’s forces and returning not only Lot and his family but all their friends and neighbors as well. Once again, the author juxtaposes Abram’s heroic conduct with the king of Sodom’s mealy mouth fawning.
Perhaps at this juncture of Lot’s story he could have thought twice about his choice of residency and approached his uncle about returning to the hill country or to the wide open spaces of the Negev. But the dye has been cast. He returns to this sin-sickened city and takes up his life there once again. The next time we read about him is in the fateful chapter of Genesis 19. The angelic messengers meet him sitting in the city gate which is a biblical euphemism to say he has become a man of standing there, perhaps because they owe their lives to his uncle’s involvement in the former war that ravaged their homes. Peter refers to him as “a righteous man” (2 Peter 2:7) but what kind of morality is it when a host offers his very own daughters so that the unruly mob at his door does not molest his guests? And, as I have I pondered before, why would any father (even a morally bent one) need to be dragged from such a place? Wouldn’t you on your own accord get your family out of there before things got any further out of control? Apparently not.
Most of us know the rest of the story. He and his family get out of Sodom before the heavens rain fire. Though warned not to look back, his wife does and perishes in the cataclysm. He and his daughters reach the safe-city of Zoar but afraid to remain there they move up into the hills and take up residence in a cave. At this point he has lost just about everything – wife, possessions, friends, standing. And shortly he will lose whatever moral standing left to him as his daughters get him liquored up and in that condition he impregnates both of them.
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| The formation typically referred to as Lot's wife |
What went on through his mind as he watched the growing bellies of his daughters? Fear? Dread? Shame? Embarrassment? Certainly not pride of a soon to be grandfather who, in this case, is also the father. Wouldn’t you just drown in self-hatred? Wouldn’t you put as much emotional distance between you and your daughters at the time when naturally there ought to be the growing bond of paternity? Think of those residents of Zoar when a messenger from Abraham arrives looking for the whereabouts of his nephew:
“Where is Lot formerly of Sodom?
(Reply):
“Oh, you mean the crazy man who lives in the hills in a cave having his way with his daughters?”
Such is Lot’s legacy. His descendants (the Ammonites and the Moabites) will live in the shadow of their father’s infamy ever after.
Lot and his wife will become by-words of righteous people who “look back”, who gaze in the wrong direction, who look upon the world’s fare and pursue that vision as opposed to the one which Abraham follows – of “the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb 11:10). Of his wife, Jesus himself said:
Remember Lot's wife! Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. (Luke 17:32-33, NIV)
Again, Peter, admonishing the faithful to remain so as the Day of Christ draws ever nearer reminds us
And He [God] condemned to ruin and extinction the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, reducing them to ashes [and thus] set them forth as an example to those who would be ungodly;
And He [God] rescued righteous Lot, greatly worn out and distressed by the wanton ways of the ungodly and lawless
For that just man, living [there] among them, tortured his righteous soul every day with what he saw and heard of [their] unlawful and wicked deeds—
(2 Peter 2:6-8, Amplified)
Old Testament scholar Derek Kidner has some instructive comments about the end of Lot. Of Abraham and Lot’s parting of the ways in Genesis 13, Kidner says
The sequel for both men is instructive. Lot, choosing the things that are seen, found them corrupt and insecure; choosing selfishly, he was to grow ever more isolated and unloved. Abram, on the other hand, found liberation. (p. 118)
…
“Lot’s cave (30) is a bitter sequel to the house (3) which had dwarfed his uncle’s tent, and the little trio is pathetic after the teeming crowd of 13:5ff. The end of choosing to carve out his career was to lose even the custody of his body. His legacy, Moab and Ammon (37f.), was destined to provide the worst carnal seduction in the history of Israel (that of Baal-Peor, Nu. 25) and the cruelest religious perversion (that of Molech, Lv. 18:21). So much stemmed from a self-regarding choice (13;10ff.) and persistence in it.” (p. 136)
(
Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary, p. 118)
This is enough to provoke me to pray that I continue to look in the right direction lest I wake up one day and find that my vision is confined to a very small space no bigger than Lot's cave.
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| Lot's cave |
