The story of Lot’s Daughters is one of the strangest and most disturbing dramas in the Bible. In the earliest chapters of Genesis, we find that these two innocent women played a central role in God demonstrating His wrath against sin. Then, Lot’s Daughters themselves committed a sin that would negatively impact God’s chosen people for generations to come. So, who were they and what happened in their lives that would cause them to make such a grievous mistake?
What Do We Know about Lot’s Daughters in the Bible?
To understand who Lot’s Daughters are, we need to know a bit of the history of their father, Lot, and Lot’s uncle Abraham. God called Abraham (then known as Abram) out of his country and told him He was going to make a great nation from his descendants. As part of this Abrahamic covenant, God told Abraham to take his wife Sarah (Sarai at the time) and his nephew Lot and settle in the land of Canaan. Later Abraham and Lot separated, and Lot settled in the plain of the Jordan River.
Though the Bible is silent about Lot for a number of years, we know that he married and had two daughters. And unfortunately where he chose to settle was close to Sodom and Gomorrah, two towns that would come to be known as hotbeds of sin and were destined for destruction. One can only imagine what manner of sinful living Lot’s daughters would have witnessed, though it appears that Lot protected his daughters and accepted two men who pledged to marry them.
What Happened to Lot’s Daughters during the Destruction of Sodom?
What may sound like an unusual encounter to us, one day the Lord himself appeared to Abraham with two other “men.” According to Matthew Henry’s Commentary, “These were three heavenly beings in human bodies. Some think they were all created angels; others, that one of them was the Son of God, the Angel of the covenant.” Abraham treated them as special guests, washing their feet and cooking the choicest meat. The Lord had a message that Sarah was going to have a baby in her old age and that He intended to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. “Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know” (Genesis 18:20-21).
Lot, his wife, and Lot’s daughters were in danger if the Lord planned to destroy the cities. Abraham asked the Lord to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if there were even 10 righteous people in it; the Lord said, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it” (Genesis 18:32). The two angels then went down to Sodom and found Lot at the gateway to the city, who invited them into his house. What happened next gives us an indication of how steeped in sin Sodom was. That night, every man from the city surrounded the house and demanded that the angels/men be sent out so they could have sex with them.
To avoid this, Lot came out and offered his two virgin daughters for the men to have their way with them. How did Lot, who was concerned about the Lord’s angels, not care about what God would think about him offering his daughters? The two angels/men stopped this from happening by striking the men with blindness. They then told Lot to get his family out of the city, and even had to grab them all by the hand and get them out of the city, “for the Lord was merciful to them” (Genesis 19:16). They escaped, and the next day God rained burning sulphur and destroyed the cities and all inhabitants.
The angels/men told them not to look back while they were fleeing the city, but Lot’s wife didn’t heed their warning and was turned into a pillar of salt as a consequence.
Why Did Lot’s Daughters Make a Controversial Decision?
What happened next was just as unbelievable as what occurred with the angels/men in Sodom. Lot’s Daughters settled with their father in the mountains since he was afraid to stay in the city where they first escaped. One day, the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom all over the earth. Let’s get our father to drink wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father” (Genesis 19:31-32).
Both daughters became pregnant with sons.
What made Lot’s daughters do this? Did they learn from their time living near decadence and sinful Sodom that incest was acceptable? Not only acceptable, but sometimes necessary? Did they believe that because God said that the Messiah would come from Abraham’s line that they needed to keep this line going? Writing about this drama, Sheila Alewine notes, “Unfortunately, both Lot and his daughters chose not to exercise what little faith they might have had and gave in to fear, choosing a quick resolution to what they perceived was a problem too big for God. Lot’s fear led him to the mountains instead of the neighboring city, where his daughters would have realized the world had not ended. The girls’ fear led them into compromising, sexual sin.” Fear overtook the entire family, though they had seen that God saved them from death.
How Does the Bible Address Their Actions?
Sometimes, people get confused by stories in the Bible because they believe that if it’s included in the Bible, God approved it. In the case of Lot sleeping with his daughters, anyone who read this story after God gave His law to Moses would know this was unacceptable. But at the time, these women thought they needed to take matters into their own hands and that it was a great plan. We can’t forget Lot’s part in this story; even though he was drunk, it’s hard to believe that he didn’t know what he was doing. And he certainly knew after the fact, and the Bible doesn’t tell us that he did anything about the situation.
What we do know is that one daughter gave birth to Moab, the father of the Moabites and the other to Ben-Ammi, the father of the Ammonites. Both of these nations would end up as enemies of Abraham and his descendants, the Israelites. So, while they didn’t experience immediate consequences, their poor choices would cause problems for generations to come.
Were the Descendants of Lot’s Daughters Significant in the Bible?
The Moabites and Ammonites would clash with the nation of Israel for generations, always trying to affect their destruction. Both nations worshipped the idol Chemosh, and were known for offering human sacrifice. So it would seem that the descendants of Lot’s daughters were not taught what it meant to follow the Lord, or if they were, they did not teach it to their children’s children.
And yet, despite the continuation of this dysfunctional family as two anti-Israel tribes, there is a beacon of hope amongst their descendants. In the Book of Ruth, we read of Ruth, the daughter of a king of Moab. During a time of famine, a family traveled from Judah and settled in Moab. In this family, Ruth and her sister Orpah met their husbands. Unfortunately her husband, brother-in-law, and father-in-law died, and rather than staying in Moab, she traveled back to Judah with her mother-in-law Naomi. God, in His perfect plan, allowed Ruth to meet a man named Boaz, who looked kindly upon her in her distress. He married her and they had a son named Obed, whose son was Jesse, the father of King David. God allowed Ruth, though a Moabitess, to be included in the genealogy of his Son (Matthew 1:5). Not only did Boaz provide for Ruth, but he was an example of what Jesus would become for all of us–our Redeemer who saves us from destruction.
What Does the Story of Lot’s Daughters Teach Us About God’s Mercy?
The story of Lot’s Daughters is such an incredible example of God showing mercy to humans despite their flaws. There is no doubt that Lot was affected by his uncle Abraham’s call by God, learning that the creator of the universe chose their family for a divine covenantal relationship. When he separated from Abraham and moved near Sodom and Gomorrah, it seems that he held on to his faith to an extent (welcoming and protecting the angels/men), but may have shown how these evil cities still impacted him. Offering your virginal daughters up to all the men in town for sexual assault is unconscionable.
And yet God does not count Lot and his family as among those who are “not righteous” and deserve to be eliminated. The angels/men literally dragged his family away from the sinful city. Why did Lot hesitate to leave? Did he not want to leave material possessions, or was he afraid that because of how he sinned against God that God really wasn’t going to save him? Regardless, God still desired to rescue him and his family.
Though we may think we’ve never done anything as “bad” as these people, we are all sinners. If we choose to give our will and control over to God’s sovereignty, God offers us rescue just like Lot and his daughters. Sometimes, like Lot, we go kicking and screaming away from what God is trying to save us from. But God knows that we are sheep who need a Shepherd to lead us on paths of righteousness, and is so kind and merciful to give us Jesus.
Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Zdenek Sesak
Mary Oelerich-Meyer is a Chicago-area freelance writer and copy editor who prayed for years for a way to write about and for the Lord. She spent 20 years writing for area healthcare organizations, interviewing doctors and clinical professionals and writing more than 1,500 articles in addition to marketing collateral materials. Important work, but not what she felt called to do. She is grateful for any opportunity to share the Lord in her writing and editing, believing that life is too short to write about anything else. Previously she served as Marketing Communications Director for a large healthcare system. She holds a B.A. in International Business and Marketing from Cornell College (the original Cornell!) When not researching or writing, she loves to spend time with her writer daughter, granddaughter, rescue doggie and husband (not always in that order).
