TORAH FOR CHRISTIANS
SEASON ONE EPISODE FOUR
LOT’S DAUGHTERS
If anyone can tell me the names of Lot’s daughters, I’ll buy you a bagel. Sorry bagel stores, you’re not getting my business. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr and this is Torah for Christians.
MUSIC
Welcome to Torah for Christians, I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr.
The events of Genesis, Chapter 22 are seared into our collective memory. The story found here is the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, one of the most famous episodes in the entire Bible. We know the story: in the previous chapter, three angels appear before Abraham as he was recovering from his circumcision in his tent. One of the angels announces that he and Sarah will have a child in one year’s time, Isaac. The other two angels continued their journey to Sodom and Gomorrah, cities which God had proscribed due to their wickedness. Abraham, we remember, bargained with God, eventually agreeing that if 10 righteous people were found in these cities, God would spare them from destruction. Yet, even 10 righteous people could not be found. The angels then were sent to evacuate Lot and his family from Sodom prior to its destruction.
We usually skip over the next part and go straight to the fire and brimstone, with Lot’s unnamed wife looking back and becoming a pillar of salt for her transgression. We skip this part because, frankly, it makes us uncomfortable; it’s a Bible story they don’t teach us in religious school.
When word got out that there are two visitors in Lot’s home, the men of Sodom gathered outside his door. They were not bringing casseroles. Rather, they demanded that Lot give the strangers over to them so that “they might have their way with them.” In other words, the men of Sodom wanted to sodomize the angels. Lot begged them not to rape these men; surely it was as wrong then as it is now.
But then, Lot really throws us for a loop. He offers up his two still-virgin daughters instead. He offers to let these men rape his unmarried daughters. This is just as awful! I have no way to spin this in Lot’s favor; who would ever give over their daughters to a sexually aroused mob? Fortunately, the angels pulled Lot back into the house and locked the door. Then, they sent blinding light to the mob.
Lot soon left his married daughters and sons-in-law at their home, reluctantly, and escaped with Mrs. Lot and the virgin girls. During their escape to Zoar, a tiny town outside the zone of destruction, Mrs. Lot turned around to see the destruction. For violating the proscription against looking back, the was turned into a pillar of salt. We can still see a pillar of salt standing in the Dead Sea, alongside the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot and his surviving daughters took refuge in a cave near Zoar.
This is when Lot’s daughters take center stage. In Chapter 19, verse 21 the older daughter convinced her sister to participate in a nefarious plot: on successive nights, they would each get their father drunk, incest him and hopefully become pregnant by him. Just as the male rapes horrified us earlier in the story, this plan was just as horrific.
Why did daughter one devise this plot and convince daughter two to join her in it? As she said, their father was old and, living in isolation as they did, she was convinced that the old man was the last living male on earth. He was the only one, she thought, who could give them children and so preserve the human race. The Torah presents her reasons as pure ones; she wanted to be fruitful and multiply; she felt that they had no choice but to multiply through Lot, their father.
On successive nights, Lot’s daughters got their father drunk and then slept with him; the older one on the first night and the second daughter on the second night. Both girls became pregnant. The elder daughter had a son named Moab. The younger had a son named ben-Ammi. Moab was, as his name describes, the father of the Moabites. Ben-Ammi became the father of the Ammonites; the modern city of Amman, Jordan is named after him.
Knowing this, we can now understand why Lot’s daughters play such an important role in Biblical history, for Jews and Christians alike. Let’s follow the story of their children; these women disappear from history following the births of their children, although we can assume that they stuck around long enough to raise them. By the way, Lot also disappears from the Bible after this episode as well.
First, God tells Moses that the Israelites may not intermarry with Moabites or Ammonites. Israelite men were allowed to marry women from various non-Israelite tribes, except for Canaanite, Moabites and Ammonites. God forbade the Canaanites due to their idolatry, thinking that their pagan ways would turn the Israelites away from God.
The Moabites and Ammonites, however, refused to allow the Israelites to pass through their territories during their desert wanderings. For denying the Israelites travel privileges, God kept them separate from the Moabites and Ammonites.
If that were all there was!
We must look now at a descendent of Lot’s older daughter, the Moabite woman Ruth. We know the story and will re-examine it in a later episode. For now, we only need to remember that this Moabite woman, whom the Torah says cannot marry an Israelite, marries Boaz, a man of Judah. As expected, Boaz and Ruth, who did not convert as is commonly assumed, were the parents of Obed, the father of Jesse, as described in the final verses of the Book of Ruth.
And we know who the son of Jesse is; it’s David, the future king of Israel and the ancestor of the Messiah! In other words, a Moabite woman, who was forbidden to a man of Judah, married him anyway and became the ancestor of the Messiah.
Torah tells us that it is sinful for a man to have sex with his daughter; incest in any form is an affront to God. Even though Lot’s unnamed daughter initiated the sexual union, it’s still wrong; Moab would have been ostracized had his generation known of the Torah. Yet, this illicit union is the origin story of King David and the Messiah who is yet to come and redeem the world.
We will often see in the Bible that law and narrative clash; this is but one prime example of this tension. Abraham, for example, served the angels milk and meat together; had he known of Leviticus and the laws of kashrut, he never would have done so. This is another example of this tension. But when we compare these two stories, it’s easy to see that King David is a far more important story than Abraham violating the laws of kashrut.
Which then do we follow? Do we ban the Moabites and Ammonites or do we follow the example of Ruth, Lot’s descendent? When we read Ruth – and the rabbis of the Talmud, clearly we follow Ruth. For one thing, there were no Moabites or Ammonites around in the time of the rabbis; this point was moot. Another factor is that in the Bible, lineage flowed through the father, so Ruth and Boaz’s son clearly was an Israelite. It was not until Ezra’s reform that the law changed and Jewish lineage flowed through the mother, a law still observed by all streams of Judaism today – even though the American Reform Movement has instituted some important modifications to this law.
As I said, we’ll return to Ruth later. But when we actually take the time to focus on Lot’s daughters, we see that they played a major role in Biblical history. Even though their methods were morally repugnant to us, God saw otherwise. Genealogies in the Bible have meaning; for David to be a descendent of Moab, a son born of incest and a tribe banned from marrying into the Israelite people, shows that the Jewish God is a god of forgiveness and grace. The laws are not necessarily ironclad; two generations before the birth of David, exceptions were made and even celebrated. After all, if Boaz had followed the law to the letter, we would have had no David, no future Messiah, no Jesus - and no hope for redemption in our world.
I want to thank you for listening to Torah for Christians. Please like and review this and all my podcasts on our website, www.torahforchristians.net or on iTunes, Google, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also subscribe to my Substack column, Bible Stories They (Never) Taught You in Religious School, on the website or directly on Substack.
Next week, we’ll look at the story of Rebekkah, the wife of Isaac. While we often skip over the second generation of Hebrews in favor of the far more interesting first and third generations, Rebekkah is an important woman of the Bible and deserves a closer look.
Again, thank you for listening to Torah for Christians. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr and I wish you a wonderful week. Hinei Mah Tov… L’hitraot, till we meet again. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr and this has been Torah for Christians.