Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 19-20.
The first thing which really struck me when I read this was where it mentions that Lot was afraid to live in Zoar. After that the passage mentions that at some point after that Lot’s daughters got him drunk so that he would impregnate them, since there were no men around them that they could marry. My thought when I read that was that Lot became that crazy old man who lives “off the grid” out in the woods with his family and interacts with no one else. The passage does not tell us why Lot was afraid to live in Zoar, but when you look at his experiences in Sodom you can hardly blame him. He must have been suffering some pretty traumatic PTSD. Let’s look at his story. Shortly after he moved into Sodom, the city was conquered and he was taken captive, probably to be sold into slavery. His uncle, Abram, rescued him. Then, when he offered shelter to some men visiting Sodom, the men of Sodom attacked him. The visitors he sheltered warned him to get out of Sodom because God was about to destroy it. Then, as he fled from Sodom with his family, his wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt.
But how did Lot get into this situation? Back when Abram realized that he and Lot, and there flocks and herds, could not remain together, Abram gave Lot the choice of area. Lot chose the easy, comfortable route by choosing the valley near Sodom and Gomorrah. Additionally, Lot lived in Sodom for years, but failed to make any impact on the way his neighbors chose to live. Perhaps I am being unfair to Lot, but his neighbors did not respect him for his morality. Instead, they saw him as being judgmental. The men engaged to marry his daughters thought he was joking when he told them that God was going to destroy the city. Lot chose to take the “easy” way and paid the price. The results Lot faced did not come from that one choice, but that one choice was indicative of a series of poor choices.
I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.