Lot's Daughters - Genesis 19: 27-28

19:27-38 - The destruction of S&G was so prolific that even Abraham saw "the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace," from the plains that he was staying at. Even though Lot had asked the angels to let him take his family and stay in Zoar, at this point "he feared to dwell in Zoar: and went and dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters." This is where it gets weird, Lot's older daughter says to the younger one, "our father is old and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth: Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father." I've read some articles about this and there are some good points brought up in them. First, when the angels tell Lot to go convince his sons in law to come with them, I thought that they were married to other daughters that Lot had, but apparently everyone else interpreted this to mean that these men were engaged to be married to the two daughters that Lot takes when he leaves the city. The grief of losing their fiancés is sited as a reason why getting pregnant by their father seemed like a good idea at the time. Another point made by the articles was that these girls had just watched these major cities be destroyed and so they might have thought that either they were the only people left on the planet and had a responsibility to repopulate the earth, or that there were no men left who would have taken them in marriage for whatever reason. The fact that they knew that their father would not have consented to sex with them while sober is an indication that they knew that this was wrong. In fact, the articles point out that in all religions and cultures, even anciently, incest between father and daughter, especially where the daughter is the perpretator, was absolutely forbidden. The JST for verses 31 and 35 note that this idea from the oldest was "wicked," so it's not one of those things God did to preserve seed or anything like that, they knew it was wrong and they did it anyway. The irony here, of course, is that Lot is basically raped by his daughters because he didn't consent, or he couldn't consent because he was drunk. The irony is that they just left Sodom, where rape was the norm. It's pointed out repeatedly that because these girls were raised in Sodom, they would have thought that rape was normal. It's actually quite ironic that Lot fell victim to the same evil that raised his daughters around. Both girls become pregnant by their father and they both have baby boys. The oldest daughter names her son Moab, "the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day." The younger daughter names her son Ben-ammi "the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day." The IM notes that "Moses may have included this account in the record because it shows the beginnings of the Moabites and the Ammonites, two people that would play an important role in the history of the people of Israel." This origin story could be used to demonize the Moabites and the Ammonites by saying that they are the children of incest. On the other hand though, this account could be used to demonstrate to the Israelites that the Moabites and the Ammonites are their family, kin to Abraham and all from the linage of Terah.