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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Genesis 19:29 - 19:29
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For on the destruction of these cities, God had thought of Abraham, and rescued Lot. This rescue is attributed to Elohim, as being the work of the Judge of the whole earth (Gen 18:25), and not to Jehovah the covenant God, because Lot was severed from His guidance and care on his separation from Abraham. The fact, however, is repeated here, for the purpose of connecting with it an event in the life of Lot of great significance to the future history of Abraham's seed.
Gen 19:30-35
From Zoar Lot removed with his two daughters to the (Moabitish) mountains, for fear that Zoar might after all be destroyed, and dwelt in one of the caves (מְעָרָה with the generic article), in which the limestone rocks abound (vid., Lynch), and so became a dweller in a cave. While there, his daughters resolved to procure children through their father; and to that end on two successive evenings they made him intoxicated with wine, and then lay with him in the might, one after the other, that they might conceive seed. To this accursed crime they were impelled by the desire to preserve their family, because they thought there was no man on the earth to come in unto them, i.e., to marry them, “after the manner of all the earth.” Not that they imagined the whole human race to have perished in the destruction of the valley of Siddim, but because they were afraid that no man would link himself with them, the only survivors of a country smitten by the curse of God. If it was not lust, therefore, which impelled them to this shameful deed, their conduct was worthy of Sodom, and shows quite as much as their previous betrothal to men of Sodom, that they were deeply imbued with the sinful character of that city. The words of Gen 19:33 and Gen 19:35, “And he knew not of her lying down and of her rising up,” do not affirm that he was in an unconscious state, as the Rabbins are said by Jerome to have indicated by the point over בְּקוּמָה: “quasi incredibile et quod natura rerum non capiat, coire quempiam nescientem.” They merely mean, that in his intoxicated state, though not entirely unconscious, yet he lay with his daughters without clearly knowing what he was doing.
Gen 19:36-38
But Lot's daughters had so little feeling of shame in connection with their conduct, that they gave names to the sons they bore, which have immortalized their paternity. Moab, another form of מֵאָב “from the father,” as is indicated in the clause appended in the lxx: λέγουσα ἐκ τοῦ πατρός μου, and also rendered probable by the reiteration of the words “of our father” and “by their father” (Gen 19:32, Gen 19:34, and Gen 19:36), as well as by the analogy of the name Ben-Ammi = Ammon, Ἀμμάν, λέγουσα Υἱος γένους μου (lxx). For עַמֹּון, the sprout of the nation, bears the same relation to עַם, as אַגְמֹון, the rush or sprout of the marsh, to אֲגַם Delitzsch). - This account was neither the invention of national hatred to the Moabites and Ammonites, nor was it placed here as a brand upon those tribes. These discoveries of a criticism imbued with hostility to the Bible are overthrown by the fact, that, according to Deu 2:9, Deu 2:19, Israel was ordered not to touch the territory of either of these tribes because of their descent from Lot; and it was their unbrotherly conduct towards Israel alone which first prevented their reception into the congregation of the Lord, Deu 23:4-5. - Lot is never mentioned again. Separated both outwardly and inwardly from Abraham, he was of no further importance in relation to the history of salvation, so that even his death is not referred to. His descendants, however, frequently came into contact with the Israelites; and the history of their descent is given here to facilitate a correct appreciation of their conduct towards Israel.