Cave Living offers few choices for Young Ladies

 Read Genesis 19

So Lot and his 2 daughters were spared the destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, and the surrounding area.  They were safe in the town of Zoar, but Lot decided that small-town living was not for him, so he headed to the mountains—the very place that he told the angels he could not go—he would not survive there.

We don’t know why Lot thought he couldn’t go to the mountains.  He just said that this disaster would overtake him.  In any case, Lot went to the mountains and found a cave to live in.  We can’t call it a man cave because his two daughters were with him.

These are two young women old enough to bear children who are now living with their father who was ready to turn them over to the townspeople to sexually abuse them, and they are living in a cave in the mountains.

Could life get any better?

Apparently, they don’t have any neighbors.  If you are a recluse, you might think this was the ideal home.  If you were 2 young ladies, you might think this was the end of the world.

What to do?

Venturing out on their own was probably dangerous.  The chances of finding anyone in right standing with God were slim to none, leaning heavily to the none side.  They would find someone to take them in for sure, but as servants or slaves or concubines at best.  Striking out on their own was not an option.

Apparently, dad was not interested in moving back to town.  They would have to come up with some other course of action.

What they came up with seemed to originate in Hollywood.  The two daughters would get dad drunk and then the older will have sex with him and conceive a child.  The younger daughter could take her turn the following night.

Both succeeded in becoming pregnant.  Can’t you hear them saying, “I love it when a plan comes together?” Apparently, dad was none the wiser as to how it happened. The girls would have their babies but that family tree wasn’t going to branch for a while.

So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab; he is the father of the Moabites of today. The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the Ammonites of today.

So the older daughter gave birth to a son who would be the father of the Moabites, a people and a land that would include Zoar, the small town where Lot would not live.

The Moabites were pagan.  In fact, they had many gods, but did not know the one true God.  Moab appears several times in the Old Testament.  They were generally hostile towards Israel but apparently permitted some people to come and go freely.  The first part of the book of Ruth is set in Moab.

In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.

There were only pagans in the land and the two sons took two local women as their wives.  Naomi’s husband died as did the husbands of her daughters.  Naomi decided to head back to Judah and Ruth went with her.  There was a discussion that ensued about this not being a practical course of action, but it brought us to this statement by Ruth.

“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”

But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

I have a little less about the Ammonites.  They were pagans and generally hostile toward Israel.  They lived mostly east of the Jordan.

We do have the story of their origins, as deplorable and repulsive as that story seems to us.  What can I say?

Girls, don’t try this a home.

Parents, maybe the guy with the nose ring and misspelled words on his tattoos isn’t that bad.  Consider the choices that Lot’s daughters had.

Those were a little tongue-in-cheek, but not entirely. What can I say?

God’s favor was poured out on a few people (we know this favor was because of Abraham being in right standing with God), only three of whom obeyed God and survived the destruction of Sodom. 

That salvation was from God. How they lived in the favor of the Lord was on them.

We have received the favor of the Lord in the blood of Jesus.  How we live in response to this incredible gift is on us.  We call that response discipleship.

Our job is not to look for people to condemn.  That’s not why we have this story. We don’t need to jump on the condemnation bandwagon. Everyone is already living in condemnation if they have not received Jesus as Lord.  We don’t need to add our pointing fingers to that situation.

We do need to live in grateful response to the mercy, grace, and favor of the Lord.

But what about these 2 girls?  Check the box that you have read that part of the story.  Know the origin of the Moabite and Ammonite peoples when you come across them in your readings.  Know that those raised in a pagan culture are not anchored to it. Contrast Lot’s daughters with the story of Ruth.,

Most of all for us, do this when our circumstances seem dire.

Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith.  You are blessed to know there is so much more to the story of God’s relationship with humankind than these two girls in what seemed to be a hopeless situation.

Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus.

Amen.