Daughters in the Bible: Lot’s Daughters, Took Matters into their own Hands

Last year, I did a series on Mother’s in the Bible.  This year, let’s take a lot at some daughters and sisters in the Bible.  We will be spending time with these women for the next few months.

As we begin, we will join two daughter’s whose name we do not even know.  Yet, we can learn much about their story and character.  Even today the consequences of their decisions still linger.

So, let’s join Lot and his daughters.

Lot’s daughters are unnamed but they are important, because they lost all they knew and

their hopes.  In the end, they took everything into their own hands, which lead to the beginning of the Moabites and Ammonites.  Cultures that caused great harm to the Israelites and whom God forbidden them from living among.

Abraham and his nephew, Lot, divided their possessions and parted ways

We will pick up with their story as the angels arrive in Sodom and Gomorrah, in preparation of their destruction.

Two angels arrive in Sodom and Gomorrah to destroy the city.  We are shown how evil the city is when Lot’s house is surrounded by “all the men from every part of the city of Sodom” to have sex with the men.   {Genesis 19:1-5}

The men of the city are so intrigued with the city that they surround Lot’s house insisting on having sexual relations with the men.

“Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing.  Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”   {Genesis 19:6-8}

Sodom and Gomorrah were wicked cities

Lot knew what these men wanted was wrong, but he offered up his two virgin daughters to these wicked men.  Lot must have been desperate to make such an offer.

The men refuse and begin to overpower those in the house until the angels strike them blind.  {Genesis 19:9-13}

^“So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.”   {Genesis 19:14}

We discover from this verse that both daughters are pledged to be marry.  The women are in the prime of their lives.  They have men that love them {we hope}, they are looking forward to being a wife and eventually mothers.

Lot protected the men of God

But, when Lot offers them the option to leave before the city is destroyed, the men do not

take him serious.  Maybe they laugh at him or turn around and walk away.  Whatever their

response, they did not take him seriously.  In that moment, they sealed their fate to be destroyed.

Imagine how different history may have turned out, if they had listened to Lot and gone with him and his family.

^“ With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.”  {Genesis 19:15}

Lot and his family fled

The angels urge Lot to leave.  He takes his family and they walk away from the life they have known for the last decade or two.  {We know this occurred 24 years after Lot left Canaan with his Uncle Abram.}

Then hell fire rains down destroying Sodom and Gomorrah.  As we know, when Lot’s wife turned back she is turned into a pillar of salt. {Genesis 19:16-29}

We do not know when Lot married or the name of his wife.  Was she born and raised on Sodom?  Had Lot married him among his earlier travels?  We do not know.  But, apparently, she enjoyed her time in Sodom and this was home to her.

Maybe she heard the screams of her fathers and brothers.  We do not know for sure where

When Lot’s wife turned around she was turned to stone

she originated from or why she turned around.  What we do know is that she was drawn to look back on the past and when she did she immediately turned into a pillar of salt.

In a heartbeat, Lot’s daughters, lost all they knew and held dear.  Given their tender ages, they may have been born and raised in Sodom.  Again, we cannot be sure.  What we do know, is that they lost their home, city, and fiancés as they fled the city.  They would have heard the cried.  Then their mother is turned into a pillar of salt, yet they have to keep going.  They are unable to turn and look back.

“Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to give us children—as is the custom all over the earth.  Let’s get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father.”   {Genesis 19:34-35}

Sodom and Gomorrah was so wicked God destroyed the cities

“With the cities of the plain destroyed, Lot’s two daughters drew the unwarranted conclusion that there was no one left for them to marry.  Taking matters into their own hands, they made their father drunk and had sex with him while he was in a stupor.”  {Every Woman in the Bible}

The girls are seeing their immediate circumstances.  How easy it is to focus on the moment and not the hope of the future.  I admit that I’ve been guilty of focusing on the problem and moment and not God’s plan or the hope of the future more than once.  That’s where we find Lot’s daughters.

They take matters into their own hands.

God allowed Lot and his family to escape as he destroyed the evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah

“But whatever their motive for their act—loss of hope of ever having husbands of their own, or moral perversion—act they did, and each became pregnant by her father, producing two peoples who later troubled the descendants of Abraham. Those two peoples were the Moabites and the Ammonites.”  {Every Woman in the Bible}

Each young woman gets her father drunk and goes in to lie with him, becoming pregnant with his child.  We are not told of Lot’s reaction when his daughters told him of their impending motherhood, but one can imagine it would have been with considerable anger.

The daughters did not discuss their fears with their father, but took matters into their own hand.

Hail and brimstone rained down on these evil cities

“Even when the only option we see is a sinful one, we should not give in. How much better it would have been if these daughters had shared their fears with their father and asked for his advice.” {Every Woman in the Bible}

Like Lot’s daughters, I have taken life and situations into my own hands without consulting my parents {when I was younger} or my heavenly father.  The situation always ended in disaster.

The same is true for Lot’s daughters.  They gave birth to two nations that caused much heartache and pain for the Israelites, who were the descendants of Lot’s uncle, Abraham.

Have you ever taken matters into your own hand without seeing Godly counsel?  What result did this cause?