Parashah Vayera -- Why the Daughters of Lot Committed Incest.

[Rebbe]

BRI International Internet Yeshiva Parashah Notes, November 12, 2011

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"I teach nothing new but all things original" -- Rebbe

Parasha Vayera  (he appeared)
Gen 18.1-22.24
Haftorah 2 Kgs 4.1-37


Why did the two daughters of Lot seduce their drunken father and have children by him? Today the Jordanians claim descent from two essential tribal peoples who locate their origin in Lot's two daughters -- Moab and Ammon. In fact, the capitol of Jordan today remains Amman. Of course, there are many Philistines also cohabiting within the Jordanian borders.

We locate the account of the seduction of Lot in Genesis. The scroll of Genesis (among other things) is an account of incestuous relationships. Firstly there is the story of Adam and Eve. Eve was originally a created part of Adam which (or who) was creatively separated from his side so in a sense she was his sister.

Because no actual mention is made of other people living at the time of the creation of Adam and Eve, it is generally assumed (inaccurately as it stands) that Cain when banished from the Garden of Eden married a sister -- a daughter of the Adamic prototypes. If this is indeed the case, we find again a record of incest as we do with Seth (Gen 4.26).

Certainly, Abraham is married to his half-sister Sarai (Gen 20.11,12). Nahor, the brother of Abraham, marries their niece Milcah (Gen 11.27-29). Isaac and Rebekah were first cousins, once removed (Gen 24.15; 27.42-43; 29.10). Jacob married two of his cousins (Gen 29.1-30). Reuben took his father's concubine (Gen 35.22; 49.4). Judah made love to his daughter-in-law (Gen 38.16-18). Add to this the fact recorded in Exodus that the parents of Moses were none other than aunt and nephew and we reach the pinnacle of intra-family sexual debauchery (Ex 6.20). The point is that the lives of the patriarchs seem to form the basis of the antifamily sex prohibitions of Lev 18 and 20.

The Mosaic covenant disallowed incest (Lev 18.6,7), although in earlier epochs in our planet's history incest was not only permitted, it was encouraged. Cain, if you recall, left Eden and went to the land of Nod where he married (Gen 4.16,17). Who did Cain marry? The Genesis account tells us that Eve, earlier on in the narrative, had children. This is why Adam named her "Eve" (Khavah) -- mother of all living (Gen 3.20). This was long before she gave birth to her twin sons (Gen 4.1,2). Presumably, her first children were daughters, as her utterance over Cain indicates ("I have gotten a man from the Lord," Gen 4.1: This text actually says, "I have gotten a man, even YHWH"). Alternatively, as I have pointed out in previous lectures, there could have been other human beings on our planet prior to the special advent of Adam (Gen 1.26-30 The first Genesis account of man's creation differs markedly from the second found in Gen 2.4-8). Whatever the case, Cain took a wife and the force of rabbinic opinion is that he married a daughter of Eve.

Certainly incest was expected of regal dynasties and even Abraham was married to his half sister, Sarah. By the time of Sinai it was explicitly forbidden and disclaimed by the apostle Paul in NT times (1 Cor 5.1).

When we come to the story of Lot's daughters (which is included in the Torah) there appears to be some legal justification in their actions with their father. And make no mistake about it, the daughters of Lot in the Genesis annals take full responsibility for their actions, not their father.

Briefly, there came a time when the entire Jordan went up in smoke and fire in what well may have been one wave of alien invasion (Gen 19.28). "Angels" figure prominently in the account. It was a veritable "Independence Day" but in this scenario the "angels" scored a complete victory and the humans registered "nil."

But the daughters of Lot misinterpreted the event. The Midrash informs us that they came to the conclusion that only they had survived the fiery holocaust (Gen 19.31). This admission is important in understanding their actions with their father. They were definitely under the distinct impression that the end of the world had come in their lifetime. They thought only they and their father were alive to recreate a new civilisation.

There is a legitimate reason why they thought this way. The reason they believed this was not only due to the divine holocaust that occurred (and it was quite sweeping in its effects) but they knew the worldwide flood of Noah in all its hideous and horrific proportions deluged the planet (or most of it) in the tenth generation from Adam (Gen 5.4-29). Lot's daughters were living in the tenth generation from Noah (Gen 11.10-27).

Appreciating the cyclic nature of history (and the ancient world was governed by astrology -- Deut 4.19; Josephus, Ant., 1,VII,1), they realised that heaven would not destroy the planet again by the deluge of water because God said He wouldn't repeat a Deluge of those proportions (Gen 9.15). But the world WILL one day be judged by fire (2 Pet 3.7) and obviously the ancients knew this prediction as Josephus records just such a prophecy made by none other than Adam subsequent to his fall in the Garden of Eden.

Speaking of the descendants of Seth, Josephus says, "They also were the inventors of that peculiar sort of wisdom which is concerned with the heavenly bodies [astrology] and their order. And that their inventions might not be lost before they were sufficiently known [they recorded them in stone], upon Adam's prediction that the world was to be destroyed at one time by the force of fire, and at another time by the violence and quantity of water" (Ant., I,II,3).

But Eve was promised a Messiah who would crush the power of universal evil (Gen 3.15). All the people of the ancient world have recorded this fact in bas reliefs as well as symbolically in idol structure and form. If the earth had been destroyed how could the Messiah come as the promised Seed of the Woman (Eve)? Why, only through the survivors of the fiery holocaust. Namely the daughters of Eve through Lot. What a jolt awaited them when they came out of the cave in which they had all taken refuge, and into the sunlight of a new and ordinary day.

The world was still continuing as before, minus a few cities on the plain, and here they were pregnant by their own father.

But there is a more important fact regarding this sad episode. And that involves the blind operation of the law of karma.

Jewish traditions explain that Lot, right from the outset desired to live in Sodom for the engaging reason that his nature wanted to live in a city where he could lose himself in his own natural depravity (Tanhuma, Vayera 12 ). This situation reaches its apex when he offers his daughters to the mob of rapists (both men and women). The rabbis rightly observe that a godly man would give his own life in order to save the lives of a wife and family. "In response to this, the Holy One, blessed be He, says to Lot: By your life, the improper act that you intended to be done to your daughters will indeed be committed, but to you."

The Midrash lays no blame on the daughters of Lot (Aggadat Bereshit [ed., Martin Buber] 25.1) as God knew their thoughts that they desired to save the world from total devastation.

Lot was prepared to force his daughters against their own will to engage in sexual relations with rapists. As a consequence, after the fiery holocaust and believing the End of the World had come, Lot's two surviving daughters have sex with their father to keep the race alive for the eventuating of the Messiah to fulfill that promise given by God to Eve. Lot offered them to rapists. They rape their own father. It's Lot's deserved punishment. They cry, "The Holy One, blessed be He, has rescued us so that the world will exist through us, so that the human race shall continue."

And, once more, we are treated to the forthright doctrine of God's accommodation to humankind.