Lot
In the Bible, Lot (Arabic: لوط, Lūṭ ; Hebrew לוֹט, Lot; "Hidden, covered") was the nephew of the patriarch, Abraham. He was the son of Abraham's brother Haran whose professional life involved the raising and trading of livestock. Lot journeyed with Abraham to Canaan and Egypt, after which the two kinsmen separated, with Lot heading toward the Jordan River valley and southward toward Sodom. When Lot was taken captive in a local war, Abraham came to his recue.
Lot is most famous for his dramatic escape from the city of Sodom after he offered hospitality to two angels and tried to protect them for men of the city, who sought to do them grievous harm. After Sodom was destroyed, Lot lived with his two daughters in a cave and, according to the biblical account, fathered sons by them. In this way, he became the ancestor of the Ammonites and the Moabites.
Lot is much discussed in the rabbinical tradition, which holds various and sometimes conflicting opinions about him. He is revered in the Qur'an, which does not affirm the story of his sleeping with his daughters, as a righteous man and a prophet.
Biblical account
The story of Lot is told in the Book of Genesis, chapters 11-14 and 19.
Lot was the son of Haran, the brother of Abraham. Lot's father died while the clan was living in the Mesopotamian city of Ur. He then accompanied his grandfather, Terah, and his uncle Abraham on a journey northwest from Ur to settle at a location apparently named for his father, Haran. (Gen 12:1-5) After an indeterminate period, Lot travelled further west with Abraham, who migrated with his clan to Canaan. There, Lot apparently settled with Abraham in the town of Shechem. It is likely that Lot assisted Abraham in the contruction of ancient religious altars at both Shechem and Bethel.
After a famine threatend, Lot also accompanied Abraham's clan on a journey to Egypt. By the time they returned to Canaan, both Lot and Abraham had developed large flocks of sheep and goats. Grazing disputes soon developed between the two clan leaders' herdsmen. Abraham gave Lot the choice of his abode. Lot made a fateful decision to head southeast toward the well-watered plains of the Jordan River, while Abraham remained in the hill country near the altars he had constructed in honor of his God. Lot pitched his tents near the town of Sodom. (Gen. 13:6-12)
About about eight years, a war devleoped among the kings of the region's several towns. When Sodom fell, Lot was taken captive. Abraham heard of Lot's ill-fortune and came to his rescue with a force of 318 armed men. He recovered the spoils they had taken and liberated Lot with the other captives.
Lot in Sodom
Several years intervene here, and by the time Gen. 19 opens, Lot is no longer living in tents tended his flocks, but has settled in Sodom with his wife and two daughters, none of whom is named. Two angels arrive in Sodom on a mission from God to destroy the town for it's wickedness. However, they will first warn the righteous Lot and give him and his family a chance to escape. Lot offers the angels — here called "men" — hospitality. However, the wicked men of Sodom demand the visitors be brought out to them to rape to rape them (19:5). Horrified out this outrage, Lot offered the men his virgin daughters instead (19:8), but the would-be attackers only threaten to break down the door in order to have their way with Lot's guests.
The angels immediately strike the townsmen with blindness and warn Lot of the impending doom that God has pronounced on Sodom. At their suggestion, Lot attempts to warn his sons-in-law — who were legally pledged but not yet married to his daughters — of the catastrophe, but they do not take him seriously.
At dawn, the angels led Lot and his family out of the city, taking each of them by the hand when Lot hesitated. "Flee for your lives!" one of them commanded. "Don't look back, and don't stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!"
Lot feared he had insufficient time to reach the mountains and asked instead to find shelter in the small town of Zoar. The angels agreed not to destroy this town, on the grounds that it is only a small village and therefore not very wicked. With Lot safe in Zoah and the sun now fully risen, God destroyed both Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as the surrounding plain and all of its vegetation. Lot's wife, however, made the tragic mistake of looking back toward Sodom while the destruction proceeded, and was immediately turned into a pillar of salt as a result.
Lot and his daughters
Now afraid to remain in Zoar, Lot retired with his two daughters to a cave in an adjacent mountains. There they lived together for an inderminate period. Believing they were the only females in the area to have survived the devastation, the two women decided on a desperate plan. They got their father so drunk on wine for two nights in a row. On they first night, the older daughter seduced him into having sexual intercourse, and on the second night the younger daughter did likewise. Each of the women became pregnant by him. The son of the elder daughter was named Moab ("from the father" [meh-Av], patriarch of the nation known as the Moabites. The second son was named Ben-Ammi ("son of the people"). He became the patriarch of the nation of the Ammonites.
The Book of Deuteronomy instructs the Israelites to refrain from attacking both of these peoples on the grounds that the land was given to Lot and his descendants by God.
- "Do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to war, for I will not give you any part of their land. I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as a possession." (2:9)
- When you come to the Ammonites, do not harass them or provoke them to war, for I will not give you possession of any land belonging to the Ammonites. I have given it as a possession to the descendants of Lot." (2:19)
Rabbincial literature
The rabbincal tradition has much to say about Lot beyond what is contained in the Bible. The midrash Genesis Rabbah (50:14) declares that Lot actually had four daughters at the time of Sodom's destruction, two married and two betrothed. Only the latter escaped death. He also had another daughter named Pelotet, who was married to one of the men of Sodom. However, she secretly practiced hospitality and was sentenced to be burned when this was discovered. Lot's wife was named either "Irit" or "Idit." The reason she looked back toward Sodom was to see if her two other daughters were following. (Pirke R. El. 50c)
However, Lot himself is generally represented by the rabbis in an unfavorable light. Lot grazed his flocks in fields that belonged to neighboring peoples, and he quarreled with Abraham over this fact. When Lot separeted himself from Abraham, he also separated himself from God, saying, "I have no desire either in Abraham or in his God." Lot chose Sodom as his residence because he was lustful. Lot was also prone to over-imbibing, and the account Lot and his daughters was once read every Saturday in some synagogues as a warning to the public against drunkenness. If lot had been more careful, his daughters' attempted act of incest would have failed. Lot was also very greedy for wealth, and at Sodom he practiced usury. His hesitation to leave the city was due to his regret for the wealth he was obliged to abandon. The protection that Lot received from God were granted through the merit of Abraham; otherwise he would have perished with the people of Sodom. (Genesis Rabbah 41-51)
Other rabbincal accounts, however, show a much milder attitude toward Lot. His being spared at the time of the destruction of Sodom is said to have been a reward for not having betrayed Abraham to Pharaoh with regard to the fact that Sarah Abraham's wife. (ibid.) The Pirke Rabbi Eliezer calls him a zaddik — a truly righteous man. It also praises Lot's hospitality which he practiced at the risk of his life at Sodom. (Pirke R. El. 25) The Alphabet of Ben Sira, following the the Qur'an, (suras 7:78-82; 22:43), calls Lot "a perfectly righteous man" and a prophet.
Islamic view
The are several important differences between the story of Lot (Lut) in the Qur'an and that of Lot in the Bible. Most important, the Qur'an omits Lot's drunkennes and his incestuous relationship with his daughters. Thus, Lot is thus unambigously a righteous man. He is also considered to be a prophet and the first person other than Abraham himself to believe in the teaching that came to be known later as Islam.
According to Islamic tradition, just as in the Bible, Lut lived originally in Ur and was a nephew of Ibrahim (Abraham). Rather than merely choosing to go to Sodom when his uncle gave him a choice of where to lead his flocks, Lot was commanded by God to go to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to preach against homosexuality. Lut's prophetic message, however, was rejected, and thus Sodom and Gommorrah were destroyed. The Qur'an describes Lot's ministry as a prophet in these terms:
- Lut said to them, "Will you not do your duty? I am a faithful Messenger to you. So heed God and obey me. I do not ask you for any wage for it. My wage is the responsiblity of no one but the Lord of all Worlds of all beings. Do you lie with males, leaving the wives God has created for you? You are people who have overstepped the limits."::(Qur'an,26:161-166)
The Qur'an's description of the fate of Lot's wife also differs from that of Genesis. Instead of being punished for looking back toward Sodom Lot's wife — in one Qur'anic account — simply stays behind in Sodom. In another, she is left behind by divine command:
- So We rescued him and his family — except for his wife. She was one of those who stayed behind. We rained down a rain upon them. See the final fate of the evildoers!::(Qur'an, 7:80-84)
- They [the angels] said, "Lut, we are messengers from your Lord. They will not be able to get at you. Set out with your family — except for your wife — in the middle of the night, and none of you should look back. What strikes them will strike her as well. (54:33)
Critical views
Lot story is regarded by both by the Bible and critical scholars as describing the eponyms — persons from whom tribes or nations are named — for Ammon and Moab. Lot's relationship to Abraham marks the ethnographic connection of these two tribes with the Israelites. At the same time, his relations with his daughters represents a tradition among the Israelites justifying their feelings moral superiority toward their nearest neighbors. Abraham's position as Lot's uncle and rescuer might have been used to support Israel's or Judah's coming to the aid of Ammon and Moab as their ally, as well as to justify these nations descended from Lot paying tribute to their Abrahamic neighbors.
The story about Lot's wife is regarded by critics and travelers as a folk-legend intended to explain the origin of a pillar of crystallized rock-salt resembling the female human form. Owing to its composition, such a pillar would soon dissolve. One in the neighborhood of the Dead Sea was identified by Josephus ("Ant." 1:11, § 4). Tourist in Israel today are often shown one of several possible salt formations that may once have been Lot's unfortunate spouse.
Since Lot is declared to have dwelt in a cave, some have identified him with Lotan, the leader of one of the tribes of Horites, or cave-dwellers (Gen. 36:22, 29).
Feminist scholars have criticized Lot as a moral monster for his offering his two virgin daughters to a local mob for gang rape in an attempt to protect his male guests.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Ewald, Heinrich, 2004. The History of Israel, 5 Volumes. Wipf & Stock Publishers. ISBN 978-1592448807
- Heap, Norman, 1999. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: Servants and Prophets of God. Family History Pubns. ISBN 978-0945905028
- Letellier, Robert Ignatius, 1995. Day in Mamre Night in Sodom: Abraham and Lot in Genesis 18 and 19. Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 978-9004102507
- Lot in the Jewish Encyclopedia. Retrieved February 12, 2007.
- Pellegrino, Charles R., 1995. Return to Sodom and Gomorrah. Harper Paperbacks. ISBN 978-0380726332
See also
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