Chapter 6 Chapter 5 Lot's Daughter Rapes Her Father—Saving the World

People from the city surrounded the house, young and old, and even residents from outside the city came. They called to Lot and said, "Where are the people who came to your house tonight? Bring them out and let us use them!" Lot came out and closed the door of the house behind him when he reached the door, and said to everyone, "My fellow countrymen, don't do evil things! Why don't you do this? I have two daughters who are virgins. Let me give them away to everyone. , let everyone handle it, but since these two people are guests in the house, don't embarrass them!"

"Genesis" Chapter 19 Verses 4-8 The two messengers urged Lot: "Get up, take your wife and two daughters who live with you, and go, so as not to be wiped out together with the evil in the city." Lot lingered, but because the LORD had mercy on Lot, the two took his hand, his wife's hand, and the hands of his two daughters, and led them out of the city. When they got there, one of the messengers said, "Run for your life! Don't look back, and don't stand still on the plain. Run to the mountains, or you will be destroyed!" The LORD rained brimstone and fire from heaven on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and he destroyed those cities and the whole plain, including all the inhabitants there, and everything that grew on the ground.

Lot's wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt. Lot was afraid of living in Zoar, so he left to find a place on the mountain, and lived in a cave with his two daughters. The eldest daughter said to the younger daughter, "Father is old, and no man in this part of the world will come here according to the custom in the world! Come on, let's make father drink and sleep with him, so that we can survive from him." Descendant." So their father drank wine that night, and the eldest daughter went in to sleep with her father.He had no idea when she lay down and when she got up.

It was not until the next day that the eldest daughter said to the younger daughter, "I slept with my father last night. Let's make him drink again tonight, and you can go in and sleep with him. This will allow us to preserve descendants from him." So that night they made their father drunk again, and the younger daughter went in to sleep with him, and he didn't know when she lay down and when she got up. Both of Lot's daughters were conceived by their father. "Genesis" Chapter 19 Verses 15-36 God promised Abraham that if he could find ten righteous men in the city of Sodom, he would not destroy the city, so he sent two angels to the city.They met Lot, who invited them to his house, and the townspeople surrounded Lot's house, demanding that he hand over the two men for their lustful needs.Lot's response is noteworthy, offering to replace the two guests with his two virginal daughters.But the crowd rejected Lot's proposal and wanted to break in and get the two men out.The angel of God protects Lot and warns him that he must leave the city with his family because it will be destroyed soon.In addition, the messenger of God also told Lot, his two daughters and his wife not to look back when they were fleeing.But his wife didn't listen, and she just looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.However, Lot survived the brimstone and fire, but was drunk by his two daughters, who seduced him with sex, so that he could become pregnant and preserve their offspring.

The story of Lot is actually the story of three women in his life, but the names of these three women are not mentioned in the Bible, which more or less shows the attitude of the Bible towards women. Lot was spared because "God remembered Abraham" (some commentators believe that this was because Lot was Abraham's nephew and lived in Sodom by order of Abraham. This is another early example of "status is virtue". This shows that God remembered Abraham's argument that good and evil kill together, and Lot was more upright and kind than other residents of Sodom. However, Lot was really a just and kind man Does he intend to hand over his daughter to the masses, does he show what kind of virtue he is? If measured by the standards of his era, he is a passer, after all, even the patriarch Abraham, in order to protect himself, twice gave away his first wife Sarah Handed over to those who threatened him, was considered a paragon of virtue! The first time was when Abram and Sarai (whose names were later changed to Abraham and Sarah to show that God was with them) went to Egypt During the journey, Abram falsely claimed that his wife was his sister, so that she could be used by others to satisfy animal desires in order to save his own life. Later, God sent a plague on Pharaoh, and she was able to return to her husband.

The second time happened after the destruction of the city of Sodom. At that time, Abraham and Sarah migrated south and met Abimelech, the king of Gerar. Abraham again took the risk of wearing a cuckold, pretending that his wife was his sister and giving it away for others. .Sarah was rescued again, and this time God gave Abimeleth a dream, warning him that he would die if he violated the rules.Abimelech hadn't defiled Sarah at that time, so he retorted to God confidently. Are you going to slaughter an entire upright and kind country? His words brought to mind Abraham's plea for the good men who might have been in Sodom. The passage also evolved into the following legal principle: Mistakes committed inadvertently and by circumstances, if there is no Attempt to commit a crime is generally a defense to crime. Abimelech brought out Abraham's own arguments in Sodom to persuade God to forgive him. God replied that if he returned Sarah, Abraham would pray for him , since Abraham was a prophet, God would fulfill his prayer.

Nachmonides boldly said that Abraham had "committed a serious crime" by putting Sarah in danger of being humiliated, but he didn't know why he was based on it, and explained that it was an "unintentional fault". For Abraham had calculated the danger of his wife's infidelity, and weighed it against his own life.Abraham's way of thinking about the balance of interests seems to be a family tradition, and Isaac did the same thing to his wife.Someone defends Abraham and Isaac: since they both possessed prophetic powers, perhaps they knew that God would rescue them from evildoers.

Although Lot did not have this ability, he probably also understood that the mob wanted a man who was a guest at his house, and might not want his daughter, and his proposal was just a delay.However, even if these rhetoric were plausible, it was still possible for those men to seize Lot's daughter and sell it into whores.Therefore, we can fairly draw the conclusion that in the biblical point of view, a person's integrity is not measured by how the person treats women (such as wives, daughters, sisters), including sending them to be satisfied. Carnal desire in exchange for favorable conditions for oneself.

There is another interpretation, less sexual, but more widespread, which is derived from the strange episode at the end of Lot's story.His daughters believe that the whole world (at least the part of the world they can touch) has been destroyed, and that they must seduce their father in order to leave a race in themselves and continue their lives, and they have not been killed by incest. And be punished.Perhaps the idea to be conveyed here is that the continuation of life is more important than whether sex is in line with human ethics.In the case of Lot's daughters, they may have believed that humanity's continuation depended on them breaking taboos against incest and even rape.But no matter what, getting someone drunk first, and then achieving sexual purposes while the other person is unconscious, is considered rape.Therefore, the first "acquaintance rape" in the Bible is more specifically a family molestation incident, which was actually a woman inflicting on a man.I'm so surprised!

From a broader perspective, the idea that this story wants to convey is that human relations—at least the part related to sex—are more inclined to be defined according to local conditions rather than mandatory.Some laws of words and deeds are relative, while life is absolute. Jewish law contains this tendency in most of the laws in the end, allowing laws to be broken in order to save lives. "Deuteronomy" forces us to Choose life.During the Holocaust, many women had to choose between their virginity and their lives, and those who chose to save their lives were not condemned by rabbis.Because they just follow the example of Abraham's wife and Lot's daughter.In Abraham's case, the patriarch put his own life above his wife's chastity, and did not ask her if she would sacrifice.In Lot's case, it was the woman who did it without the man's consent (Lot wanted to use his daughter instead of a guest for animal lust, again without asking her first). In these cases, life was preserved.

The behavior of Lot's daughters is an interesting contrast to the behavior of Noah's sons.Noah was a great man of great virtue and prestige in his generation. One day in his tent, he passed out naked and drunk.When Noah's son Ham saw his father naked, he ran to tell the other two brothers, and they worked backwards to avoid seeing his father's nakedness and covered him with clothes.When Noah woke up drunk and learned what Ham had done, he cursed his descendants, the Canaanites. Critics believe that Ham's behavior has exceeded the level of sight. There is an imaginative passage in the Midas that says that Ham attempted to "twist on his father so that he would not be able to bear children." Rashi believes that Ham "vented his perverted carnal desires on his father." Regardless of what Ham did Nothing is for the continuation of future generations, or to save human lives.So the descendants of Ham were cursed, but the daughters of Lot were forgiven.The sons of Lot's daughters became the ancestors of the Moabites and the Ammonites respectively.The sixteenth-century Italian interpreter Sfomo (Oba-dian Ben Jacob Sfomo) believed: "Because of the good intentions of Lot's daughter, her descendants inherited the land." So what did Lot's wife do wrong?She just didn't heed the warning of the angel who turned into a mortal, and looked back at the city of Sodom.It was understandable for her to look back at her family members who stayed in the city. Could it be that she was sentenced to such a severe punishment?There is even a chapter in "Midash" pointing out that her mother's love made her look back to see if her married daughter could keep up.Is this also a crime?Her tragic death can let us understand how much the value of women's lives was at that time. Critics struggled to find a plausible explanation for the death of Lot's wife.That, Rahi guessed, was because her real sin was refusing to give “salt”—the sign of “hospitality”—to the angel Lot had invited into his home.If this is also a reason, then there is no excuse for the crime!There are many other fanciful interpretations, but the symbol of the pillar of salt embodies the price of betrayal of God.Augustine said that Lot's wife "serves as a solemn and sacred warning that no one who has embarked on the road to redemption should let go of the past." But when dealing with loved ones, such an order It is against human nature.During the Inquisition in the fifteenth century, many Jews who converted to Christianity turned around and saw the horrors of their own flesh and blood being slaughtered. Flavius ​​Josephus was a Jewish historian who renounced Judaism, though he often went back to writing Jewish history.His book mentions that Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt because she was "too curious."Ironically, Josephs was also accused by the contemporary Holy See of being "too curious" about his Jewish traditions. Josephs showed his skill of "pleasing both sides" and said in court that I had seen the pillar of salt, which is still there today. exist. A modern-day Israeli guide would point to a pillar of salt by the Dead Sea (one of the natural features of the Niegev landscape) and declare that it looked like a woman looking back. The story of Lot, his wife, and his daughters continues the theme that women are seducers, trappers, disobedients, sinners, objects of the sex trade, and ultimately procreators.Women may be bad, but they're not as bad as the worst men, like the sex-starved mob that surrounded Lot's house, and they were all men.But no matter how good a woman is, she is not as good as the best man. There is a passage in the Midash that praises Sarah as a prophet who should have been ahead of her husband, and she is sometimes called Iscah "the seer" because of this. Just an exception. In the Bible, women may be higher means and deeper than men of the same status, but women are generally not of high moral character, with a few exceptions. God does not usually speak directly to women, but He does because of Women are punished for not obeying God's command to men. In Genesis, the lower, punished but prioritized role of women reappears in the next few stories.True enough, in the next "Isaac's Binding" story, Sarah's silence can be described as thunderous, and she can only watch her only son being taken away by her husband and intending to kill him.