I really hate to always have to apologize each time I am about to continue my foray into the Bible because it seems to be coming in trickles from me these days, and so I will not do that this time or justify why my attention has been on other subjects since the last time we were here.

Now, let's get down to business. The last time, I featured the family of Lot who eventually had to escape the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah as fire and brimstone rained upon the cities, according to how it is recorded in the book of Genesis 19 : 24.

Unfortunately, Lot's wife couldn't make it as she turned into a pillar of salt when she turned to look at the city, against the command given by the angels who had helped evacuate the family from the doomed cities.

While the cities were been overthrown by YAHWEH 's wrath, Abraham (Genesis 19 :28) a safe distance away looked on at the destruction of the cities - "...the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace"- that once was a choice for him as a place of abode as he made to douse tensions between him and his nephew over the matter of grazing space for their cattle. Lot was led by "GREENER PASTURE", without considering other variables, but ended up losing everything save his daughters from that unfortunate adventure.

Coming from an African country where getting a visa to emigrate to the West and developed nations of the world is a reason for which thanksgiving is done in Church to much fanfare, where application to foreign embassies is a matter of PRAYER POINTS during vigils, and the demeaning queues at foreign embassies amongst other inhuman treatments that many receive at the hands of the staff of these consulates, I can totally relate with the inner workings of Lot for a better life, like many Africans envisaging a better life abroad from the pedestrian existence in their home countries, however many make these decisions without considering the full variables, thereby exchanging their kingly position in their space at home for most times, servitude in their host western countries, though some others who have better plans manage to succeed.

Lot was not a success eventually, and what was meant to be his land flowing with milk and honey, his greener pasture, and land whose roads are paved with gold turned a huge nightmare for him. In the end, ".... Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters." (Genesis 19 : 30)

Unlike in Noah's story, who managed to secure wives for his sons before escaping into the ARK, Lot wasn't so lucky in securing husbands for his daughters while he sojourned in the now destroyed cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. So it came to pass, after a while it seemed, that the older daughter "...said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth", rendered in the INTERNATIONAL STANDARD VERSION, simply as - "Our father is old, and there's no man in the land to have sex with us, as everybody else throughout all the earth does", signifying that they must've been in a very desolate area, where there probably was no one else around for miles on all sides.

In verse 32, she went further to state, "..let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father". Hence, their desire for sex wasn't just for the fun of it, but mainly for procreational purposes, driven by the need not to allow the name of their father perish by reason of his lack of a grandchild, more appropriately a grandson to carry his name.

In many societies, especially across Africa (that I am aware of), the need to have a son to carry one's name is at the heart of the ever increasing population. Families with female children will continue to try to have a male, while in some cases society allows for a daughter of a man with only female children to have a son out of wedlock that will bear the fathers' name. And in homesteads where there is a widow without children, either because she is barren or had lost all her children, and without grandchildren, the same can marry to herself a woman who has free will to mingle with men somewhat to make male children that will bear the name of the widows husband, thereby saving the man's lineage from extinction. Needless to add also, that marriages in these societies are contracted majorly for reasons of saving family names to the future, and many marriages fail when there are no children in it. This is also strongly linked to the actions of many women in these societies to explore all means possible, legitimate or not, to procure a child, a son especially just to keep herself in the marriage.

Lot's daughters wanted to save their fathers' line, and resorted to the use of alcohol to carry out their aim. Since, there was no one else around, I would suppose they were great brewers who knew the mind altering capacity of "strong" wine, and intended to use it to their advantage, for the love they had for their father, and not necessarily because they wanted sex to douse their flame after long periods of abstinence, or even of remaining virgins.

I will quickly chip in this bit, that for anyone who wishes to be responsible for all of his actions, alcohol definitely should be avoided, or taken in very reasonable quantities if one must indulge at all.

And so it was that both daughters went about their plan, slept with their father who was under the influence of WINE, for two nights consecutively, the younger taking the place of the older the day after, and their father - "...perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose." (Genesis 19 : 35)

And before you could say L-O- , both daughters were with child by their father. Some "Alexander Genes" he must've had, and some very fertile women his daughters too must have been, wont you say! They both delivered without incidence, MOAB of the first daughter and BENAMMI of the second daughter. These will become the fathers of MOABITES and AMMONITES respectively, people that we shall come across as we continue in this journey.

I do not know how you see the actions of Lots' daughters, but from where I stand their actions appeared to have been borne out of the love they had for their father, and not the kind of incestuous relationships we find today that is borne out of lust.

The times they lived in may have played a role in their thought process, just as ours affect the way we think and make decisions today. It appeared to me that they needed to do the needful, and that, they simply did!

'kovich

REFERENCES:
Genesis Chapter 19 verse 30 - 38 / KING JAMES VERSION, EXCEPT OTHERWISE STATED /

PICTURE CREDIT: GUERNICO'S LOT AND HIS DAUGHTERS, C. 1651 http://cincyartsnob.

BIBLE STORIES (13): BETWEEN INCEST AND DOING THE NEEDFUL | madukovich's cogitations https://madukovich./2015/03/12/bible-stories-13-between-incest-and-doing-the-needful/