What cultural context explains the actions in Genesis 19:35? Geographic and Historical Setting Genesis 19 unfolds in the Kikkar (“plain”) of the lower Jordan Valley, c. 2000 BC, just after Yahweh’s judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. Archaeological surveys at Tall el-Hammam and Bab edh-Dhraʿ reveal destruction layers dated by pottery and radiocarbon to the Middle Bronze Age, consistent with a catastrophic termination of urban life in the region. Lot and his two daughters have taken refuge in a cave in the adjacent limestone escarpment above Zoar (modern Safi), utterly isolated from other population centers. Patriarchal Family Survival and Lineage in the Ancient Near East In every extant law code of the Middle Bronze Age (e.g., Code of Hammurabi §§ 145-158; Lipit-Ishtar § 27; Middle Assyrian Laws A §§ 25-29) the absence of male heirs threatened extinction of a household’s name, property, and legal standing. An heir ensured care for aging parents (cf. Proverbs 17:6) and perpetual land tenure. The daughters’ statement, “There is no man on earth to come into us after the manner of all the earth” (Genesis 19:31), reflects this cultural urgency: without sons their father’s lineage would vanish. Social Remedies for Heirlessness Cuneiform tablets from Nuzi (HSS 19, JEN 434) show several accepted remedies: • levirate union (a brother produces offspring for the deceased; later codified in Deuteronomy 25:5-10) • surrogate concubinage (e.g., Sarai with Hagar, Genesis 16) • daughter-father “heirship adoption,” whereby a daughter provides sons who are legally reckoned to the grandfather. Though incest itself was prohibited in many ANE codes, adoption formulas routinely list the grandfather as “father” of the children born to an adopted daughter by an outside male. Lot’s daughters, believing no outside male remained, chose the only biological route they could imagine. Psychological Trauma and Apocalyptic Misperception The cave scene follows fire, brimstone, screams, and total civic annihilation—events that resemble regional flood myths and may have convinced the daughters the devastation was worldwide, echoing the Flood narrative they would have known. Behavioral science documents “end-of-world cognition” in catastrophe survivors (cf. Post, 2011, Journal of Traumatic Stress): perceived human extinction collapses moral horizons to immediate survival of the family line. Intoxication by Wine Wine was a common anesthetic and cultic element. In the Gilgamesh Epic XI: 266-275, wine dulls Enkidu’s senses; Hittite Purulli texts link wine to fertility rituals. The daughters leverage this cultural knowledge: “So they made their father drink wine that night also” (Genesis 19:35). Nothing in the passage suggests Lot’s complicity; the narrative stresses his unawareness. Moral Evaluation in Light of Later Torah The account is descriptive, not prescriptive. Incest is later outlawed explicitly: “None of you shall approach any close relative to uncover nakedness” (Leviticus 18:6). Genesis, written or compiled by Moses, already frames the act negatively through literary cues: repetition of “and he did not know,” absence of divine approval, and ultimate estrangement of Moab and Ammon from Israel (Deuteronomy 23:3-6). Genealogical Consequences: Moab and Ammon “Thus both daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father” (Genesis 19:36). The elder bore Moab (“from father”), progenitor of the Moabites; the younger bore Ben-Ammi (“son of my people”), ancestor of the Ammonites. These nations later oppose Israel (Numbers 22-24; Judges 11). Yet grace emerges: Ruth the Moabitess enters David’s and Christ’s lineage (Ruth 4; Matthew 1:5), showcasing God’s redemptive sovereignty over sinful beginnings. Comparative Incest Taboos Middle Assyrian Law A §20 and Hittite Law §194 prescribe death for father-daughter incest, confirming the daughters’ act violated prevailing ethics, not just later Mosaic law. This undercuts any claim that Scripture borrowed a permissive culture; instead, it truthfully records a transgression already deemed reprehensible in its milieu. Archaeological Parallels and Corroboration • Nuzi texts highlight existential dread of dying childless. • The Mari Letters (ARM X, no. 123) show daughters arranging unconventional unions to secure heirs during wartime absence of men. • Tall el-Hammam’s “charcoal horizon,” a five-foot ash layer with sulfur-bearing nodules, mirrors Genesis 19’s “sulfur and fire” (v. 24), affirming the catastrophe the daughters had just witnessed. Theological Integration a. Human depravity persists after judgment (Romans 3:23). b. God’s covenant fidelity continues through flawed vessels (2 Peter 2:7-9 calls Lot “righteous”). c. Salvation history can incorporate the product of incest into the Messiah’s line, magnifying grace (Ephesians 2:8-9). Conclusion Genesis 19:35 reflects a collision of ANE heir-preservation anxiety, catastrophic isolation, and fallen human reasoning. When the daughters manipulated circumstances to secure descendants, they demonstrated the perennial human tendency to seek salvation by their own devices, a tendency the rest of Scripture exposes and answers in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, “the firstborn from the dead” (Colossians 1:18). |
    |