Genesis 19:8

edited December 1969 in Youth Corner
See now, I have two daughters who have not known a man; please, let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you wish; only do nothing to these men, since this is the reason they have come under the shadow of my roof." (Genesis 19:8)

How could Lot offer his two daughters to the mad crowd? if he meant something else, then obviously i didn't understand it? can i have an explanation? thank you...

Comments

  • he was screwed up. remember he got where he was by choosing the land that looked greener, rather than by asking God what His will was.
  • thanx again, how do you know this, r u just smarter and i'm stupider, lol, or wat u do to know all this? for me, i get several questions for each chapter i read, dats too much
  • i am fairly old and have been reading the Bible since i was old enough to read!
    ;)
  • It is important to read the whole story of Lot (his separation from Abraham, the reason why he became a citicen of Sodom, etc.) so that you can understand the context of what really happened. The message we can get is that, once we remove restrictions to the behaviour of mankind, natural instintcs will swallow all what is good in us, without sanctity there is no life in us.

    Here it goes: Lot was a nephew of Abraham, a good-hearted man. However, he had no Bible, no Church and no religious authority to rely on: the Law of Moses had not been revealed and the Oral Law was imperfectly passed to mankind. Lot was not an evil man but when he had the chance to stay in Sodom, being himself recognized as a good leader and administrator, he "accepted the contract" with the sodomites (the Kind of Sodom knew he was a decent and honest man, that's why he was named as an administrator: because he refused to take money from the Sodomites). This implied that he had to be tolerant to the sins of his fellow citizens while not being directly involved in them.

    The message we get here is that it's hard to live in a world of sinners and tolerate them without being contaminated by their practices: you cannot overcome sin by choosing your own way, you must accomodate to God's way. Lot knew that the city was dangerous and that his fellow citices were a bunch of perverts, that's why he tried to get the angels into his house as these were foreigners and from that can be infered from the text, men who visited the city were welcomed by the Sodomites in a sexual way (homosexual intercourse). St. Peter also tell us he was a just man. However, when Lot refers to the Sodomites as "brothers", this represents a very intimate friendship or relationship. We can also infer that he was a weak person.

    His permanent contact with a perveted environment made him less sensitive to the truth, less brave and less worried about his personal morality and that of his family. He was afraid of God and he knew that these angels were greater than him. He'd rather have his daughters raped than failing to protect these angels as he suspected they had been sent by God. However, his unusual thinking, his erratic choises (did he really understand when the angels told him to LEAVE Sodom?) portrait him as an intellectually weak person. Once you live in a Sodom-like environment it's logical for you to get gradually desensibilized and loose respect for the human life, that's what happened to Lot.

    We can't fully blame Lot's daughters for what happened after they had all left Sodom. Their mother was never at home and their father was not enough strict with them, he was tolerant to sin. What we can learn from this chapter is that there can be no mixture of water and oil, and that renouncing sin also means to reject it and stay away from it. It also means that once we become tolerant to it, and intermingle with siners, our family will get the wrong impression and we scandalize others by doing so.

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