Day 19 - Genesis : Chapter 19

Yesterday was really a blissful and memorable day. When I close my eyes and re run the day I feel happy. 

Genesis 19

The angels reach the city of Sodom and Lot who is sitting at the city gates sees them. He knows the nature of people in Sodom - that if they see these handsome strangers, they might harm them. So he urges them to go with him to his house. Due to Lot's persistence, they go to his house.

In the night the people of Sodom surround Lot's house and demand him to send the 2 men outside. They want to have sex with them. Lot begs them to not do such a wicked thing. He says he will give his 2 daughters who are virgins instead.

This might be an argument against homosexuality. Lot clearly says that men having sex with the 2 men is wicked and that men having it with women is fine.

But the evil men outside do not listen. As they are about to break  open the door, the angels come forward, pull Lot back into the house and strike all the men outside with blindness.

Immediately afterwards, the angels let Lot know the true objective of their arrival - the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. They ask Lot to gather his belongings and relatives and flee. Lot tells this to his to be sons-in-law but they don't believe him. The angels try to hurry Lot but he hesitates. So they take Lot, his wife and his daughters by hand and lead them out of the city. They ask them to go to the mountains and be saved from the destruction. But Lot says mountain is very far and that they would be able to make it only to the small village of Zoar near by.  The angels agree.

Once Lot and family reach Zoar, there is thunder lightning and rain of sulphur on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The angels had asked Lot and family to specifically not look back. Lot's wife looks back and is turned into a pillar of salt.

Early in the morning, Abraham looks down into the valley of Sodom and Gomorrah from the high place where he had stood with the Lord the previous day. He sees smoke coming out and knows that the cities didn't have even 5 good people and were destroyed.

Next day Lot and his daughters go to the mountains and stay in a cave. The daughters, may be because of their limited knowledge, think that the whole world is destroyed and tell themselves that there are no men in the world to marry them so that they could have children. They induce Lot to drink and in his drunken state sleep with him. Their children become Moabites and Ammonites.

The very fact that they made him drunk means that they knew Lot would not approve and it was wrong.There are other places in Bible where incest is condemned severely.