Genesis 19:32 - Exposition

Come, let us make our father drink wine ,—either, therefore, Lot had not left Sodom totally unprovided (Inglis), or some little time had elapsed after his escaping to the mountain cave, since his daughters are provided with this intoxicating beverage— and we will He with him. Considering the town in which the daughters of Lot had been reared, the mother of whom they were the offspring, and the example they had received from their father ( Genesis 19:8 ), "we can understand, though we cannot cease to abhor, their incestuous conduct" (Kalisch). Their proposal was revolting and unnatural in the extreme. By subsequent Mosaic legislation a transgression of such enormity was rendered punishable by death. Even in the present instance the perpetrators were not wholly unconscious of the wickedness of their conduct. The fact that they required a stratagem for the attainment of their purpose shows that at least they could not calculate on their father's approbation. The entire story has been regarded as the invention of later Jewish hatred to the Moabites and Ammonites (De Wette), a conjecture believed by some to be " not improbable (Rosenmüller); but if so, how should the same writer exhibit Abraham ( Genesis 18:23 ) as filled with compassionate tenderness towards the cities of the plain? (Havernick). That we may preserve seed of our father. Literally, quicken or vivify seed (cf. Genesis 19:34 ). Lot's daughters may be credited with whatever virtue may be supposed to reside in this motive for their conduct.