From Zoar Lot removed with his two daughters to the (Moabitish) mountains, for fear that Zoar might after all be destroyed, and dwelt in one of the caves (מערה with the generic article), in which the limestone rocks abound (vid., Lynch), and so became a dweller in a cave. While there, his daughters resolved to procure children through their father; and to that end on two successive evenings they made him intoxicated with wine, and then lay with him in the might, one after the other, that they might conceive seed. To this accursed crime they were impelled by the desire to preserve their family, because they thought there was no man on the earth to come in unto them, i.e., to marry them, "after the manner of all the earth." Not that they imagined the whole human race to have perished in the destruction of the valley of Siddim, but because they were afraid that no man would link himself with them, the only survivors of a country smitten by the curse of God. If it was not lust, therefore, which impelled them to this shameful deed, their conduct was worthy of Sodom, and shows quite as much as their previous betrothal to men of Sodom, that they were deeply imbued with the sinful character of that city. The words of Genesis 19:33 and Genesis 19:35, "And he knew not of her lying down and of her rising up," do not affirm that he was in an unconscious state, as the Rabbins are said by Jerome to have indicated by the point over בּקוּמה: "quasi incredibile et quod natura rerum non capiat, coire quempiam nescientem." They merely mean, that in his intoxicated state, though not entirely unconscious, yet he lay with his daughters without clearly knowing what he was doing.

Genesis 20:1 Parallel Commentaries

A.M. cir.

2107. B.C. cir.

1897. from.

Genesis 13:1 And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south.

Genesis 18:1 And the LORD appeared to him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day;

Genesis 24:62 And Isaac came from the way of the well Lahairoi; for he dwelled in the south country.

Kadesh.

Genesis 14:7 And they returned, and came to Enmishpat, which is Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites...

Genesis 16:1,7,14 Now Sarai Abram's wife bore him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar...

Numbers 13:26 And they went and came to Moses, and to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, to the wilderness of Paran...

Numbers 20:16 And when we cried to the LORD, he heard our voice, and sent an angel, and has brought us forth out of Egypt: and, behold...

Deuteronomy 1:19 And when we departed from Horeb, we went through all that great and terrible wilderness...

Deuteronomy 32:51 Because you trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of MeribahKadesh, in the wilderness of Zin...

1 Samuel 15:7 And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until you come to Shur, that is over against Egypt.

Psalm 29:8 The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

Gerar. Gerar was a city of Arabia Petraea, under a king of the Philistines,

25 miles from Eleutheropolis beyond Daroma, in the south of Judah. From ch.

Genesis 10:19 And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as you come to Gerar, to Gaza; as you go, to Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah...

, it appears to have been situated in the angle where the south and west sides of Canaan met, and to have been not far from Gaza. Jerome, in his Hebrew Traditions on Genesis, says, from Gerar to Jerusalem was three days' journey. There was a wood near Gerar, spoken of by Theodoret; and a brook, (ch.

Genesis 26:26 Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Ahuzzath one of his friends, and Phichol the chief captain of his army.

,) on which was a monastery, noticed by Sozomen.

Genesis 10:19 And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as you come to Gerar, to Gaza; as you go, to Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah...

Genesis 26:1,6,20,26 And there was a famine in the land, beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham...

2 Chronicles 14:13,14 And Asa and the people that were with him pursued them to Gerar: and the Ethiopians were overthrown...