Lot’s Wife & Lot’s Family – Genesis 19:26-38

Bethel Baptist Church – David Rising

Genesis 19:26-38; Luke 17; July 26, 2026 Sunday PM

Lot’s Wife & Lot’s Family

A study of the life of Lot is very sad. He is the nephew of Abraham and he does get a bit of attention in Genesis.

His dad, Abraham’s brother, Haran – probably Abraham’s youngest brother – dies while Lot is likely very young.

Abraham is observed in Genesis as one who is keeping an eye on him, almost like a stepdad. When they came out of Egypt after the famine, both Lot and Abram were working similar pastures but it became an issue. And so Abram offered Lot the choice of land, which he chose and into which he settled. This was land near Sodom.

When a coalition of eastern kings pressed upon Sodom, Lot found himself swept away by this and so Abram comes to the rescue. Since the time of Lot’s rescue, God has impressed upon Abram His promise and so we see that dramatic story unfold.

Lot is not part of this seed of promise, but Abraham has the role of being a blessing to many, and this extends to Lot. When Abraham heard that God was sending an envoy to Sodom to destroy it, Abram intercedes and asks God for mercy. God agreed to hold His fire if as little as ten righteous people are found in Sodom.

Last week as we looked at the situation in Sodom, we see a very wicked city indeed. Lot ends up hosting the two angels, but in so doing we see a Lot that has become corrupt by the world of Sodom. He offered his daughters to a mob rather than turn over to them his guests.

When the mob is not appeased by this offer, the two angels reach out and rescue Lot from a crowd that was ready to push its way into the house. The angels tell Lot to get his family together and hasten to exit the city because of the judgment that was to come.

God’s grace and mercy were extended to Lot, and he, his wife, and his two daughters, were taken by the hand out of harm’s way. After finding their way to nearby city Zoar, God rained brimstone and fire on the wicked cities and wiped them out. Safe and sound. But alas, we have Genesis 19:26 – a very sad verse:

26 But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

Tonight I want to consider this verse here and in Luke 17, as well as finish out Genesis 19 with the sad record of the family of Lot.

Pray.

1. Lot’s Wife (Genesis 19:26-29)

This description in verse 26 is very brief, but it is quite devastating. We don’t know when precisely this happened, but at some point after she turns back to look, Lot’s wife turns into a pillar of salt.

This may sound like something very strange, almost cartoon-like. But we believe it is true because the scripture tells us.

That she turned into salt seems more than coincidental to the location. Sodom is located essentially at the southern end of the Dead Sea – the Salt Sea – and Zoar is nearby there as well. You can probably see Zoar on your bible map.

Why did she look back? What was this all about?

We can only deduct from the outcome that this was a kind of “turning back” as the song “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus” indicates that we cannot or should not do once we truly follow our God.

In actuality, it is a direct act of disobedience to the command of God through the angel. In verse 17 one of the angels told them “do not look behind you.”

She did.

Could it be that her affections for life in the city of Sodom were still in her heart, and to look back was to long for what she was giving up? Was it an indication that though she was being physical saved, her heart was not toward the goodness of God?

We really know nothing of her – not even her name – other than what we find here. Some traditions include her name (Ado, Edith, Idit, Irit) but we really don’t’ know. Was she a native of Sodom?

Her tragic end becomes a key point in the NT story in Luke 17:32. You can turn there with me if you like.

In Luke 17 Jesus is describing what will come to pass in due time when the Son of Man comes again. Life will be going about as usual – people will be eating, drinking, getting married, but another story will be unfolding at the very same time.

Luke 17:28–32 (NKJV) 28 Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; 29 but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

31 “In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back. 32 Remember Lot’s wife.

As it was back then, so it will be once again. The connection between that story and Jesus’ warning is about turning back. Verse 31 makes that clear (“let him not turn back”). Escape the trouble and don’t go back and get your things. Just run. There will be an urgency to the matter, and there is no time for giving escape a second thought.

And thus the timeless preaching point of verse 32: remember Lot’s wife. She disobeyed the simple instruction of keeping eyes forward, and she lost her life as a result.

What a memory for Lot and their two daughters – to see your wife, your mom, transformed instantly from a human being to a pillar of salt.

The parallels between Genesis 19 and Luke 17 are also of course the fact of God intervening in the world through judgment. God broke into humanity with this severe judgment against a wicked city. When the Son of Man returns, it will usher in a period of judgment that will be similar, though on a global scale.

Sodom was an exceedingly wicked city and Abraham pleaded with God to spare his family. God rescues Lot and his family, but in the midst of this rescue, Lot’s wife turns and looks back and the LORD dealt with her in an instant. Luke reminds us in the words of Jesus: remember Lot’s wife.

Her fate is a warning to all who would turn back and seek to return to evil out from under the safe haven of the Lord.

And so now, back to Genesis 19….

We have not heard from Abraham since he last talked with the LORD about sparing the city. Now we hear of him again, verse 27:

27 And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord. 28 Then he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain; and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land which went up like the smoke of a furnace. 29 And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot had dwelt.

This verse puts this entire episode into context. This was simply the LORD keeping His promise to Abraham.

God remembered Abraham. God remembered Noah (Genesis 8:1) and delivered him. God rescued Lot, but he remembered Abraham. That is what this was all about. It illustrates the reason we know about it as it gives us yet another example of how God will keep His promises.

This is the tragic end of Sodom, but a testament to God’s promise of blessing to Abraham and his family.

As we finish Genesis 19 with a focus on Lot, we wish we did not have to look at these final verses. Let us observe how in a very strange way the family of Lot is extended.

2. Lot’s Family (19:30-38)

30 Then Lot went up out of Zoar and dwelt in the mountains, and his two daughters were with him; for he was afraid to dwell in Zoar. And he and his two daughters dwelt in a cave.

Now, I read this and I say to Lot: wait a minute! You were taken by the hand by God’s messengers and delivered safely outside the city and were told to escape to the mountains lest you be destroyed (19:17). And then you, Lot, pleaded with God to give you permission to go to a nearby small city – Zoar – because you feared that living in the mountains would result in being overcome by some evil that would lead to death (19:19). God granted your request, but now you go out of Zoar and live in the mountains because you are afraid to live in Zoar?

It is scenarios like this that convince me that though the Lord so often gives us what we want, it turns out to be the very thing that illustrates our stupidity. In the end, Lot ends up where he protested earlier.

The more we try to manage the Lord’s ways in our lives, the more foolish we tend to be.

Lot is a man of Sodom, shown mercy by God, and now in verse 30 we see him – wifeless – now living with his two daughters in a cave.

Notice the conversation of the two daughters:

31 Now the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man on the earth to come in to us as is the custom of all the earth. 32 Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve the lineage of our father.”

The older sister spoke with her younger sibling and came up with this crazy plan to “help” dad with his family.

Have we ever heard of this kind of thing in Genesis? Did not Abraham get an idea from Sarah that perhaps the only way to see God’s promise of a son was to have one through the handmaid? As wrong as that was, this one seems a lot crazier.

They are simply applying human logic to their situation. Dad is old. We don’t have husbands. Let’s get dad intoxicated so we can help him keep the family rolling along.

For Abraham and Sarah, having children was tied to the promise of God. But Lot was not part of that in the sense that he was the nephew of Abraham, and thus was not part of Abraham and Sarah’s family, other than through the family connection.

Some liberal commentators try to defend some of these actions here, even suggesting that what these daughters did was an honorable attempt to guarantee the survival of Lot’s family. But as another commentary said in response:

their efforts are not honorable but decadent, and Lot is no hero but a dope.[1]

We don’t have to look under some rock here to see what we see.

Notice the language of the elder daughter. She speaks about no man being available one earth to “come in to us as is the custom of all the earth”. This could simply refer to the fact that usually people have husbands or wives and they typically have children.

Or, it could refer to the customs of the world in that you do whatever it takes to have children.

I don’t have to illustrate to you that in the world in which we live, the standards of morality are much different than God’s Word presents to us. Waiting for intimacy until after marriage, upholding the sanctity and purity of marriage, recognizing the God-given gender we have and the list of all things related – these are the challenges before us as we live for the Lord. We are not to live according to the customs of the world.

Here these two daughters of Lot have such a perverted sense of pragmatism that they have this plan in mind. They obviously knew this was not normal or else they would not have had to deceive their father through the use of an intoxicating beverage. Clearly this was the plan.

And so the plan moves from idea to reality:

33 So they made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.

It happened and he was clearly unaware. I don’t have to exegete too much here as we can see plainly what happened. The oldest daughter’s plan has been done, and so she suggests that it be done again:

34 It happened on the next day that the firstborn said to the younger, “Indeed I lay with my father last night; let us make him drink wine tonight also, and you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve the lineage of our father.”

It’s for the children – was the reasoning. It’s all for the children. It’s about keeping Dad’s family going. Ok, on one level that sounds like a noble idea, but this is not how it should be done.

And so, the younger proceeds as they both were part of this again:

35 Then they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.

Same thing happened, and now both daughters have known their dad in a way that is unthinkable. Leviticus 18 was written later and clearly shows that incest was sinful before the Lord, but clearly these daughters understood that their act was one that only could be done with dad unaware. In other words, right and wrong were not invented only when the Law was written down. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were wicked long before Moses penned the Law of God.

And so how does this sordid story unfold? Verse 36:

36 Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father. 37 The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab; he is the father of the Moabites to this day. 38 And the younger, she also bore a son and called his name Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the people of Ammon to this day.

Both had children, and their children are names that we will see over and over as the Old Testament scriptures unfold.

We see here the mention of the children’s names. Names as we have come to see in Genesis are important as they send a message. Here the children have names that reflect their heritage.

Moab is a combination of a preposition “min” which means from along with the word for “father” “ab”. Thus, “from father”. Now, every child born could have that name as there had to be a father, but the mother – the firstborn daughter – named her son by dad to have the meaning “from father”.

The younger daughter called her son Ben-Ammi, which is also a combination of several words. The name Ben is the word for “son” in Hebrew. And this is combined with Ammi which means ‘my [paternal] kinsmen’ (plural) or simply the singular ‘kinsman’.

By the embedded term “father” (ʾāb) in “Moab” and “kin” (ʿām) in “Ben-Ammi,” the names of these half-brothers provide detractors a jibe [an insulting or mocking remark] at the tawdry [showy but cheap and of poor quality] roots of their descendants. Their clans perpetuated the double entendre [double meaning, one of which is usually risqué] by the patronymics [names derived from the name of the father] môʾāb, “Moabites,” and bĕnê ʿammôn, “Ammonites.”[2]

It is hard to know of course the motive for these daughters for naming them as such, but they probably had good intentions as they saw their plans come to pass. Maybe they saw this as not normal, but not as bad as a God-fearer would certainly see this.

It reminds me of the cavalier attitude that so often accompanies the wickedness of the world. They don’t see much if anything wrong with it, and these kinds of things are even celebrated openly as completely normal. And we who think otherwise are the haters. But I digress.

And so there we have it. We have the sad end of the story of Lot in that God’s abundant mercy was shown to him, and yet this is how his memory is forged in scripture.

1. What is it that we should remember about Lot’s wife? She illustrates first of all the grace and mercy of God. God, through these two angels, rescued her from the judgment of God in the impending firestorm that would soon hit. She experienced the blessing of this escape.

And yet she also illustrates the wretched grip that sin has upon our lives. We don’t know anything more about her than what we see here in Genesis 19 and Luke 17. Luke 17 highlights the nature of God’s judgment one day in that it will strike when men and women are not ready.

The lesson by extension for us is that we truly are ready for the judgment of God that is to come. Though we do not expect to be on the earth when the Lord’s judgments fall and when Jesus will set His feet upon the earth; we believe that true believers will already be with him. But the sense of urgency in being ready, of not looking back at sin, are messages that come to us from this text.

2. What are we to remember about Lot and his daughters? We see the disgusting plan and execution by Lot’s daughters in their incest. We have sons with names that are associated with people that we can find on the maps. The Ammonites were settled east of the Dead Sea, and the Moabites were south of Ammon near the Dead Sea. In other words, their families settled not too far from where Sodom and Gomorrah once were.

It is very interesting that Israel as a nation will bump into these people – more so with the Moabites – as they made their way into the land as noted beginning in Numbers 21. The Ammonites are more prominent in the Judges 10 & 11 as Israel was sold into their hands because of Israel’s sin.

One story, of course, comes to mind when we think of the Moabites – Ruth. That is a rich story that highlights the Kinsman Redeemer principle that we see perfectly shown to us by our Lord.

This chapter, like the Tamar story in Genesis 38, highlights the sordid past but illustrates God’s mercy and grace as some who come from this past see the kindness of the Lord. In other words, the past is the past. We can’t change it, but as we come to the Lord and ask for His mercy, we find it in the Lord.

And so, as we head home tonight and think about these sad stories, let them be the reminder that the Apostle Paul tells us to in Romans 5:20-21: “Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

We never glory in our sin, but we always glory in God’s grace.