Genesis 19:33 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Genesis 19:33
And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.
to quaff · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential imperfect, 3rd person feminine plural
father
אֲבִיהֶ֛ן'a.vi.Hen
H1
father · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine plural
drink
שָׁקָהshâqâh
H8248
to quaff
wine
יַ֖יִןYa.yin
H3196
wine (as fermented) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
night
בַּלַּ֣יְלָהba.Lay.lah
H3915
properly · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
firstborn
הַבְּכִירָה֙ha.be.khi.Rah
H1067
the eldest daughter · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
in
וַתָּבֹ֤אva.ta.Vo'
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
lay
וַתִּשְׁכַּ֣בva.tish.Kav
H7901
to lie down (for rest · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
father
אָבִ֔יהָ'a.Vi.ha
H1
father · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
perceived
יָדַ֥עya.Da'
H3045
to know (properly · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
down
בְּשִׁכְבָ֖הּbe.shikh.Vah
H7901
to lie down (for rest · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
arose
וּבְקׄוּמָֽהּu.ve.ku.Mah
H6965
to rise (in various applications · conjunction + preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Leviticus 18:6-7 None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the LORD.
Proverbs 20:1 Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
Proverbs 23:29-35 Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?
Habakkuk 2:15-16 Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their na…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 19:30–end
Here is, I. The great trouble and distress that Lot was brought into after his deliverance, Gen 19:30. 1. He was frightened out of Zoar, durst not dwell there; probably because he was conscious to himself that it was a refuge of his own choosing and that herein he had foolishly prescribed to God, and therefore he could not but distrust his safety in it; or because he found it as wicked as Sodom, and therefore concluded it could not long survive it; or perhaps he observed the rise and increase of those waters which after the conflagration, perhaps from Jordan, began to overflow the plain, and which, mixing with the ruins, by degrees made the Dead Sea; in those waters he concluded Zoar must ne…
when God destroyed the cities, &c.--This is most welcome and instructive after so painful a narrative. It shows if God is a "consuming fire" to the wicked [Deu 4:24; Heb 12:29], He is the friend of the righteous. He "remembered" the intercessions of Abraham, and what confidence should not this give us that He will remember the intercessions of a greater than Abraham in our behalf.
Next: Genesis Chapter 20
Adam Clarke on Genesis 19:33
And he perceived not when she lay down, nor when, etc. - That is, he did not perceive the time she came to his bed, nor the time she quitted it; consequently did not know who it was that had lain with him. In this transaction Lot appears to me to be in many respects excusable. 1. He had no accurate knowledge of what took place either on the first or second night, therefore he cannot be supposed to have been drawn away by his own lust, and enticed. That he must have been sensible that some person had been in his bed, it would be ridiculous to deny; but he might have judged it to have been some of his female domestics, which it is reasonable to suppose he might have brought from Zoar. 2. It is…
After these things there is now related that most notorious tale, in which it is written that his daughters by craft stole intercourse with their father. In which matter I do not know whether anyone can so excuse Lot as to make him free from sin. Nor again do I think he should be so accused that he must be made guilty of so grave an incest. For I do not find that he lay in wait or violently seized the chastity of his daughters, but rather that he suffered a snare and was circumvented by craft. Yet neither again would he have been ensnared by the girls, had he not been able to be made drunk. Whence he seems to me to be found partly blameworthy, partly excusable. For he can be excused, in that he is free from the crime of concupiscence and pleasure, and because he is neither shown to have wished it himself nor to have consented to those who wished it; but he is subject to blame, in that he could be deceived, in that he indulged too much in wine, and did this not once but a second time. For Scripture itself too seems to me in some way to make satisfaction on his behalf, when it says: "For he did not know when he slept with them and when he arose." This is not said of the daughters, who by design and craft deceive their father. He, however, was so lulled to sleep by the wine that he did not know that he had slept with the elder daughter nor with the younger. Hear what drunkenness does; hear how great a crime intemperance procures. Hear and beware, you for whom this evil is not a matter of accusation but of habit. Drunkenness deceived him whom Sodom did not deceive. He is burned by the flames of women, whom the sulphurous flame did not burn. Lot, therefore, was deceived by craft, not by will. Therefore he is a kind of middle sort between sinners and the just; seeing that he descended indeed from the kindred of Abraham, yet dwelt in Sodom. For even this, that he escapes from Sodom, as Scripture indicates, pertains more to the honor of Abraham than to the merit of Lot. For thus it says: "And it came to pass," it says, "when God was destroying the cities of Sodom, God remembered Abraham and cast Lot out of that land."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Angel — A word signifying, both in the Hebrew and Greek, a “messenger,” and hence employed to denote any agent God sends forth to execute his purposes. It is used of an ordinary messenger (Job 1:14: 1 Sam.…
Drunkenness · .Lot — .Lot
Incest · .Lot with his daughters — .Lot with his daughters
Lot · .Commits incest with his daughters — .Commits incest with his daughters
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
And they made their father drink wine that night,.... They persuaded him to drink liberally, urged him to it again, in order to make him drunk, and so complete their design; and Lot might be the more prevailed upon to drink freely, in order to remove his sorrow, and refresh his spirits under the loss of his wife, and his daughters, if he had any married in Sodom, as some suppose, and his sons-in-law, and of all his goods and substance; though this will not excuse his drinking to excess, nor can ignorance of the strength of wine be pleaded, since he must needs know it as well as his daughters, who, it is plain, did, and therefore plied him with it:
and the firstborn went in and lay with her…
And he perceived not. Though Lot not sinned knowingly, yet, because his drunkenness was the cause of his sin, his guilt is diminished, but not annulled. Without doubt the Lord has chastised his dissatisfaction in this manner. This is something rare and strange, that his senses are so under influence of the wine, that he, like a dead man pours out his lust. Therefore I assume that he not so much is fuddled through the wine, but that his excessiveness is beat by God through the spirit of ignorance. And when God has not spared the holy Patriarch, how can we then think to be unpunished, when we do the same excessiveness? Let we therefore realize through this example, that the law of modesty is p…
For on the destruction of these cities, God had thought of Abraham, and rescued Lot. This rescue is attributed to Elohim, as being the work of the Judge of the whole earth (Gen 18:25), and not to Jehovah the covenant God, because Lot was severed from His guidance and care on his separation from Abraham. The fact, however, is repeated here, for the purpose of connecting with it an event in the life of Lot of great significance to the future history of Abraham's seed.
Gen 19:30-35
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…
The poverty of the cave contrasts with the wealth Lot shared with Abram and the good life he lived in Sodom. Abraham would father a righteous nation (17:1), but Lot and his daughters gave birth to a new Sodom.
19:30-35 The character of Lot’s daughters was formed by Sodom’s culture more than by their father’s heritage, so they had no qualms about having children by their drunk father (cp. 9:21-22). They saw no other way to carry on their line.
Rashi on Genesis 19:5
ונדעה אותם AND WE SHALL KNOW THEM — with homosexuality, as in "who have not known a man" (Genesis Rabbah 50:5).
