Lot

The Righteous Lot was the nephew of the patriarch Abraham, the son of Haran, Abraham's brother. His story is found in the book of Genesis, chapters 11 to 14 and 19. The Holy Apostle Peter calls him righteous, distressed by the lawless conduct of the people of Sodom, and says God delivered him from the destruction of the city. The Orthodox Church commemorates him on 9 October (old style), together with Abraham, and on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers of the Lord according to the flesh.

With Abraham

Lot's father died in Ur of the Chaldeans, and his grandfather Terah took Abram, Sarai and Lot to go to Canaan, but they stopped at Haran, where Terah died. When the Lord told Abram to leave his country, Lot followed him into Canaan, then because of famine into Egypt, and back again. He too had acquired flocks, herds and tents, and the land no longer sufficed for both, so that their herdsmen quarrelled. To avoid strife between them, Abraham let Lot choose. Lot chose the richest plain, that of the Jordan, and came to live near Sodom, where the people were sinners. The Greek synaxarion says that this choice was a sign of covetousness.

When King Chedorlaomer and his allies defeated the cities of the plain, Lot was taken captive with his goods. Abraham set out with three hundred and eighteen of his men, caught up with them and freed Lot with all his people.

The destruction of Sodom

The Lord told Abraham at the oak of Mamre that Sodom would perish, and Abraham pleaded for the righteous man who lived there. Two angels came to Sodom in the guise of travellers in the evening, when Lot sat at the gate of the city. He received them into his house and prepared a meal. The men of the city gathered around the house, demanding that the guests be given up. The angels struck them with blindness and told Lot to bring out all his own from the city. His sons-⁠in-⁠law did not believe him, thinking he was joking. Lot lingered in the morning, and the angels led him out by force, with his wife and his two daughters, telling them to flee without looking back.

Lot asked to escape to the small town of Zoar, and the angel agreed. His wife looked back and became a pillar of salt. Fire and brimstone rained from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah and on all the plain. Afraid to stay in Zoar, Lot went up into the hills with his daughters and lived in a cave.

His daughters and descendants

His daughters, thinking there was no one left on earth, made him drunk and conceived by him. The elder bore Moab, the father of the Moabites, the younger Ben-⁠Ammi, the father of the Ammonites. Lot is therefore counted the ancestor of these two peoples. Scripture says nothing of the end of his life.

In the word of the Church

The Saviour mentions the days of Lot and his wife in the Gospel, to show how swiftly the day of the Son of Man comes and how dangerous it is to cling to the things of the world. The Apostle Peter calls him righteous and shows that the Lord knows how to deliver the godly from trials. Saints Ambrose and John Chrysostom held that, in receiving the guests, he put the duty of hospitality above all else. From the people of Moab came Ruth, great-⁠grandmother of David, so that from this root too a strand of the Lord's ancestors according to the flesh arose through David.