Lot's daughters, fearing that, with the exception of their father and themselves, mankind has perished, feel that upon them rests the responsibility of perpetuating the race. Their father alone is available, and he is old; prompt action is therefore necessary. But since they realise that he will not feel the pressure of the situation with its responsibility so keenly as voluntarily to transgress the normal limits of morality, they make him drunk that they may secure his unconscious co-operation. The plan succeeds, and to it Moab and Ammon owe their origin. The story testifies to the kinship which the Hebrews felt to exist between themselves and these peoples, It is told without comment, but the Hebrew narrator would hardly approve. If, as is not unlikely, it is the story told by the Moabites and the Ammonites, it is told in honour of themselves and the two women. They are of the purest stock, and in a desperate emergency Lot's daughters rose to this desperate device. There is no hint of shame or desire for concealment; they themselves give their sons the transparent names, Moab, from a father, and Ben-ammi, son of my father's kinsman. There is an interesting parallel (also noticed by Bennett) in Morris-' Sigurd the Volsung, Book I, where Signy secures in disguise the birth of Sinfiotli, his father being her own brother. Since Zoar was spared it is curious that the women despaired of a non-incestuous union; the story may, therefore, have been originally independent of Genesis 19:1-28, and told of a catastrophe as universal as the Flood.
Genesis 19:30-38
30 And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters.
31 And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth:
32 Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.
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.
34 And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.
35 And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.
36 Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father.
37 And the firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day.
38 And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Benammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day.