The Remnant
In all Soaps some episodes defy understanding and rationality. This may be one.
What Lot offers his visitors is the basic hospitality in his culture (vv. 1-3). Abraham did as much the day before (18: 1-8). We may be horrified by Lot’s offer of his two daughters but in all stories (soaps especially) we have to judge people by their own societies and where they have come from rather than our own. In this culture hospitality overrides all other considerations. We are on firmer ground if we stick to the point that any society, when confronted by unwelcome visitors intent on destruction, whoever they are and wherever they are from, knows there is usually a price to be paid by someone.
The fact that all the men are specifically said to have been involved (v. 4) may be a warning to beware of ‘macho-man’ and leave some readers wondering whether after all this time anything has changed. Others may prefer to reflect on the idea that since the whole is more than the sum of the parts so also the power of any collective (race, mob or nation state) may lead people to behave in a way which as individuals they would never contemplate.
We have no idea what actually brought about the destruction and no historical basis can be found for the story. If you see it as an earthquake (as has been suggested) that could turn your attention to a theological interpretation of a natural disaster.
If we focus on Abraham it is not difficult to see how subsequent generations warmed to the story. It enhanced their ‘father figure’, developed the story, eliminated what did not fit and so ensure their own place as God’s people from the very beginning and at every stage on the journey. His preservation also has within it the seeds of ‘a remnant’, a concept of the faithful which the Jews found helpful many years later when it seemed as if the world was collapsing around them.
For Lot and his family it suggests the importance of knowing when to move on and when not to look back.
