The Scripture Study Podcast
The Scripture Study is a space for anyone who loves the Word and wants more—more understanding, more clarity, more depth. This podcast is for aspiring scriptorians, passionate learners, and those seeking to strengthen their scripture study habits. Together, we explore the text deeply, unpack meaning, and develop the tools needed to study scripture with intention and insight. Come curious, come hungry, and come ready to grow.
The Scripture Study Podcast
The Spiritual Crisis of Lot: Choices, Consequences, and Covenant
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In this episode of the Scripture Study Podcast, hosts Susan Petersen and Cindy Madsen explore the story of Lot (Genesis 12–19), contrasting his cautionary tale with Abraham’s redemption narrative. They discuss literary techniques like chiasmus and parallelism, highlighting how biblical stories reveal character through actions. The hosts examine Lot’s moral compromises, his estrangement from God, and the symbolism of his choices, while emphasizing Abraham’s faithfulness. Through thoughtful analysis, Susan and Cindy invite listeners to reflect on personal spiritual journeys and the enduring relevance of these ancient narratives.
00:00 Introduction
05:46 Lot’s Character and Role
10:14 Biblical Literary Devices
14:26 Repetition, Parallelism, and Chiasmus
21:42 Cultural and Narrative Context
24:10 Lot as Abraham’s Heir
28:17 Shift in Lot’s Status
33:27 Intertextuality: Lot/Abraham and Jacob/Esau
36:12 Abraham’s Offer and Lot’s Choice
38:43 Symbolism of Egypt and Canaan
45:35 Lot’s Downward Trajectory
49:35 Lot Moves into Sodom
51:39 Abraham Rescues Lot
58:38 Abraham as Redeemer
01:04:48 Conclusion
Resources
Robert Alter Edition of the Old Testament
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Robert+Alter+Old+Testament
Book of Abraham
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Abraham
Book of Jubilees
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Jubilees
Josephus' Antiquities
https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Josephus%2C+Ant.+1
LDS Theology
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study
Rabbi Raymond Harari's Article
https://www.raymondharari.com/articles
Intertextuality in the Bible
https://intertextual.bible
Cantillation Marks
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/trope-cantillation/
Books
The Characterization of Lot in Genesis by Sharon Pace Jensen
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The+Characterization+of+Lot+in+Genesis
Cautionary Tales by Hilaire Belloc
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Cautionary+Tales+Hilaire+Belloc
The Pearl of Great Price
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/pgp
Relational Faith by Brent J. Schmidt
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Relational+Faith+Brent+J+Schmidt
Relational Grace by Brent J. Schmidt
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Relational+Grace+Brent+J+Schmidt
Scholars Mentioned
Jeffrey Bradshaw
https://interpreterfoundation.org/author/jbradshaw/
Brent J. Schmidt
https://rsc.byu.edu/authors/schmidt-brent-j
John Guy
https://www.johnguy.com
Concepts and Theological Points
New Pauline Perspective
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Perspective_on_Paul
Join Us
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Welcome to the Scripture Study Podcast.
SPEAKER_02I am Susan Peterson and I'm Cindy Madsen. We're so glad you're here with us. The Scripture Study Podcast is designed to be your midweek Bible boost. Let's dig in.
SPEAKER_01Welcome back to the Scripture Study Podcast. I'm your host, Susan Peterson. And I am Cindy Mattson. Hello, Susan. Hi, how are you?
SPEAKER_02Great.
SPEAKER_01We are studying the Bible this year and next. And today we are going to be studying the story of Lot, starting in Genesis 12 and going through Genesis 19. But if you notice, we will skip around and see where we end up. So take it away, Cindy. Alrighty.
SPEAKER_02Well, there is no place on God's beautiful green earth where you do not find folk tales. These are stories that have existed in the oral tradition forever. And these folktales come in different forms that are structured in specific ways. So forms like myth or fairy tale or a cautionary tale. But all of them will carry some sort of a transcendent truth. So if a folk tale does not have a happy ending, there's a not so happy ending, it's called a cautionary tale. And these stories are saying, don't do this or don't be like this because bad things will happen to you. A fairy tale is actually a redemption story. It's the one that ends with happily ever after. Someone usually has redeemed or rescued someone else, right? But they all teach us that despite our best efforts, humans need a redeemer. So a cautionary tale tells you, though, that there is always a snake that is waiting to beguile you. He's willing to beguile you too, right? So that is the cautionary tale. So I want to start out our episode because the story of Lot is a cautionary tale. Yes. Yes, it is set, it is juxtaposed, set next to Abraham, which is a fairy tale, right?
SPEAKER_01And last week did we talk about him receiving like Abraham receiving the angels and stuff? Not yet, not yet.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's we'll do that next time. Okay, perfect. Right. Abraham has the happy ending, right? Yeah. He has the redeemer.
SPEAKER_01Well, and anytime scripture gives you what do you call it? Juxtaposition, right? You guys couldn't say that word. Yeah. There's a really big lesson in there to learn. Right? You get one fairy tale, one caution. Right. Right. We've got these two sitting right next to each other.
SPEAKER_02And as the reader, we're expected to be smart enough to look at this and see what's going on. Okay, love. All right. So there is an author. His name is Hilaire Belloc. And he writes just these funny poems that are often cautionary tales. And one of my favorite ones is called Jim, who ran away from his nurse and was eaten by a lion. Okay. There was a boy whose name was Jim. His friends were very good to him, and they gave him tea and cakes and jam and slices of delicious ham and chocolate with pink inside and little tricycles to ride, and read him stories through and through, and even took him to the zoo. But there it was, a dreadful fate befell him, which I now relate. At least you ought to know, for I've often told you so, that children never are allowed to leave their nurses in a crowd. Now this was Jim's especial foible. He ran away when he was able. And on this inauspicious day, he slipped his hand and ran away. He hadn't gone a yard when, bang, with open jaws a lion sprang and hungrily began to eat the boy, beginning at his feet. Now just imagine how it feels. When first your toes and then your heels, and then by gradual degrees, your shins and ankles, calves, and knees are slowly eaten bit by bit. No wonder Jim detested it. No wonder that he shouted Hi. The honest keeper heard his cry. Though very fat, he almost ran to help the little gentleman. Ponto, he ordered as he came, for Ponto was the lion's name. Ponto, he cried with angry frown. Let go, sir, down, sir, put it down. The lion made a sudden stop. He let the dainty morsel drop, and slunk reluctant to his cage, snarling with disappointed rage. But when he bent over Jim, the honest keeper's eyes were dim. The lion, having reached his head, the miserable boy was dead. When Nurse informed his parents, they were more concerned than I can say. His mother, as she dried her eyes, said, Well, it gives me no surprise he would not do as he was told. His father, who was self-controlled, bade all the children round attend to James's miserable end and always keep a hold of nurse for fear of finding something worse. That is a cautionary tale. It's a funny cautionary tale.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it reminds me of the boy who cried wolf, right?
SPEAKER_02It is the boy who cried wolf is a great example of a cautionary tale. So Lot, the story of Lot is a cautionary tale. And actually, you would pronounce it Lot in the Hebrew, but Oh, Lot. Lot. Yeah, but we're gonna pronounce it Lot. Okay. He's a very interesting, complex character full of a lot of contrasts. So we're gonna just jump in now then and look at this. The story of Lot illustrates key themes like faith versus self-interest, obedience to God's promises, the consequences of moral compromise, hospitality, family ties, and divine judgment on wickedness alongside divine mercy tied to the covenant. Lot's role is not a central role like Abraham's, but it is structurally important for advancing the plot, for providing contrasts and offering what are called etiological explanations. Ediological meaning the origins. So the origins of Moab and Ammon. And we will talk about that when we hit Genesis 19. Peter Lightheart notes Lot's surprisingly large role, positioning him as a literary foil or a contrast figure to Abraham, similar to other patriarchal pairs like Isaac and Ishmael or Jacob and Esau. His presence allows the exploration of family dynamics, the pull of worldly prosperity, and how God works through flawed relatives. In an article that I read by Sharon Pace Jeanson, the titled article, the characterization of Lot in Genesis, she observes that Lot becomes progressively estranged from God and the promised land through his choices. In deliberate contrast to Abraham's trajectory, she notes that Lot shows some hospitality and is called righteous in 2 Peter 2, 7 through 8. But the Hebrew text leaves this character ambiguous or flawed overall without explicit endorsement. I want to emphasize what she says that he becomes progressively estranged from God and the promised blessings. And we're going to watch that. That's we're going to watch. There's this character arc that we're going to see in this cautionary tale where he's going to go, he'll start up fairly high, and then he's going to drop by the end of the story.
SPEAKER_01Do you want to know something super interesting? Yes. The elevation difference between where Abraham lives and where Lot lives. Lot is below sea level. Sodom was below sea level, about 700 feet. That is really interesting. Abraham was above by 3,000 feet.
SPEAKER_02That is fascinating. And well, I didn't know the exact levels, but yeah, that is very deliberate, right? Very deliberate.
SPEAKER_01Well, and the people who live who read the Bible in Hebrew would know that. They would know it. Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_02Right. So most of the biblical scholarship that I read sees Lot as a complex, mostly cautionary figure whose flaws and misfortunes accentuate Abraham's exemplary faith, the reliability of God's promises, and the covenant ripple effects, even extending mercy to imperfect kin. And that's something we're going to see in the story of Lot. It's God's extension of mercy. We're going to see that in the story of Hagar and Abraham. And we'll see that in Sodom, where God is trying to extend mercy. So God always extends the maximum amount of mercy. When we first encounter Lot in the biblical story, it seems like he's going to be a fairly minor biblical personality. But if you look closely at the text, you will notice that there is a subtle commentary on Lot and his personality. You're going to see that there is the biblical text is exercising judgment on Lot by what it says and what it doesn't say. Nahaima Leibowitz writes: changes in emphasis, approval and disapproval and shades of meaning are not imparted in the Torah through long-winded psychological explanations or verbose analysis, but through a subtle syntactical device or a seemingly insignificant but definitely unusual turn of phrase, combination, order, or choice of words. And so the biblical text does not spell things out like we are used to in our literature. That's not how the ancient Hebrew authors worked. But they use known literary devices in a highly sophisticated way. For example, we rarely hear about what people look like in the Bible. But whenever you do, take note because it is crucially important. Sarah, for example, she's described as Yafe. And this adjective appears about 43 times, and it ranges from literal descriptions of physical attractiveness to figurative portrayals of moral excellence and national splendor and divine glory. So Joseph is also well built and Yafe, handsome. David is introduced as having beautiful eyes and a handsome Yafe appearance. Esther is lovely in form and Yafe beautiful. So often their physical description often will match their moral character. Biblical names are rarely incidental. They usually will symbolize the role of that character in a story. So take note of the biblical name. Abraham means father of the multitude. Ruth means refreshment. Saul means the one asked for. You get what you're you ask for. He is the king, the people asked for, right? Yes, yes. He's tall and he's handsome. And the text is very specific about that. It talks a lot about his height. Then you have Samuel being told when he's looking for the next prophet. He says, Well, this time God's telling him, don't look on the outward appearance. I don't do that. I look on the inward appearance. That was the mistake that people made with Saul. Biblical stories rarely tell us people's thoughts or emotions. They don't give a moral commentary. They allow the characters' words and actions to reveal their motive. And then they leave us to judge their behavior by seeing the consequences of their actions. So if we want to understand what is going on, we have to ponder the stories and we have to look really deeply at these complex characters. And it's a wonderful way for us to learn to give grace because we recognize that these stories are thousands of years old and they have a culture that is not a post-Enlightenment culture that is like our culture.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's very, very different. It also allows for the story to teach you a different lesson depending on what phase of your life you're in. Right? Yeah, it's beautiful.
SPEAKER_02It is. I mean, if you've spelled it out directly and said, here's the one-to-one correlation, you could read it once and just kind of be done with the text, but it doesn't.
SPEAKER_01It also says more about God than you. God will be ambiguous for you to learn. It's like your patriarchal blessing, right? There are layers upon layers of meaning. Yeah. And it speaks to you in different ways at different times. Well, and if you get to know your patriarchal blessing, you will be able to hear the spirit more. I love that idea. Because those phrases in there, they're unique. Some of them feel familiar, but they're very unique. Oh, that's great. And they'll come to you in times of trials and in times when you need some comfort. Yeah, I mean, more lessons.
SPEAKER_02Shout out for memorizing scripture too. That's something I'm terrible at. My husband is really good at it. Yeah. And so these things just will pop into his mind at different times.
SPEAKER_01And so I keep trying to be better at that. Well, or some people are good at memorizing like really nice songs. And a lot of scripture was a song before. And those will pop into your head. And so whatever works for you. Yeah. And that's what I love about the scripture too. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's these layers of meaning. Yes, yes. So yeah, biblical authors, another thing they'll use that you want to notice is repetition, right? There's going to be a recurrence of words or phrases or themes. And this will create an emphasis or a cohesion. It can create an emotional impact. But this isn't an English writing style. So a lot of times we don't notice when the author is using repetition. It's one of the reasons I've really liked reading the Robert Alter edition of the Old Testament, because he really tries hard in the English to kind of keep this Hebrew syntax going. But this idea of repetition. So kind of look for that as you're reading through the Bible this year. They'll also use parallelism, which it's more common in poetry, but it's also used to structure thought by pairing, contrasting, or completing ideas. A lot of these were oral and would be memorized to recite. And so the parallelism can make it a lot easier to recite. The biblical authors will use chiasmus, which is an inverted parallelism. So this is a structure where ideas are presented in order like A, B, C, and then they'll be repeated in the reverse order, C, B, A. The focus then is the hinge point, the central point. And we'll talk about that in this, in what we're talking about today. One of the literary devices used in biblical narrative is slowly adding details to reveal character. Biblical narrative typically favors showing character through actions and dialogue rather than telling traits directly. And this, again, really unlike our modern literature, which often provides, I would say, very exhaustive descriptions. And I'm going to show my snobbiness here, but literature that's not very well written. You know, you'll read it and it's like she was carrying a Chanel bag, or anyway, they do not do that in Hebrew literature. It's that's just not the way that they do things. It provides very minimal details, but they're very intentional. And these details should be a clue to a character's nature, a character's role, their future. It keeps these characters a little bit mysterious, again, to encourage deep reading. So instead of telling readers that a character is good or evil, usually the author will show them making decisions that are maybe not great decisions and then experiencing the consequences.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I think about the prodigal son parable and how in different times of my life I've been all of the characters in there, including the swine. And both of them are flawed, all of them are flawed in their own way. And I think that it's also a way for you to insert yourself into the story. Sometimes I'm the prodigal son, sometimes I'm the son who stayed, sometimes I'm the father, sometimes, you know. So it's just, I think it also allows for more personal interpretation, which I love.
SPEAKER_02I do too. And I think like that's another story where sometimes we're so used to reading it in one way that we maybe interpret it in a way that Jesus didn't necessarily mean. Yeah. And I think that that's a really important thing to keep in mind. So, for example, I was asked to give a talk at woman's conference, and it was talking about loving those maybe who have stepped away from the covenant path. But I use that story of the parable of the lost son because it's interesting. There are three parables presented about things that are lost, the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son. And we move from a hundred sheep, ten coins, and then down to this one son. So often, I think because in the parable of the prodigal son, there is a father, we automatically equate the father with God the Father or Jesus Christ. But we never equate the woman who's lost the coin, you know, with God the Father or Jesus Christ. So I think maybe that's an important thing for us to notice. That may not be exactly what Jesus is talking about in that. And we always will try to say, well, the oldest son, you know, he shouldn't have wanted the party. But maybe the parable is saying, well, maybe the father should have noticed the oldest son. Maybe he should have given the son who was faithful a party. Maybe that son did have a legitimate grievance. Yeah. And so I think, and then it just ends. And then it just ends. So Jesus never comments on it. The only thing that he's saying is that heaven will be really happy when a lost soul is recovered. But Jesus doesn't ever say that the oldest son was wrong in his behavior. No. And he doesn't ever say that the father was right in not having given the oldest son a party, and that the father was right for having throwing this really lavish party to this son. Yeah. You know, that's our interpretation of it. And so I think that that's really important to keep in mind. And when you're reading this story, maybe to remember those 90 and nine sheep, maybe we need to also remember the oldest son. And yeah, remember to throw a party for the ones who do stay. And I think that's just as important of a lesson for us to learn. You know, it's not like that woman with the nine coins that she had and the was not rejoicing over those nine coins.
SPEAKER_01Well, in Hebrew ancient marriage customs, we're way off topic, but we'll get back to the case. I was just thinking, but we'll be fine. But listen, so those 10 coins were probably an indication of her betrothal. Oh. And so it would be like losing your like your engagement ring. Okay. So of course you're going to sweep the house and look for it everywhere. But then it's also an equation of like our worth to God, which is the sheep were their livelihood. Right. The coin was a was an indication of her covenant that she was going to make or had made or promises. And so you take it as a whole. Yep.
SPEAKER_02There's a lot in there. And so just yeah, always remembering that Jesus hasn't commented on that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02He hasn't given an interpretation.
SPEAKER_01But there's a layer because it's not just and so there's lots of layers. It is. Yeah. They would sew it into their veil at the front. You've seen it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so it was one of her betrothal indications. Yeah. That she lost. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, there we go. So anyway, good things to think about. Just remember, yeah, that sometimes there is, for whatever reason, there is a specific narrative that we're given and that we've inherited from past commentators that maybe we might want to sometimes question. And we'll actually talk more about that in the next podcast when we talk about Hagar and how we inherited, have inherited maybe some ideas that aren't necessarily what the author meant. Okay, we're going to go back. Yeah, we're getting back to Lot and Hebrew narrative. So Hebrew narrative then uses delayed information. It doesn't give us like a data dump of information about a character. It's trickled out. And sometimes it's through their interaction with other minor characters. And so the Abraham Lot. Story is a really great example of these Hebrew narrative techniques. And that's why I wanted to just kind of talk about what those techniques were. So in the book of Abraham, in the Pearl of Great Price, we're told that Abraham's father Terah had embraced the religion of Ur that was found in Ur of the Chaldees, and he worshipped idols. The Lord caused a famine in the land, and that results in the death of Tara's son Haran, who was the father of Lot. And the Lord tells Abraham to leave Ur. And Abraham does. And it says that he took Lot, his brother's son, and his wife, and Sarah, Abraham's wife. And Tara also leaves Ur and they move to Haran, a place which has many flocks. And just so you know, the word Haran for the town is different in Hebrew from the word Haran, the son. And the Lord appeared unto me and said, Arise and take Lot with thee, for I have purpose to take thee away out of Haran, and to make thee a minister to bear my name in a strange land, which I will give unto thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession. When they hearken unto my voice, I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee above measure, and make thy name great among all nations, and thou shalt be a blessing unto thy seed after thee, that in their hands they shall bear this ministry and priesthood unto all nations. So the fact that in the Bible Abraham takes Lot with him, and in the book of Abraham, God tells Abraham to take Lot with him has led many scholars to conclude that at this point Lot is Abraham's presumptive heir. So if you notice, in the verses that I just read to you, all it says is, I will make of thee a great nation. It doesn't say how. Modern scholarship will often frame this in terms of narrative theology, which is the Genesis stories highlight faith in God's promise despite childlessness, using figures like Lot to show that inheritance is not through natural family lines or human arrangements, but through divine election. Ultimately, Isaac. And so this idea that you'll get, I probably haven't said that very well, but from a lot of the modern biblical interpretations, you're going to see it in lots of commentaries that somehow Abraham failed by not trusting that God was going to miraculously give him an heir. But I completely break with this idea. And I would say LDS theology completely breaks from this idea from our Protestant friends. I would say that the Lord would have been fine with the covenant continuing through an adopted son. And that I think in our patriarchal blessings, we can see that. Like we believe in this idea of being adopted into the covenant. I think that if Lot had remained faithful to Jehovah, there is no reason why he couldn't have been the means of fulfilling the covenant promise. We do not believe in divine election, right? We believe that the elect of God are those who, using their own free will, choose to follow God. And at this point in the story, it seems as if Lot is fully aligned with Abraham in being a follower of Yahweh, a follower of Jehovah. Both Abraham and Lot, it says in the book of Abraham, pray to the Lord. And the Lord commands Abraham to take Lot with him. The Lord tells Abraham, right after that, he will make of him a great nation. So if you're looking at this from Abraham's perspective, with none of the other story that we have in the Bible, all Abraham is hearing is take Lot with you. He's this orphaned son of your brother.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02This is a common thing that you would do in a Middle Eastern culture, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Take him with you, go, and I'm going to make a great nation. There's no indication in the Hebrew text that this is not necessarily a good choice. In an article written by Rabbi Raymond Harari, he points out that Lot is introduced to us in the first book of the Bible at the end of chapter 11, without any indication of his standing relative to his uncle Abraham. Rabbi Harari says Tarah took his son Abraham, his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of Abram. So Abraham is the elder of the two, the birthright son, he's mentioned first. But both have standing simply as Tarah's progeny. There's nothing in the story at this point that differentiates Abraham and Lot in the biblical story, I should say. So now we've got this slight shift that's going to occur. Okay. Because in chapter 12, the spotlight then is going to shift from Abraham and Lot being parallel to Abraham. God speaks to Abraham, he commands him and he blesses him. And the scripture says, then Abram went forth as the Lord commanded him, and Lot went with him. So Abraham has emerged as the man God speaks to. Okay. And Lot at this point is listed right after him. Okay. In Abraham 2, verse 14, it says, So I, Abraham, departed as the Lord had said unto me, and Lot with me. And I took Sarah, Surai, whom I took to wife when I was in Ur in Chaldea, and Lot my brother's son, and all our substance that we had gathered, and the souls that we had won in Haran, and came forth in the way of the land of Canaan, and dwelt in tents as we came on our way. However, by the time Abraham and his household return from Egypt after the famine that there's been, there's a famine, they go down to Egypt. We're going to notice in the Bible that Lot has been reduced to a position inferior to Abraham's possessions, right? We've got an Abraham went up from Egypt to the Negev, he and his wife, with all their possessions, together with Lot. So something's happened in Egypt, or maybe we can say Egypt has happened to Lot. Because up until now we have had very subtle indications of Lot's character. But after this trip to Egypt, Lot's personality really begins to emerge in the text. And so if we look at the way that the text is listing the order of Lot, we have Lot parallel, then God speaks, and we've got Abraham and then Lot. Then we go down to Egypt, and when we go down to Egypt, we've got Abraham, Sarah, and Lot. We come back from Egypt, we've got Abraham, Sarah possessions, and Lot. Lot is behind the possessions. So this is, we kind of are seeing this progression. This is very subtle. We would not necessarily notice that as modern Western readers, but ancient biblical readers would have noticed that. These are the kinds of clues that the Bible is giving that something's going on in Lot's personality. Because you would link people before possessions if they were in a hierarchical. Yeah, moving down the hierarchical. Got it. I'm putting that in. Air quotes that you can't see. Yes. Yes. So in chapter 13 of Genesis verses 5 and 6, it says Lot, who went with Abraham, also had flocks and herds and tents. And it tells us then the land, we're talking about Canaan, where he's in there back in Canaan, the land could not support them staying together. The Hebrew is La Shabbat Yah Dah, for their possessions were so great they could not stay together. It is stressing that this is an important point. It's kind of like a neon flashing lights. Notice this, they cannot stay together. So it said originally, Lot, who went with Abraham, it's really a superfluous phrase, right? We know that Lot's traveling with Abraham. But when the text echoes the word, Abraham went forth, and Lot went with him. The narrative is stressed. That was in chapter 12, verse 4. The narrative stresses that Lot was accompanying Abraham. He's part of the clan. Unfortunately, in 13.5, they cannot stay together. There's a problem. You know, we've gone from Abraham accompanying the clan. He went with him. Abraham and Lot cannot stay together. Lot's with him. Now I want to know what happened in Egypt.
SPEAKER_01I know. And it doesn't tell us. It doesn't tell us. But you're going to assume there was a difference of something.
SPEAKER_02Something happened. Like I said, it sounds like Egypt got into him. So on its face, Lot's decision to separate is motivated by economic rather than ideological considerations. And at this point in the text, we don't have a clear understanding of Lot. But now we're going to start seeing Lot emerging as this very complex character. Characters in the Bible are rarely just good or bad. They're very complex, they're flawed. One could say they are human, right? Yeah, except for Jesus. Except for Jesus, right. Yes. In Genesis chapter 36, we have the story about Jacob and Esau, and the same situation is going to be repeated. So this is a good example of what is called intertextuality in the Bible. Intertextuality is where biblical authors intentionally, sometimes unconsciously, will connect their writing to earlier texts through direct citations, allusions, and echoes. It treats scripture as a connected web-like or a mosaic of texts where meaning is generated through the dialogue between these different passages and the context. It's kind of like a hyperlink, it's hyperlinking you to different places.
SPEAKER_01Pay attention here. And it should remind you of another scripture or another story in the Bible. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02So in Genesis 36, 6, it says Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, all the people in his household, his livestock, his animals, and all his possessions which he had acquired in the land of Canaan, and went to a land some distance away from Jacob, his brother, because they had too many possessions to be able to stay together. And the land where they had settled was not able to support them because of their livestock. So because the language of these two narrative texts is so similar, strikingly similar, in fact, we can see that the author is deliberately linking the Esau and Jacob story to the Lot and Abraham story. There's a parallelism between Abraham and Lot on the one hand and Jacob and Esau on the other. The narrative is pointing out that just as there were ideological, not just economic considerations in the Jacob and Esau story, there are also ideological rather than economic considerations in the struggle between Abraham and Lot. And this is the Bible's way of affirming that Abraham and Lot have different levels of commitment to the Lord, just like Jacob and Esau did. And this is reinforced by the fact that the verses stress twice that Abraham and Lot could not remain together. From this point on, their differences in character will start to surface more clearly. Now, one thing I want to be clear on is we can note this parallelism in Genesis because we are talking about one scroll, which it's the same type of literary genre. When we get to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, I'm going to talk more about how people sometimes will misinterpret or put ideas on the Genesis story because of Ezekiel, which is a different genre. And so we're going to talk more about that. Yes. So Abraham takes the initiative in trying to solve the problem. We cannot all live in the land. Our herdsmen are fighting with each other. And this is what he says is not the whole land before you. Please separate from me. If you go left, I will go right. If you go right, I will go left. This doesn't always, for us, we maybe pass quickly over this, but our ancient biblical readers or hearers of this story would not have. In our world, direction is aligned to the magnetic compass pointing north. So it seems to us like Abraham is offering Lot the option of going east or west. But Abraham lived in a culture that was directionally oriented to the east, where the rising sun is, right? So that means that right is south and left is north. Okay. It seems like what Abraham is assuming is that Lot will want to stay in the mountain range of Canaan, the promised land. And that runs north and south. Okay. And that geographic preference reflects a theological commitment to the Lord, right? Who has given Abraham the land of Canaan as his covenantal promised land? And it's a mountain land, up high, elevated. Well, Lot doesn't do that. He doesn't select the options that Abraham has offered. He doesn't want the northern pasturage area. He doesn't want the southern pastures. He wants the well-watered plain of the Jordan River, the cities of the plain, which is outside the promised land altogether. So at this point, the author is signaling to us there is a real problem here. And there is a problem that is originating in Lot's spiritual center. Lot is going to leave the mountains of Canaan and he's going to go down to the well-watered plains. And Lot says this, that we're like the garden of the Lord, it says, and the land of Egypt. Right? There's a little problem here. The text is very subtly saying to us Lot has a problem with discernment. He's equating the well-watered plains of the cities, where the cities are, with both the Garden of Eden and with Egypt. LDS scholar Kerry Muhlstein, he explains that Egypt in the Bible plays a dual role. It is both a place of protection and refuge and also a place of wickedness and oppression. Abraham went to Egypt partially because of its agricultural stability when things were difficult in Canaan. Often when there was a famine, the people went to Egypt. The same thing occurred in Joseph's day. He was sold into Egypt. But when his brothers experienced famine, they went to Egypt. So the reason is because Egypt had the regular flooding of the Nile Delta. So it had a stable way of raising crops that was very predictable. You didn't have that in the mountain ranges of Canaan, which were much more dependent upon the rainwater that would fill the wadis. And it's a lot like us right now. We're in Utah right now recording this, and we are in the middle of what's called a snow drought, although we got a little snow last night, which is really nice. But anyway, so Joseph gets sold into Egypt, right? But his brothers experience famine and they go to Egypt. When Jeroboam needed political refuge from Solomon, he fled to Egypt. Jeremiah, though, was an unwilling refugee in Egypt. When Israel and Judah were being destroyed, groups fled to Egypt for refuge. And so it was a safe haven, but it was also a place where Israel was oppressed. And so that's why you have to. Who else fled to Egypt? Jeremiah. Jeremiah did. Yeah. Well, Jesus. And Jesus. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Out of Egypt, I've called my son. That is exactly right. Yes. And so the fact that it happened so many times needs to tell us something. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02It's this great symbol of bondage in biblical literature. Yeah. In prophetic literature, Egypt symbolizes the powers of the world that will ultimately fail us. So I mean it's got this dual nature, but it can provide the safe haven that Joseph and his brothers went to with the famine. But it also more often is this place of bondage, also and the powers of the world. So the crisis that we're experiencing with Abraham and Lot is not about the land then. This crisis is coming to a head because we're thinking about Abraham's inheritance. In the story so far, all Abraham knows is that his descendants will possess the land of Canaan. And the fact that he offers part of the land to Lot suggests that Abraham is viewing Lot as his descendant. Well, when Lot takes up residence outside of Canaan, Abraham is probably thinking, okay, I'm back to my initial situation. I am once more childless. Sarah is barren. Right. So Lot then ignores, it seems, God's rejects or rejects God's covenantal commands. He moves out of the promised land. This is probably a signal of his abandonment of the possibility of possessing Canaan, the land that God has given to Abraham. And at this point, Abraham, it looks like, is left without an apparent heir. For Abraham, this crisis was not so much about geography, it's about Lot's lack of interest in possessing the promised land. In leaving Canaan, Lot starts to reveal that he's probably not going to qualify to be Abraham's heir. He's not going to fulfill that promise. Well, Lot settles among the cities in the Jordan Plain and he pitches his tent next to Sodom. And the very next verse, the author tells us the people of Sodom were evil and sinning against God exceedingly so. Okay, this is rare in Hebrew. This is a direct characterization of people as evil. All right. Again, we should notice this. I want to point out here also an interesting bit of Hebrew grammar. So many centuries ago, centuries after the original composition of the Hebrew Bible, small dots and lines were added to the letters to help the reader in pronunciation. And these marks are useful because they provide a traditional Jewish text with interpretation. Okay. The people who did this were called the Masoretes. They're the ones who developed the markings. And this tells us how they read different passages in cases where the letters alone were not definitive in their intention. Generally, you'll have three letters and these letters are all consonants.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02Okay. And so depending upon how you pronounce the letter, it will mean a different thing. So for example, if you had the two consonants, s and in, if the vowel was an I, it would be sin. If the vowel was a U, it would be son. Yeah. So you can see if the vowel was an O, it would be S-O-N Sun, like the filial your son. And so you can see here, like that makes a big difference in how you are to read a sentence. So they invented these marks, which are dots and dashes generally, to tell people how to pronounce the words. And that gives you an idea of how they were interpreting the context. So So, one type of these marks, they're called cantillation marks, and they indicate the breakdown of sentences, which is similar to punctuation marks in English. So one of these marks, which is called an atnach, marks the end of a clause near the middle of a verse, like a semicolon. And the reason I'm explaining this is because there's an atnach placed below the fourth Hebrew word of verse 13. Harari says that this allows for the reading, and the people of Sodom were evil and sinning, semicolon. For God, it was exceedingly so. In other words, for God, who is very long-suffering toward evil, giving people ample time to repent. Even for our long-suffering God, the sins of Sodom were excessive. But for Lot, who was unable to discern between Eden and Egypt, he focused only on the possibility of prosperity. And so for Lot, those sins were tolerable. And what does he do? He goes and he pitches his tents next to Sodom. This brief observation, many commentators will note, suggests that Lot has made a very bad choice. And the consequences will become manifest in chapter 19. And this is interesting because we're seeing Lot in this progressive downhill trajectory all along the way. The scriptures are subtly asking us, where are you on this downhill trajectory? Right.
SPEAKER_01And you discern between offering him an out each time. Which land will you take? Uh, none of them. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not interested in that. Yeah. Every single time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. All right. So again, Genesis chapter 13, we're still there, verse 14. And Yahweh said to Abram, after Lot had separated himself from him, please raise your eyes and look. So Na nichel is what it says. Nae Nichel. Please raise your eyes and look. Well, earlier in verse 10, it says Lot looked up. But here, Abraham, who it sounds like was downcast, is entreated by God. Please lift up your eyes. It's so tender. The repetition of the expression, that Hebrew expression, lift up the eyes, underscores how the Lord will always have the last word, and he will actually do for Abraham what Abraham did for Lot. He will give him all the land. And this seems to be one of the ways that God will reward his faith. And it is here, after Lot has separated himself from Abraham, this man who Abraham thought would be his heir and has headed down to his fatal involvement in the cities of the plain, that God reaffirms his promises to Abraham. I will make your descendants like the dust of the earth. Well, the location between Bethel and I is, in fact, like you talked about earlier, it's a spectacular lookout point. And that's already implicit between in the story of Abraham and Lot. So we have Abraham now is on the height. Lot is on the sunken plain. And it says that Abraham then moved his tents and he went to live by the oaks of Mamre in Hebron. The presence of the oaks or the terebinths in the story, they're these large and enduring trees, symbolizes strength and longevity and the enduring nature of God's covenant with Abraham and his descendants. Abraham builds the altar to the Lord and he offers sacrifice, right? There's this deliberate contrast.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. This deliberate contrast. He's remembering his covenant. Lot is sacrificing his. Got our trees. We're back to trees. It also indicates a royalty, a priesthood. He's moving closer to trees. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Covenant. All that. Yes. And then also his wife is barren, which trees are usually not. And so it's all beautiful. It's beautiful. Yeah. Yep.
SPEAKER_02All right. So unsurprisingly, then we're going to move on to chapter 14, and we're going to see that the story is going to further develop in chapter 14. Abraham's going to move from a national scale, this idea of the nation, his tribe, his clan, to an international trade to scale. So it will happen because of this decision of Lot, his decision to forsake Abraham to Sodom. And it's going to lead to this disaster. It's called the Battle of the Kings, and it's going to break out. And Lot, who is down there in his tent by the cities of the plain, because he's noticed that this area is like the Garden of Eden or like Egypt, he's not the only one who's noticed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02These other kings have noticed this too. And Genesis 14 tells us that four kings make war and they overcome the plain. And at first, Abraham sits out the war, but he's inevitably drawn in when Lot's family are taken captive. In verse 11, it says, And they took all the wealth of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their provisions and went away. They also took Lot and his possessions. He was Abraham's nephew and departed. And here is the little problem at this point. He, Lot, was sitting in Sodom. So Lot's gone from his tent, pitched next to Sodom, to sitting in Sodom. He's now in the city. He is an urbanite. It says that his material possessions, he says they took all the wealth of Sodom and Gomorrah and all the provisions and went away, and they took Lot and his possessions. So that's the word order, Lot and his possessions. And then after that, he's Abraham's nephew. That becomes this afterthought. Lot, who had had moved to a position behind Sarah and Abraham's possessions, he, this is a clue, has placed his possessions above his familial relationship. His familiar relationship. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Also, also show like where your heart is, like where you place your tent.
SPEAKER_02He's not in the tent now, he's in the city. He left the tent.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And as we go further forward, the way where he's positioned when the two or three messengers come, yep, is also super important. Yep. And so it's not even Lot and his family. His family is Path is after. That's interesting. What would you want to be known for?
SPEAKER_02I would hope I would be known for my family. Same. Or the things I did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So initially, Abraham doesn't enter the battle, right? He's obviously sitting it out, but he's preparing for possible trouble. It says because he enters into alliances with three Amorite chieftains, Mamre, Eshol, and Aner. And he also trains his own men for battle. Jeffrey Bradshaw, who's an LDS scholar, points out that, quote, over and above the feelings of love and kinship that motivated Abraham's rescue of Lot and his family, Abraham appears also to have understood that God required him to take an active role in assuring the fulfillment of the divine promise of an heir. Abraham's actions are evidence that Lot is still central to the promise of a large posterity, as far as Abraham is able to interpret the events. Lot is still Abraham's descendant, and his capture by the foreign kings places him in danger of being killed and bringing an end to Abraham's posterity. In addition, Lot is now on his way out of Canaan as the captive of the Mesopotamian kings and needs to be brought back within its boundaries. Remember that God, for his own reasons, has not yet disclosed to Abraham that he is to have a son of his own who will fulfill the promises, nor yet has God hinted that Sarah will be the mother of that son. Thus, with Lot in danger, Abraham cannot allow himself to wait passively for God's intervention. Instead, he feels called upon to risk his all to ensure that the Lord's word will not return void. Close quote. Obviously, I believe it's the correct point of view. So I talked earlier in one of our earlier podcasts about the new Pauline perspective and how some scholars are reassessing the Protestant interpretation of faith and grace. There are two really good, excellent books that were written by LDS scholar Brent J. Schmidt called Relational Faith and the Other Relational Grace. And he talks in relational faith about the effect that Augustine of Hippo had. He was probably the most influential theologian in Western Christianity. So Augustine originated the Christian ideas of original sin and therefore the need for infant baptism. He originated the idea of predestination for the elect only and salvation by grace alone, quote, in defiance of free will. So no effort on your part will get you into heaven or keep you out of hell. Augustine, whose influence had receded in the Catholic Church, was rediscovered and re-enthroned by Martin Luther and strongly influenced the Reformation. So for most Christians today, especially Protestants, they unconsciously derived their thinking about faith from Augustine's interpretation of Paul's epistles. And as I talked about this earlier in our other podcasts, this led to a misinterpretation of Pauline theology, which neglected to take into account Paul's original social context. It's why I say to you, it's so important to understand the context that these authors are writing for first. We need to understand what is the author's intent. But instead, they focused these earlier commentators on the supposedly unique Pauline doctrine of faith as opposed to the Mosaic law of works. This was a theory developed by Augustine through his rule of faith, and this neglect has led to serious distortions that are continued and summed up by the Latin phrase sola fide. The doctrine of sola fide or being saved by faith alone comes from, Brent Schmidt tells us, the flawed Neoplatonic philosophical and theological interpretations that were promoted by Augustine. So he is promoting these interpretations of Plato that people were making at his time, and he's putting them on Paul's ideas of faith. And what it means is that according to Augustine, God provided the Christian with both the faith and the means to acquire the faith. So you have no need for a reasoned choice or a will on the part of the believer. God is the one who gives you the faith if you are elect. You do not have faith because of a choice or a reason or a will. You do not choose faith. God gives you faith. It is through no, there's nothing on your part that allows you to have faith. Only God will give that to you. So bringing this up again, because often in the commentaries that I read, there's this general consensus that somehow Abraham failed in his faith because he was attempting to fulfill God's covenant promise instead of just waiting for God to miraculously fulfill the covenant, right? But I don't think that is a correct interpretation of the situation if you are looking at the context of this in ancient Near Eastern context. Like that would not have even entered into their mind. President Nelson told us the Lord loves effort. And I think that that is the correct interpretation here. When the Lord told Abraham that he would make of Abraham a great nation, Sarah is not mentioned as the mother of the nation. So in the Abraham story, the way that this promise will be fulfilled is not revealed. In order for us to hear the promise like Abraham heard it, we need to pretend like we don't know the end of the story. We can't turn the I will make of you a great nation into guess what? Your barren wife is going to miraculously have a child. That's not in his mindset at this point. As far as Abraham is concerned, Sarah's barrenness rules out her giving birth. But there are other avenues that are open to Abraham in order to get descendants and therefore fulfill the promise. And right now, it seems to Abraham that Lot is the one who is going to be the fulfillment of the offspring. And so, in this battle of the king, again, Abraham initiates and accomplishes this absolutely spectacular rescue of Lod. So he shows a faithful love for his nephew, but he also shows this covenant commitment to God. He shows loyalty to God that he will help God in fulfilling the promises that have been given to God. Abraham is showing chesed to God. He's showing a covenant loyalty to God and doing everything he can to fulfill the promises. Unfortunately, for Abraham, Lot again is a disappointment. We get this from the text that Lot is not feeling this same sort of Hesed, covenantal loyalty or love for Abraham, because after everything Abraham goes through to rescue Lot, Lot does not leave Sodom and return to Canaan and back to the household of his uncle. No. Like we find out in chapter 18 that Lot has no fidelity to his family because he returns to Sodom, a place which places a premium on possessions, power, and prestige. And that's the order, right? That we're seeing in this. John Gee, who's also an LDS Egyptologist, draws the analogy that Lot was a captive to the kings and needed redemption in order to avoid being condemned to a life of slavery. The normal course of action would be for Abraham as next of kin to pay a ransom so that Lot could be redeemed. In the passage, Abraham is depicted as the model redeemer, redeeming Lot without money and without price. Abraham therefore becomes a type of humankind's later redemption through Jesus Christ, close quote. So for me, the analogy that John Ghee draws makes Lot's treatment of Abraham even more poignant. Here you have this redeemer, this kinsman redeemer, and Lot rejects him. Where else do we see this? All over the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01I'm thinking of Moses, like and they're redeemed from Egypt. They're taken out. And Moses goes up to talk with God. He's up on a mountain, they're down in a valley, and they're like, Well, he's not coming back. Let's make a golden calf. Let's return to our idolatry. So, in that, that's us. Yeah. How many times does God save you? Or it's in the hard times you turn to him. And I think that was probably happening. I'm sure we see that in Abraham's father. We probably see that in Lot here a little bit. Like he was so happy to see Abraham when he rescued him, I'm sure. But he just could not help himself. No, he wasn't happy enough to stay with him. Yeah. That is so well. And his heart was on his possessions. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So the conclusion of the Battle of the Kings episode introduces us to Milchizedek. And here's what's really interesting again about the structure of Hebrew literature. I talked about chiasmus as this inverted form of parallelism. And we're going to see that right here in this little paragraph which introduces Milchized. We have A, the king of Sodom, in Genesis 14, 17, it says, when he returned from defeating Chedor Laumar and the kings with him, the king of Sodom came out to meet him, Abraham, in the valley of Shave, which is the valley of the king. The next point in the Chaiasm, point B, Milchizedek offers Abraham. It says, And King Milchized of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was a priest of God most high. Now we're going to come to the central point of the Chaiasm, the hinge point, C, which is Milchizedek blesses Abraham. The scripture is verse 19. He blessed him, saying, Blessed be Abram of God most high, creator of heaven and earth. Now we're going to swing back to the inverted part of the parallel of the Chaiasm. So C1. Milchazedic blesses God. Again, second blessing, verse 20. And blessed be God most high, who has delivered your foes into your hand. Now B one on the Chaiasm. So remember the other one was Milchazedic offers Abraham. Here it is, Milchazedic receives from Abraham. And Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. And then the final A point, A1, is King of Sodom again. That was our first one, our first starting point of A was King of Sodom. We end with King of Sodom. Then the king of Sodom said to Abram, Give me the persons, future foreshadowing there, and take the possessions for yourself. And Abram said to the king of Sodom, As for the share of the men who went with me, and Uner, Eshkol, and Mamre, let them take their share. So there is this deliberate juxtaposition of these two stories, and it highlights the contrast between Abraham's contempt for the unnamed king of Sodom and his respect for the named Milchizedek, king of Salem. When Abraham refuses to take the spoils of war from the king of Sodom, he highlights his independence from worldly power, prestige, and possessions. This is a deliberate contrast to Lot, whose orientation is always towards Sodom. When Abraham takes bread and wine from Milchizedek, he is signifying where his loyalties lie to El Elian, as Melchizedek says, to God most high. We're going to stop here because we've been going for quite a while. We're going to pick the lot story up in the next podcast where we will talk about Hagar, and we're going to finish out the lot story with Sodom and Gomorrah. And we're also going to talk a little bit more about who was this mysterious Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_01Oh, fun. Exciting. I cannot wait. It's been a great time, hasn't it? This is great. So many interesting things. Yeah. And so many things to think about for sure.
SPEAKER_02Where's our heart, right? Where's your heart? Are we up, up with Abraham?
SPEAKER_01Are we down, down with Lot?
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01Yes. What do you take from who? And who do you move closer to when things get hard or when things are easy? Yes, all of the things. Okay, well, thank you, Cindy. Thank you, Susan. This has been fun. And we'll see you guys next time. Okay. Thank you for listening to the Scripture Study Podcast, your midweek Bible boost. Everything we mentioned on this podcast, if we said there would be a link to it, it is in the show notes wherever you find your podcast. Cindy Madsen currently does not believe in or participate in social media. However, if you would like to follow along with Susan Peterson, she can be found on Instagram at susan.m.peterson. Have a good week.