Sodom and Lot's Family

When Abraham was in the land of Ur there was a great famine his brother Haran died and the Lord told him, “Abraham, get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee.” He obeyed: “Therefore I left the land of Ur, of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and I took Lot, my brother’s son, and his wife, and Sarai my wife; and also my father followed after me, unto the land which we denominated Haran.” He didn’t stay there, and he recorded this: “But I, Abraham, and Lot, my brother’s son, prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord appeared unto me, and said unto me: Arise, and take Lot with thee; for I have purposed to take thee away out of Haran, and to make of thee a minister to bear my name in a strange land which I will give unto thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession…. So I, Abraham, departed as the Lord had said unto me, and Lot with me; and I, Abraham, was sixty and two years old when I departed out of Haran. And I took Sarai, 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 to the land of Canaan” (Abraham 2:1, 4, 6, 14-15). These verses thus show that Lot, the son of Haran, traveled with Abraham from Ur to Haran and from Haran to Canaan. There continued to be a famine and so Abraham then left for Egypt. It appears that Lot was with him there as well, for we read, “Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south” (Genesis 13:1). Clearly Lot was at least to some degree a follower of the God of Abraham.

At this point Lot and Abraham finally separated, and “Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.” So it appears that though Lot had stayed with Abraham and was seeking to follow after righteousness, he still was drawn in by the ways of the world at Sodom where “the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly” (Genesis 13:12-13). After separating from Abraham, Lot was soon captured by kings in the lands round about but was also rescued by Abraham. Eventually as the wickedness of the city of Sodom became too great, the Lord sent for Lot and his family to get them out before the city was destroyed. Lot’s apparent half-hearted devotion to the Lord evident in the fact that after he was commanded to leave, “he lingered” and had to be forcibly removed by the messengers (Genesis 19:16). And the city had clearly made its mark on Lot’s family, for his wife longed to stay there and was turned to a pillar of salt when she looked back. But this wasn’t the only sign of the effect of the pervasive wickedness of Sodom on Lot’s family. Soon thereafter his two daughters committed a terribly immoral act which led to the births of the fathers of the Moabites and the Ammonites. Those daughters had left Sodom, but the spirit of Sodom was still with them. I think one of the lessons from this story of Lot and his family then is that we can’t expect our families to be protected from wickedness and the evils around us if we figuratively pitch out tents towards the world and its ways. If Lot had never moved to Sodom in the first place, things likely would have turned out very differently for him.  

This reminds me of a warning by Elder Richard L. Evans: “Sometimes some parents mistakenly feel that they can relax a little as to conduct and conformity or take perhaps a so called liberal view of basic and fundamental things—thinking that a little laxness or indulgence won’t matter—or they may fail to teach or to attend Church, or may voice critical views. Some parents … seem to feel that they can ease up a little on the fundamentals without affecting their family or their family’s future. But if a parent goes a little off course, the children are likely to exceed the parent’s example.” Lot was not fully responsible for the terrible actions of his daughters, but I don’t believe he was totally innocent either, for he had chosen to take them to Sodom to live. His story is a reminder that we must put on the whole armor of God—not just a part of it—and strive every day to guard ourselves and our families from all the evil influences of the world.