After God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain for their homosexual immorality, God rescued Lot from there before God destroyed those places. After fleeing Sodom Lot fled to Zoar to a mountain close to the Dead Sea where he dwelt in a cave because he was afraid to dwell in the town of Zoar. Lot dwelt in the cave with his two daughers. The firstborn daughter then used human reasoning to justify that she and her younger sister should try to preserve a family line by Lot by having sex with him because there weren't too many other men around because Sodom and the other cities were destroyed and they were in the middle of the wilderness of Judaea. In order to accomplish this scheme Lot's two daughters made Lot drink wine until he was drunk or intoxicated and not very aware of what he was doing. The the first night the older daughter lay with Lot and had sex with him and became pregnant with a child by Lot who was also unaware of this. A little later the older daughter gave birth to a son and called his name Moab and he became the father of the Moabites who came to dwell on the other side of the Dead Sea to Israel at the north end of the Dead Sea and the lower parts of the Jordan River. Ruth who married an ancestor of King David and has a book in the Old Testament named after her was a Moabite but converted to the true and living God the God of Israel and also God the Father of the New Testament and would have expressed faith in Israel's coming Messiah who turned out to be the Lord Jesus Christ. Lot was a relative of Abraham as Abraham's nephew. The Moabites and Ammmonites were often enemies of Israel and their false gods became a snare or bad influence on Israel especially in times of Israel's departing from the LORD. The scripture reference from Genesis 19 of the origin of the Moabites through Lot and his daughter is as follows:
And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt. 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. And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. 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. 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. 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. Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. And the firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day. 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. Genesis 19:29-38
God told the Israelites when they were coming through the Moabite territory on their way to the promised land of Canaan or Israel from Egypt not to contend with the Moabites as God had given the Moabites their land on the east side of the Dead Sea. This land was south of the Ar or Arnon river which runs into the Dead Sea on the east side. This land is also within what is now the modern country of Jordan. The Moabites were descendants of Abraham's nephew Lot. God says here through Moses that a people called the Emims dwelt there before who were giants. Although the scripture doesn't say it here the Moabites had probably defeated the Emims from their territory with God's permission. The Emims were possibly giants because they were descendants of one of Noah's sons' wives that perhaps carried some of the tainted genes from before the flood. The Moabites were later enemies of Israel but one prominent Moabite woman named Ruth married an Israelite man named Boaz and has her story recorded in the Book of Ruth in the Old Testament. She was a near ancestor of King David and the Kings of Israel and also of the Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh. The scripture reference from Deuteronomy 2 of God giving the Moabites land on the east side of the Dead Sea as their final inheritance is as follows:
And the LORD said unto me, Distress not the Moabites, neither contend with them in battle: for I will not give thee of their land for a possession; because I have given Ar unto the children of Lot for a possession. The Emims dwelt therein in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; Which also were accounted giants, as the Anakims; but the Moabites call them Emims. Deuteromy 2:9-11
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