Unintended Consequences--by Linden Malki

The last picture we see of Lot is him fleeing into the mountains east of the Dead Sea Valley, thinking that the whole world is ending. His wife, about whom we know nothing, made the fatal mistake of looking back at an onrushing cloud of fire, brimstone, and toxic salts  and becoming herself a  

           

 geological specimen. Their daughters are convinced that they are  the last people left in the world, and decide to repopulate the planet themselves by seducing their father, whom they made drunk. They did accomplish part of their project; they each had a son who each became the founder of a tribe of people who lasted about 1500 years and caused their neighbors continuous trouble. They were both pagan tribes, who were at various times enemies, rivals and allies of Israel, and became part of the Assyrian empire in the 700BC's,until the Babylonians and Persians absorbed everybody.                                            

Moab was just east of the Dead Sea, in the hills and plains that the Israelites had to go through as they came back during the Exodus. The Moabites were terrified of the Isrealites who were migrating through their territory, and sent their women out to seduce the Israelites and involve them in their pagan worship. Later, we find Moab becoming a refuge for Israelites fleeing a famine at the time of Ruth, the Moabite ancestress of King David. He also sent his parents to Moab during the time that King Saul was threatening his life. 

The Ammonites were the next kingdom to the north, on the east side of the Jordan River, centered on the central part of what is now the Kingdom of Jordan--whose capital is the city of Amman, still on the site of the ancient capital  Rabbath-Ammon. This is where King  David's armies were fighting at the time of the Bathsheba incident; and they as well were involved in the invasions from the East that eventually ended the separate existence of most of the kingdoms of the Old Testament period. The memories of these kingdoms, who were both political rivals and religious threats, are found all the way through the prophetic books. It is sobering to realize that these tribes were the descendents of two panicked teenage girls, who grew up in a wicked, pagan city with apparently no real knowledge of God, who had their own answer to the destruction of their home--and whose legacy helped shape that whole part of the world.