Verse 33. - And they made their father drink wine that night - which was sinful both in them and him (vide Isaiah 5:11; Proverbs 20:1; Habakkuk 2:15) - and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. That it was his own daughter quacum concumberet (Rosenmüller), being so intoxicated that he could not discern who it was to whom he had approached, or even what he was doing (Keil). The reading, "when he lay down and when he arose (LXX.) is incorrect, and the explanations that Lot was a mere unconscious instrument in this disgraceful transaction (Kalisch), that he was-entirely ignorant of all that had taken place (Chrysostom, Cajetan), that he was struck on account of his intemperance with a spirit of stupor (Calvin), are not warranted by the text.

19:30-38 See the peril of security. Lot, who kept chaste in Sodom, and was a mourner for the wickedness of the place, and a witness against it, when in the mountain, alone, and, as he thought, out of the way of temptation, is shamefully overtaken. Let him that thinks he stands high, and stands firm, take heed lest he fall. See the peril of drunkenness; it is not only a great sin itself, but lets in many sins, which bring a lasting wound and dishonour. Many a man does that, when he is drunk, which, when he is sober, he could not think of without horror. See also the peril of temptation, even from relations and friends, whom we love and esteem, and expect kindness from. We must dread a snare, wherever we are, and be always upon our guard. No excuse can be made for the daughters, nor for Lot. Scarcely any account can be given of the affair but this, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? From the silence of the Scripture concerning Lot henceforward, learn that drunkenness, as it makes men forgetful, so it makes them to be forgotten.And they made their father drink wine that night,.... They persuaded him to drink liberally, urged him to it again, in order to make him drunk, and so complete their design; and Lot might be the more prevailed upon to drink freely, in order to remove his sorrow, and refresh his spirits under the loss of his wife, and his daughters, if he had any married in Sodom, as some suppose, and his sons-in-law, and of all his goods and substance; though this will not excuse his drinking to excess, nor can ignorance of the strength of wine be pleaded, since he must needs know it as well as his daughters, who, it is plain, did, and therefore plied him with it:

and the firstborn went in and lay with her father; went to his bed, and lay down by him, which she would not have dared to have done, but that she knew he was drunk and insensible:

and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose: never heard her come to bed nor get up, so dead drunk and fast asleep was he; but finding a woman in bed with him, lay with her, taking her to be his wife, forgetting, through the force of liquor, that she was dead. There is an extraordinary prick on the Vau in Kumah, rendered "she arose", which the Jews say (u) is to show that he knew her not when she lay down, but when she arose he knew her; and indeed it may be rendered, but in her rising up.

(u) T. Bab. Horayot, fol. 10. 2.