What Does Genesis 19:8 Mean?
Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man. Let me, I pray you, bring them out to you, and do to them as is good in your eyes. Only to these men do nothing, for therefore they came under the shadow of my roof.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.THE KEY
Lot invokes his roof as protection for the male guests while offering his daughters to the mob’s sexual violence.
THE MEANING
Here, Lot claims protection for the male guests by offering his daughters after the crowd demands the men. “As is good in your eyes” hands the decision to the attackers, while his daughters have no voice in the bargain. Their safety is surrendered to preserve the men’s.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A host’s claim to protect his guests does not justify offering his daughters’ bodies to the attackers.
THE ROOT
יָדְעוּ
yāḏəʿû
GROWS FROM
ידע
Know, recognize, perceive, experience; the verb can also refer to sexual relations.
“have not known a man” in this verse is yāḏəʿû. The same verb describes the crowd’s demand to “know” Lot’s visitors and Lot’s claim that his daughters have not “known” a man. Its sense of embodied knowing makes clear that Lot is offering them to sexual violence, not speaking of an abstract threat.
ALSO GROWS
daʿat: Knowledge, knowing
דַּעַת
This noun carries the same root into the idea of knowledge, joining recognition and lived experience in one word family.
hôdîaʿ: To make known, tell, declare
הוֹדִיעַ
This branch turns knowing into disclosure; here, the daughters’ own words are absent from the decision made about their bodies.
THE PATTERN
When one person’s body or life is made the price of others’ protection, protective reasoning becomes part of the violence.
Behold, here is my daughter, a virgin, and his concubine; I will bring them out now, and bend them low, and do with them what is good in your eyes. But to this man do not do this vile thing.Nor do you reckon that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish.THE THREAD
And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, the gotten one, and she said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.“Knew” here is the same verb, יָדְעוּ (yāḏəʿû), as “have not known a man.” In Genesis 4:1 it describes sexual union and conception, making the bodily meaning, and the threat in Lot’s offer, plain.
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