Introduction
Lot is a son of Haran and nephew of Abraham, who accompanied his uncle from Ur through Haran to Canaan after his own father's early death. His choice to settle near the notoriously wicked city of Sodom, his rescue by Abraham from a coalition of kings, and his escape from Sodom's destruction, along with the troubling episode that follows involving his daughters, form a significant secondary narrative thread within the Abraham cycle.
This article follows the biblical account in Genesis. Where later Jewish, Christian or Islamic tradition adds detail not found in the text itself, the article identifies it as such.
Family
Separation from Abraham
As Abraham's and Lot's combined herds grew too large for the land to support both households together, and strife arose between their herders, Abraham offered Lot first choice of the land; Lot chose the well-watered plain of the Jordan, settling near Sodom, a city Genesis describes as wicked "in the sight of the Lord".
Rescue by Abraham
When a coalition of four kings raided the region and captured Lot along with the people and goods of Sodom, Abraham led a small armed force, defeated the raiders, and rescued Lot and his possessions.
The destruction of Sodom
When God resolved to destroy Sodom and the neighbouring city of Gomorrah for their wickedness, two angels came to warn Lot, who hosted them and protected them from the hostile demands of the city's men. The angels urged Lot, his wife, and his two unmarried daughters to flee before the city's destruction; Lot's wife, looking back against the angels' instruction, was turned into a pillar of salt, while Lot and his daughters escaped to the small town of Zoar and then to a cave in the hills.
The episode with his daughters
Believing, according to the text, that no other men were left to continue their family line, Lot's two daughters made him drunk on successive nights and each, in turn, had relations with him without his knowledge; both became pregnant, bearing sons named Moab and Ben-Ammi, explicitly identified in the text as the ancestors of the Moabites and Ammonites, two peoples who feature prominently, generally as rivals or enemies of Israel, throughout the rest of the Hebrew Bible.