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The most important fact about him is that his name is probably not Yehudit, which is to say native Yisra-Eli, but Chaldean - and not surprising, given that he was an immigrant to Kena'an from Mesopotamia - the final-letter Tet (ט), like the Samech (ס), almost always infers a foreign word; indigenous Yehudit words will generally have a Tav (ת) and Seen (ש) for the identical sounds.
Genesis 11:27 ff names him as the son of Haran (הרן), Av-Ram's brother who died at Ur. This allows us to identify Lot with Mesopotamia. Is there a Babylonian equivalent of Lot? See below.
Lot (לוט) means "to hide" or "keep secret"; the Latim (לטים) are the secret arts and incantations which are also (Exodus 7:11) called Lihatim (להטים), from the root Lahat (להט) = "a flame" (as in the flaming sword of Genesis 3:24). Does the Hey (ה) properly belong in his name, and his name therefore come from Lahat and not Lat? See below.
The Qur'an (Surah 53:19 ff) speaks of the triple-goddess of Mecca, who ruled at Mecca before their father al-Lah became the supreme deity, under the titles al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat. They were the guardians of the Black Rock which is called the Ka'aba in Arabic, and whose "twin" can be found under the Shrine of Omar (Dome of the Rock, Qubbat As-Sakhrah) in Yeru-Shala'im, on the site of the Solomonic Temple, and traditionally Mount Mor-Yah, the place where Av-Raham went to sacrifice Yitschak (Genesis 22), and Muhammad's horse left its hoofprints on the night of the Isra.
The crescent moon depicted somewhat southernly in the illustration at the top of this page belonged to the triple-goddess, as did the eastern and western facing crescents of her other two manifestations, though it is Snow White-Cinderella's young crescent, that of the virginal new moon, which has been retained as one of the principal symbols of Islam (the flag of Pakistan, which faces north-east, provides an unusual variation on this, while that of Mauretania, which was of course part of ancient Egypt, has the same southern crescent as in the illustration).
Clearly the two "black rocks" have always been mythologically linked (Av-Raham is held in the Qur'an to have visited Mecca, to have established the shrine at the Ka'aba, and Maqam Ibrahim is to this day a key point of the Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage), and that Lot should be the connector between the two makes a good deal of sense. The principal place of worship of al-Lat was Ta'if, another key location in the epic of Muhammad's founding of Islam; Herodotus called her Alilat, and the word "her" is emphasised, for al-Lat was definitely a goddess. The northern Arabs identified her with Venus (cf Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology p323), and this is vital, because of course the Yisra-Eli equivalent of Venus is Av-Ram's wife Sarai, who is also said to have been Lot's sister. Sarai is Asherah-Astarte in that mixed dialect of Hittite and Chaldean known as Yehudit.
Genesis 14:12 ff finds Lot captured during the War of the Kings. It is perhaps not a coincidence that Lot, whose name implies the hidden arts, should have been captured in Sedom, whose name means "a place of secrets"; the story of the War of the Kings should anyway be read as a zodiacal allegory and therefore Lot's "capture" may well reflect nothing more straightforward than a lunar eclipse or a lunar-solar intercalation.
Genesis 19:1 ff encounter Lot in Sedom still, but at the time of its destruction, when his wife is turned into "a pillar of salt". This story adds confusion and Redaction to what we have understood thus far, because it appears to reflect Lot's wife as being herself the moon-goddess, echoing as it does that better-known Greek moon-legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. There, Eurydice is the one who has been "captured" - died and taken to the Underworld - and she "turns to stone" because it is Orpheus who looks back. Seeking to excise the moon-goddess from the story, the Redactor has undertaken some major Bowdlerisation, but the original is easily restored in the light of the Greek. The two angels who came to Lot at dawn were presumably the other parts of his moon-triad: Manat and al-Uzza, who then re-appear as his daughters in the subsequent verses, and in the strange tale of apparent incest that ensues. But what a pity that neither angels nor wife nor daughters are named in the tale. What we can say is that Lot is al-Lat, and that his wife is too; they have been divided into two characters and the story modified to enable the Yisra-Eli historical narrative, stripped of these "pagan" cults.
Genesis 14:12 ff finds Lot captured during the War of the Kings. It is perhaps not a coincidence that Lot, whose name implies the hidden arts, should have been captured in Sedom, whose name means "a place of secrets"; the story of the War of the Kings should anyway be read as a zodiacal allegory and therefore Lot's "capture" may well reflect nothing more straightforward than a lunar eclipse or a lunar-solar intercalation.
Genesis 19:1 ff encounter Lot in Sedom still, but at the time of its destruction, when his wife is turned into "a pillar of salt". This story adds confusion and Redaction to what we have understood thus far, because it appears to reflect Lot's wife as being herself the moon-goddess, echoing as it does that better-known Greek moon-legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. There, Eurydice is the one who has been "captured" - died and taken to the Underworld - and she "turns to stone" because it is Orpheus who looks back. Seeking to excise the moon-goddess from the story, the Redactor has undertaken some major Bowdlerisation, but the original is easily restored in the light of the Greek. The two angels who came to Lot at dawn were presumably the other parts of his moon-triad: Manat and al-Uzza, who then re-appear as his daughters in the subsequent verses, and in the strange tale of apparent incest that ensues. But what a pity that neither angels nor wife nor daughters are named in the tale. What we can say is that Lot is al-Lat, and that his wife is too; they have been divided into two characters and the story modified to enable the Yisra-Eli historical narrative, stripped of these "pagan" cults.
The appearance of an Orphean myth should not surprise us, as Orpheus is a variation of Ephroneus, who appears in the same Abrahamic tales as Ephron of the Beney Chet, and whose tales are echoed repeatedly in those of King David (see my account of the life of King David in "City of Peace"). The one oddity in this regard is that Lot was not buried at Machpelah with his sister - or at least, we are not told where he was buried, but he is never included when those who were buried at Machpelah are mentioned.
The remainder of Genesis 19 then offers a most strange story of apparent incest, in which his daughters first get him drunk, then erect, and in his sleep father children upon themselves by him, each on separate nights. This event takes place in a cave at Tso'ar (צוער), which may mean "smallness", but is used poetically for that already-mentioned crescent the new-born moon; we can therefore read it as a new-moon rite and, given the extent to which it echoes the equally strange post-Flood story of No'ach and his incestuous sons...what we have on both occasions is a Creation myth being enacted by the priests and priestesses...and in all likelihood a deeper survey of the Arabian myths of the daughters of al-Lah would likely reveal the source of this far better than studying the Tanach itself can do.
The remainder of Genesis 19 then offers a most strange story of apparent incest, in which his daughters first get him drunk, then erect, and in his sleep father children upon themselves by him, each on separate nights. This event takes place in a cave at Tso'ar (צוער), which may mean "smallness", but is used poetically for that already-mentioned crescent the new-born moon; we can therefore read it as a new-moon rite and, given the extent to which it echoes the equally strange post-Flood story of No'ach and his incestuous sons...what we have on both occasions is a Creation myth being enacted by the priests and priestesses...and in all likelihood a deeper survey of the Arabian myths of the daughters of al-Lah would likely reveal the source of this far better than studying the Tanach itself can do.
To Yesha-Yahu (Isaiah) a "Lot" (לוט) meant a "covering" or "veil", specifically the veil of the Temple which kept the Holy of Holies separate - hidden, secret, sacred - from the remainder, once again endorsing the connection of Lot with Lihatim, as in my paragraph 3 above. Several instances in Isaiah, but none better than 25:7.
Genesis 36:29 has Lotan (לוטן) as a son of Se'ir, which is probably nothing more than a recognition of moon-goddess worship having reached the originally ass-worshipping Edomites - Lotan is a variant of Lev-Yatan or Leviathan, a variant of the primordial serpent which wrapped itself around the Cosmic Egg, and had to be bifurcated like the Hydra (an early understanding of cell division) in order that the Cosmic Egg could hatch, and the Cosmos come into existence. The five cities of the plain occupied what at various points of history was Edomite domain.
Genesis 19:37/38, Deuteronomy 2:9 and Psalm 83:9 name him as the father of the Beney Amon (Ammonites) and Beney Mo-Av (Mo'abites) - but surely not? Given that Ammon (Amun) was the Egyptian god of... guess what, inter alia... "secrets", the hidden mysteries, the MC², the Lihatim. So this must be taken in the same way as the Se'ir reference above.
So who was he really: Av-Ram's nephew, or the carved image of a moon-goddess? Given that Av-Ram is an epithet for the sun-god...
Genesis 19:37/38, Deuteronomy 2:9 and Psalm 83:9 name him as the father of the Beney Amon (Ammonites) and Beney Mo-Av (Mo'abites) - but surely not? Given that Ammon (Amun) was the Egyptian god of... guess what, inter alia... "secrets", the hidden mysteries, the MC², the Lihatim. So this must be taken in the same way as the Se'ir reference above.
So who was he really: Av-Ram's nephew, or the carved image of a moon-goddess? Given that Av-Ram is an epithet for the sun-god...
Al-Lat (which literally means "The Goddess") was also known as al-Rabba = "the Sovereign". Her shrine was at Ta'if. All three sisters were represented by large standing stones, and never anthropomorphised or portrayed. They were fertility goddesses, their three moon-phases reflecting the three stages of womanhood (virginity, motherhood, menopause), and the three fertility stages of the year (Pesach, Shavu'ot, Sukot in the Jewish world).
See also my page on Yidlaph ben Nachor, Lot's first cousin, which draws some interesting links with Leto, the wife of Zeus, and the shrine at Delphi.
See also my page on Yidlaph ben Nachor, Lot's first cousin, which draws some interesting links with Leto, the wife of Zeus, and the shrine at Delphi.
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