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 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.
T. Bab. Horayot, fol. 10.