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THE SEPARATION FROM LOT

Chapter 13

On being ignominiously expelled from Egypt, Abram returned with his wife and all he had to the place where he had at first set up his tent between Bethel and Ai ... and there Abram called on the name of the LORD.

This makes us reflect on the providence of God: Abram had gone to Egypt in search of food and pasture for his animals, leaving the land appointed him by God. While prospering materially in Egypt, he lived apart from his wife because he had deceived Pharaoh. It was God who put an end to this situation by forcing him to go back to where God had originally told him to go.

Acknowledging the hand of God, Abram again invoked His name in Bethel, situated slightly north of Jerusalem (Bethel was the name given to this place many years later by his grandson Jacob - 28:19 - and means house of God). It is an example for us: although Abram had stumbled and fallen, he turned back to God; just as there was always a way back to the altar for Abraham, there is also a way for everyone who wishes to return to God, for His arms are always open to receive him.

Abram brought two things from Egypt which caused him much trouble: riches and a servant named Hagar, about whom we will read later.

Little is known about Lot, but it seems that he accompanied Abraham to Egypt, and also enriched and returned with him. As the Bedouin of our time, they conducted their animals along the open grassland they found in this vast area, to graze as they went along the way (property rights were limited to urban and cultivated areas).

Nevertheless, they owned so much livestock, and their possessions were so great that the land was not able to support them.  This led to a strife between Abram and Lot and their respective herdsmen. The fact that the Canaanites were in the land is mentioned again, and also the Perizzites, a Canaanite tribe no doubt still well known when this book was written.

The presence of the Canaanites increased the need for harmony between Abram and Lot, as they might take advantage of a quarrel to join forces with a party against the other. Moreover, the Canaanites were idolaters, and a fight between Lot and Abram on account of their material possessions would be a bad testimony by those who loved the Lord, the true God.

Abram, to avoid any enmity with Lot because of the strife, wisely proposed to Lot that they separated, and generously gave Lot the opportunity to choose where he would go, and Abram would go in the opposite direction.

At that time there was a vast plain watered by the Jordan River, there being already irrigation systems similar to those of the valley of the River Nile in Egypt. With the catastrophe that resulted in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah not long after this, the majority of this area became a desert. But it was at that time inhabited by people of a very low moral level, and notoriously by homosexuals, whence comes the word sodomite.

Attracted only by the economic potential of that area, and with a view to his own enrichment, Lot chose all the plain of Jordan for himself. Having left Abram, Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent as far as Sodom, meaning that he went on camping in the direction of Sodom aiming to get there. It is a figure of the moral degeneration of he that, leaving the fellowship of those who serve God in the church, pursues the pleasures of the world. His situation becomes worse than it was before (2 Peter 2:20).

When Lot was gone, the Lord again spoke to Abram: He confirmed and extended earlier promises, saying that all the land he could see would belong to him and to his descendants forever, and that He would make his descendants as the dust of the earth, which cannot be counted.

Abram went in the opposite direction to that of Lot, to the land of Canaan (grandson of Noah - Genesis 10:19) - and camped in the plain of Mamre by the terebinth trees (from which we get pistachios).  Mamre was an Amorite Canaanite who befriended Abraham (14:13) and one of the meanings of Mamre is wealth; Hebron means communion. This is the place where Abraham was buried (25:9,10) and where there is still a well, traditionally known as the well of Abraham.

In Hebron Abram raised an altar to the LORD. The attitude of Abraham is a type of he who accepts God's plan for his life and is submissive, even if it is necessary to face hostility or to give up pleasures and material things in order to serve God and receive the promises made to those that are faithful. Abram did not forget to set up an altar to the LORD, a testimony to his faith in the true God in the midst of the idolatrous people of that land.

 

R David Jones

 

1 Then Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, to the South.
2 Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold.
3 And he went on his journey from the South as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,
4 to the place of the altar which he had made there at first. And there Abram called on the name of the LORD.

 

 

 

 

 

5 Lot also, who went with Abram, had flocks and herds and tents.
6 Now the land was not able to support them, that they might dwell together, for their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together.
7 And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock. The Canaanites and the Perizzites then dwelt in the land.

 

 

8 So Abram said to Lot, "Please let there be no strife between you and me, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen; for we are brethren.
9 Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me. If you take the left, then I will go to the right; or, if you go to the right, then I will go to the left."
10 And Lot lifted his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere (before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah) like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt as you go toward Zoar.
11 Then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east. And they separated from each other.
12 Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom.
13 But the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the LORD.
14 And the LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: "Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are—northward, southward, eastward, and westward;
15 for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever.
16 And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered.
17 Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you."
18 Then Abram moved his tent, and went and dwelt by the terebinth trees of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and built an altar there to the LORD.

Genesis chapter 13