Today’s Passage: Genesis 13
Abram comes up out of Egypt a rich man, and the first place he heads is not a new estate but an old altar, the very spot between Bethel and Ai where he had once called on the name of the LORD. But wealth brings a problem no one expected. Abram and his nephew Lot have grown so large in flocks and herds that the land cannot hold them both, and their herdsmen begin to quarrel. Abram, who is the elder and the one holding God’s promise, will not fight over grass. He gives Lot the first pick of the whole land. Lot lifts his eyes, sees the well-watered Jordan valley, and takes it, pitching his tent toward a city full of wicked men. Abram takes what is left, and it is there, on the ground nobody fought for, that God renews the promise and tells him to look at all of it, for one day it will belong to him and his children beyond counting.
As you read, hold this: Lot chose by sight; Abram lived by promise.
Context The world of Genesis 13
To understand this chapter you have to picture how a rich man of that age carried his wealth. It was not coins in a chest. It was living animals, thousands of them, and every one of them needed water and grass every single day. Two great herds grazing the same hills will strip the land bare, and that is exactly what happens here. This is not a small family squabble. It is a real crisis of survival, and the herdsmen feel it first because they are the ones out on the dry ground looking for pasture that is no longer there.
Remember, too, that the land was not empty. The Canaanites and the Perizzites were already living in it, watching these newcomers. A public feud between Abram’s men and Lot’s men, right in front of the people God had promised to give this land to, would have been a poor witness indeed. Abram sees that, and he moves to end the strife before it spreads.
And here is the quiet thing to keep your eye on all the way through. Abram is the one holding the promise. By every custom of his day the older man chooses first, and Abram had every right to take the best valley for himself. Instead he opens his hand and lets it go. He can afford to, because his future does not rest on grabbing the greenest field. It rests on the word of God.
Genesis 13:1-4 (BSB)
¹ So Abram went up out of Egypt into the Negev—he and his wife and all his possessions—and Lot was with him. ² And Abram had become extremely wealthy in livestock and silver and gold. ³ From the Negev he journeyed from place to place toward Bethel, until he came to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had formerly been pitched, ⁴ to the site where he had built the altar. And there Abram called on the name of the LORD.
Watch where a wealthy man goes first. Abram comes out of Egypt with more than he ever had, silver and gold and livestock beyond measure, and he does not go looking for finer country. He goes back to the altar. He returns to the exact place between Bethel and Ai where he had worshiped before he ever went down to Egypt, as if to pick up where he left off with God. That last chapter had been a low one for Abram, a season of fear and half-truths in a foreign land, and now the first thing he does back home is call on the name of the LORD again. A man who knows where his altar is knows where his true wealth is.
Genesis 13:5-7 (BSB)
⁵ Now Lot, who was traveling with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. ⁶ But the land was unable to support both of them while they stayed together, for they had so many possessions that they were unable to coexist. ⁷ And there was discord between the herdsmen of Abram and the herdsmen of Lot. At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites were also living in the land.
Here is a trouble we do not always expect. It is not poverty that divides these two men, it is plenty. They have both been blessed, and the blessing has grown so large that the erets, pronounced EH-rets. Strong's H776, earth, land, ground, territory. This little word is stitched all the way through the chapter, and once you notice it you cannot stop seeing it. The erets cannot support them both. Abram asks, is not the whole erets before you. God tells Abram to look at all the erets he can see, north and south and east and west, for He will give it to him forever. It is the same word for the plain patch of ground the herdsmen are fighting over and for the vast inheritance God is promising. That is the quiet lesson hiding in one Hebrew word. Men strain and quarrel over a corner of the land, while God is holding out the whole of it as a gift. itself cannot stretch to hold them together. The herdsmen start to fight over water and grass, and you can feel the tension rising toward the day when Abram and Lot themselves will be pulled into the quarrel. Two good men, family to each other, on the edge of a bitter split, and the whole watching country taking notes.
Genesis 13:8-9 (BSB)
⁸ So Abram said to Lot, “Please let there be no contention between you and me, or between your herdsmen and my herdsmen. After all, we are kinsmen. ⁹ Is not the whole land before you? Now separate yourself from me. If you go to the left, I will go to the right; if you go to the right, I will go to the left.”
Now watch the older man. Abram had every right to settle this by rank. He is the elder, he is the one God spoke the promise to, and the custom of his day would have let him say, I choose first, and Lot must take what is left. He says the opposite. He calls Lot his kinsman, he refuses to let a quarrel come between them, and then he does an astonishing thing: he hands the younger man the whole map. You pick, he says. Go left and I will go right; go right and I will go left. This is not weakness. It is a man so sure of God’s promise that he does not need to protect his own interests with a clenched fist. He would rather lose the best field than lose the peace.
Genesis 13:10-13 (BSB)
¹⁰ And Lot looked out and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan, all the way to Zoar, was well watered like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) ¹¹ So Lot chose the whole plain of the Jordan for himself and set out toward the east. And Abram and Lot parted company. ¹² Abram lived in the land of Canaan, but Lot settled in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent toward Sodom. ¹³ But the men of Sodom were wicked, sinning greatly against the LORD.
Lot lifts his eyes and does his choosing by what he can see. The Jordan valley is green and well watered, lush as a garden, lovely as the Egypt he has just left, and he takes it all for himself and sets off east. On the face of it he has won. He got the better land. But read the verses slowly and you feel a shadow fall across them. He pitched his tent toward Sodom, and the men of Sodom were ra, pronounced RAH. Strong's H7451, evil, bad, harmful, wrong. This is the plain Bible word for what is bad, evil, harmful, wrong. It is the same root that stood in the garden by the tree of the knowledge of good and ra, and now it names the men of the very city Lot is drifting toward. The verse does not soften it. They were ra, wicked, and sinning greatly against the LORD. Notice that Scripture tells us this the moment Lot points his tent that way, as a kind of grave warning laid quietly beside his choice. The land looked like the garden of the LORD. The men in it were anything but. Lot could see the water. He could not see, or would not look at, the wickedness, and in time that unseen thing would cost him nearly everything. , sinning greatly against the LORD. Lot judged the valley by its grass and never asked about its people. He chose the view and moved toward the danger, one tent-length at a time. There is a warning here for every reader who has ever picked the shining thing without looking at what came attached to it.
Genesis 13:14-18 (BSB)
¹⁴ After Lot had departed, the LORD said to Abram, “Now lift up your eyes from the place where you are, and look to the north and south and east and west, ¹⁵ for all the land that you see, I will give to you and your offspring forever. ¹⁶ I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if one could count the dust of the earth, then your offspring could be counted. ¹⁷ Get up and walk around the land, through its length and breadth, for I will give it to you.” ¹⁸ So Abram moved his tent and went to live near the Oaks of Mamre at Hebron, where he built an altar to the LORD.
Now see how God answers a man who let go. Lot had lifted his eyes and grabbed the best valley for himself; and after Lot is gone, God comes to Abram, standing on the plainer ground he was left with, and tells him to nasa, pronounced nah-SAH. Strong's H5375, to lift, raise, carry, bear. The word means to lift, to raise, to carry. It is the very same word used of Lot four verses earlier, when he “looked out,” literally when he lifted up his eyes, over the plain of the Jordan. So the two men do the same small action with utterly different hearts. Lot lifts his eyes to seize; Abram is told to lift his eyes to receive. One man looks in order to grab the best for himself. The other is invited to look at a gift he never grasped for and could never have earned. The same eyes, the same green valley in view, and everything depends on whether you are reaching or receiving. Abram lifts his eyes at the word of God, and what he sees is grace. his own eyes. Look, God says, north and south and east and west, as far as you can see. All of it, the valley Lot took included, I will give to you and your children forever, and your children will be like the dust of the earth, past all counting. Abram opened his hand and lost one field; God turned and promised him the whole horizon. And what does Abram do with a promise like that? He does what he always does. He moves his tent to the oaks of Mamre, and he builds an altar, and he worships. The man who lives by promise answers the promise the only fitting way, with thanks.
Study notes Going deeper
Sit for a moment with the two ways of seeing in this chapter, because the whole story turns on them. Lot chose by sight. He looked at the land, judged it by its water and its green, and took it, and the choice carried him quietly toward Sodom. Abram lived by promise. He let the choice go, and the God who cannot lie handed him far more than he surrendered. This is not because Abram was clever. It is because his inheritance never rested on getting the best land in the first place. It rested on the word of the One who made the land.
The New Testament looks back on this exact life and calls it faith. Abram spent his days in tents, owning almost none of the ground he walked, because he was trusting a promise he would not fully see in his lifetime.
"By faith he dwelt in the promised land as a stranger in a foreign country. He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise." Hebrews 11:9 (BSB)
"For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God." Hebrews 11:10 (BSB)
That is why Abram could open his hand and let Lot take the valley. He was looking further out than any valley, toward a city God Himself would build. And every altar he raises along the way, here at Mamre as at Bethel, is a man saying thank You to the God whose promise is better than the best land on earth. We can hold our own things a little more loosely, and give thanks a little more freely, when we remember whose word our future really rests on.