ACTS BIBLE
Abraham week 4 · Genesis 13
Lot lifts up his eyes and chooses by sight. Abram lets him, and God tells Abram to lift up his eyes after Lot is gone.
Abram comes up out of Egypt very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold (Genesis 13:2), and the first thing the chapter has him do is retrace his steps: back to Bethel, unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first: and there Abram called on the name of the LORD (13:3-4). After the failure in Egypt there is no new altar and no new place; recovery is a return to where obedience last stood. The text is quiet about his words there. The geography is the repentance.
The wealth Egypt added now becomes the problem: the herds of Abram and Lot are too large to graze together, and there was a strife between the herdmen (13:7). The note that the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land is not decoration; the household of promise is quarreling in front of the neighbors. Abram moves first, and his offer is remarkable from the man to whom the whole land was promised: Is not the whole land before thee?... if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right (13:9). The elder yields the choice. The promise-holder does not grasp; he can afford not to, because the promise does not depend on his seizing it.
And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where... like the land of Egypt (13:10). Lot chooses by sight, and the narrator lets the comparison to Egypt do its quiet work: Lot picks the piece of Canaan that looks most like the place that nearly wrecked them. The chapter then sets its two clocks side by side. Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom, and the very next verse tells the reader what he is drifting toward: But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly (13:12-13). Nothing bad happens to Lot in this chapter. The drift is the event, and week 10 of this course is its invoice.
After Lot separates, the LORD speaks, and the wording answers Lot's choosing exactly: Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever (13:14-15). Lot lifted his own eyes at what looked good; Abram is told to lift his at what God gives, in all four directions, including the well-watered plain Lot just took. God adds a new figure to the promise, seed like the dust of the earth, and then tells him to walk the land's length and breadth like an heir pacing a field he cannot yet fence.
Abram moves his tent to Hebron and builds another altar. Three altars now mark his map, and still not one deed of title. The chapter teaches the difference between taking and receiving: Lot took, and lost everything by week 10; Abram received, and his family holds the grant to this day. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you (Matthew 6:33) is this chapter stated as a command.