Split Decision

Originally I wasn’t planning on discussing chapter 13 of Genesis because it didn’t seem that significant. To briefly recount the passage, disagreements arise between herdsmen for Abram and those for his nephew Lot. Abram proposes that they separate from one another and offers Lot first choice. Lot chooses the well-watered Jordan valley and they part amicably.

My initial impression was that the episode merely serves to explain how Abram’s nephew found himself in the city of Sodom; this point is key to Abram’s rescue of Lot in the following chapter. The passage has been sermonized as contrasting the generosity of Abram vs. the selfishness of Lot or as an example in conflict resolution. But a closer reading of the text indicates that this is a critical moment in Abram’s life.

A Little About Lot

We first encounter Lot in the genealogy of Terah in Gen 11:27-32 where Lot is mentioned as the son of Haran, who then dies. When Terah leaves Ur, he takes his son Abram and his orphaned grandson Lot with him and they settle in Haran. Abram later leaves Haran for Canaan and brings his nephew Lot along (12:4-5). We don’t hear of Lot again until he is mentioned going up from Egypt with Abram to the Negeb (desert region in southern Canaan) in 13:1.

The implication from all this is that Abram has adopted Lot as his heir. After all, we were told early on in 11:30 that Abram’s wife, Sarai, is barren. YHWH also told Abram in 12:2 that he would become a blessing and that the land of Canaan would be given to his descendants (12:7). Not having any children of his own, Abram must have assumed that his descendants would be through Lot, unless by some chance Sarai was to conceive or Abram took another wife.

This has two important implications. First, Abram’s welfare was key to fulfilling the promise. As long as he was alive, he could still father a child (through Sarai or someone else). Second, Lot was his backup plan. If something were to happen to Abram or he could not father a child of his own, as his heir Lot would inherit the land of Canaan and fulfil the promise of being a great nation.

From this perspective, Sarai’s welfare was secondary. Knowing this helps us understand Abram’s motivations in Egypt in passing off Sarai as his sister in 12:10-20. In order to fulfill the promise, Abram needed to preserve his own life at all costs. If that meant selling off Sarai to Pharaoh, then so be it. Little did Abram realize at the time that Sarai was absolutely necessary to the promise. His mistaken actions actually put the promise at risk and YHWH had to bail him out by causing a plague in Egypt that led to Pharaoh expelling Abram and his people.

Choice of Lot

Gen 13 literally returns Abram to where he was before his excursion into Egypt. In 12:8 he pitched his tent in the hill country between Bethel and Ai and then travelled by stages – presumably following the flocks as they grazed – down to the Negeb. When famine hit the region, Abram continue moving on to Egypt. In 13:1-3 this migration is reversed. Abram went up from Egypt to the Negeb and then travelled by stages back to “the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had formerly stood.”

Lot makes his choice (artist unknown)

By this point, the flocks and herds owned by Abram and Lot were too numerous for the land to support and quarrels developed. Instead of remaining together and over-grazing the land, Abram proposes they go their separate ways and thereby utilize the resources of the entire land. As the elder, Abram could have selected the best portion for himself, but instead he allows Lot to choose and Abram will take what remains. Lot chooses the well-watered plain of Jordan and sets out eastward, leaving Abram to settle in the land of Canaan.

As mentioned above, I never saw this passage as all that significant. But biblical scholar Larry Helyer has studied the passage in detail and sees implications in Lot’s choice for his status as Abram’s heir.

Helyer [1] points out that Bethel sits atop the ridge of hills that runs through central Canaan. It also sat between the northern pasturage centered around Shechem and the southern pasturage centered around Hebron and Beesheba. The stories in the Jacob cycle are located on the northern pasturage and those in the Abraham cycle are mostly associated with places set in the southern pasturage.

According to Helyer, Abram is presenting Lot with a choice of northern or southern pasturage. You can visualize the two of them standing on the ridge overlooking the land with Abram saying, “If you prefer the left, I’ll go to the right; if you prefer the right, I’ll go to the left.” If they are facing west, the “left” is the southern pasturage and the “right” is the northern pasturage.

Abram provides a binary choice that would keep the land “in the family”, but Lot thinks outside the box. Lot looks behind them and sees how well-watered is the whole “kikkar of the Jordan”. Usually translated as “plain of the Jordan,” kikkar means something round and flat. It could be referring to a circular oasis, a flat plain, or an area bounded by a loop of the Jordan. Whatever the “Jordan Disk” was, it must have been a sight to behold. The narrator compares it favorably to both YHWH’s garden in Eden and Egypt.

Legal Separation

Lot leaves Abram and heads east, finally pitching his tents near Sodom, one of the cities of the Jordan Disk. The narrator does some foreshadowing here of events in Gen 19, informing us that YHWH has yet to destroy Sodom and the other cities of the Disk because of their great wickedness. The reader would be left to wonder what will befall Lot when his new home is destroyed, but Abram would be unsettled for a completely different reason.

From Abram’s perspective, Lot’s choice meant his heir would be leaving the promised land of Canaan. The Jordan River marks the eastern boundary of Canaan. By choosing to live among the cities of the Disk, on the eastern bank of the Jordan (the Transjordan), Lot has removed himself outside the boundaries of Canaan; he will no longer have a share in the promised land. He won't be inheriting the family business.

YHWH tries to cheer up Abram by confirming (13:14-17) that all the land he can see will indeed be given to his descendants. But the problem still remains that Abram has no descendants of his own. That particular plotline is still unresolved and will continue to work its way through the rest of Abraham’s story.

[1] “Abraham’s Eight Crises,” Bible Review, Vol. 11, No. 5 (October 1995), pp. 20-27, 44.