Genesis 13King James Version
Abram and Lot have grown so wealthy in flocks and herds that the land cannot hold them both. They part ways. Lot chooses the well-watered plain near Sodom. Abram takes the rest. God tells Abram to look in every direction, because all the land he can see will belong to his descendants forever.
Abram returns from Egypt wealthy. He and Lot's herdsmen quarrel over land, so Abram generously offers Lot first choice. Lot looks at the well-watered Jordan plain, sees it is like Eden and Egypt, and chooses it, settling near Sodom. After Lot leaves, God renews the land promise to Abram: everything in every direction. Abram moves to Hebron and builds an altar.
Lot chooses the land that looks best to the eye; Abram defers to Lot and receives a promise larger than any land Lot could have picked.
10: "And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD." The parenthetical 'before the LORD destroyed' is the narrator quietly marking what Lot could not see.
The Jordan Valley around the Dead Sea was fertile and well-irrigated in antiquity. The cities of the plain were real settlements. The area later covered by the southern Dead Sea shows evidence of catastrophic destruction. Lot's choice maps onto real geography that ancient readers would recognize.
Abram, generous and trusting God; Lot, whose choice looks wise and turns out to be dangerous; Sarai is present but unnamed in this chapter.
The separation of Abram and Lot is a geographical and theological fork in the road. The men who descend from Lot, the Moabites and Ammonites, will be neighbors and sometimes enemies of Israel. The chapter establishes that Abram's greatness is tied to trust rather than strategy.
For when someone else got the opportunity you wanted and you let them take it. Abram holds the land loosely and God immediately says: all of it, as far as you can see, is yours.
1And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south.
2And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.
3And he went on his journeys from the south even to Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai;
4Unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first: and there Abram called on the name of the LORD.
5And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents.
6And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together.
7And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land.
8And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren.
9Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.
10And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar.
11Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other.
12Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.
13But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.
14And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward:
15For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.
16And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.
17Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.
18Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the LORD.