Abram, Lot, and the Meek Who Inherit the Earth (Genesis 13)

Back to the altar first

Abram went back to the altar near Bethel where he last called on the name of the LORD, because in Egypt he had drifted from God's word and now he wanted to stand under it again. He came up out of Egypt loaded with livestock, silver and gold (Genesis 13:2), and he did not stop to enjoy it. He travelled north until he reached "the site where he had built the altar. And there Abram called on the name of the LORD" (Genesis 13:4). The phrase is qara (H7121), to call, on the shem (H8034), the name, of the LORD, the same act he had performed on the way into the land (Genesis 12:8) and the same act that went missing the whole time he was in Egypt. Down there had been no altar, no calling, no promise from God, only a frightened man managing his own survival. Here the practice returned. To call on the name is to speak God aloud as the one you answer to, to put yourself back under the word you drifted from. Abram's repentance was a set of footsteps back to the place he last heard from God.

Too rich to stay together

Prosperity, oddly, was the problem. Both Abram and Lot had grown so rich in flocks and herds that "the land was unable to support both of them" (Genesis 13:6). The verb for support is nasa (H5375), to lift or carry or bear; the land could not carry the weight of the two of them together. So "there was discord between the herdsmen of Abram and the herdsmen of Lot" (Genesis 13:7), the word riv (H7379), strife, a courtroom-flavoured term for a dispute that can harden into a feud. And Genesis records a warning in the same verse: "the Canaanites and the Perizzites were also living in the land" (Genesis 13:7). The watching neighbours made the family's infighting a testimony problem, not only a logistics one.

Abram gives Lot first choice

Abram gave Lot first choice because God had already promised him this whole land, so he had nothing to win by choosing first. By every custom of the age the older man, and the one holding the promise, picked first. Abram did the opposite. "Please let there be no contention between you and me, or between your herdsmen and my herdsmen. After all, we are kinsmen" (Genesis 13:8), he said, using ach (H251), brother; the tie of blood outranked the grazing rights. Then he opened his hand: "If you go to the left, I will go to the right; if you go to the right, I will go to the left" (Genesis 13:9). The word for their parting is parad (H6504), to separate or divide. Abram could afford to divide the land and take whatever was left because his portion was never his to secure; God had already promised this whole land to his offspring (Genesis 12:7). A man standing on a promise from God does not need to win the negotiation. He already knows what he will inherit.

Lot chooses by sight

Lot saw rich, well-watered land, and it ruined him because he chose by sight alone, with no promise from God, and his choice set him down beside Sodom. He decided the opposite way from Abram, by his eyes. He "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" (Genesis 13:10). In the Hebrew, Lot lifted up his eyes, nasa (H5375) again, the same verb Genesis used a moment earlier to say the land could not bear them both. The land could not carry the two of them, so Lot raised his gaze and helped himself to the richest part of it. He chose, bachar (H977), the whole plain for himself (Genesis 13:11). Notice what his eyes reached for: land like the garden of the LORD, the gan (H1588), garden, and like the land of Egypt. He measured his future by an Eden he never saw and by the Egypt Abram had just fled. He walked by sight, with no promise from God anywhere in the calculation, and it led him into a trap: he "pitched his tent toward Sodom" (Genesis 13:12), and "the men of Sodom were wicked, sinning greatly against the LORD" (Genesis 13:13). Genesis uses two loaded words at the end of the passage, ra (H7451), evil, and chatta (H2400), sinners. Lot's eyes found the richest soil on the map and set him down at the gate of the city God was about to burn.

Free to let go

God honours the one who trusts His word enough to let go, as Abram did. Lot grasped the visible best and lost everything he moved toward; Abram released his claim and kept the promise whole. Centuries later Jesus named Abram's exact posture a blessing: "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth" (Matthew 5:5), praus (G4239), gentle, the strength that has nothing to prove and nothing to seize. Abram was meek in that sense, and God answered by giving him the very land he had just let Lot pick over, all of it, forever (Genesis 13:14-15). The same pattern continues in Christ, the truly meek one, who let go of His rights, took the lowest place, and was given the name above every name and the nations as His inheritance. To know the God who speaks is to trust His word enough to open your hands. The man who returned to the altar, called on the name, and let his brother choose first was the man who ended up holding the land. Walk back to what God has said, and hold it more tightly than you hold your grip on what your eyes can see.