The Separation of Abram and Lot - Abram at Hebron - Sodom plundered - Lot rescued - The fleeting with

Melchizedek (GENESIS 13, 14)

HITHERTO Abram had been accompanied by Lot in all his wanderings. But a separation must take place

between them also. For Abram and his seed were to be kept quite distinct from all other races, so that the

eye of faith might in future ages be fixed upon the father of the faithful, as on him from whom the promised

Messiah was to spring. Like so many of God's most marked interpositions, this also was brought about by

what seemed a series of natural circumstances, and probably Abram himself was ignorant of the Divine

purpose in what at the time must have been no small trial to him. The increase of their wealth, and especially

of their herds and flocks in Egypt, led to disputes between the herdsmen of Abram and of Lot, which were

the more painful that, as the Bible notes, "the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land," and must

have been witnesses to this "strife" between "brethren." To avoid all occasion of it, Abram now proposed a

voluntary separation, allowing Lot, though he was the younger and the inferior, the choice of district - and

this not merely from generosity, but in faith, leaving it to the Lord to determine the bounds of his habitation.

As the two stood on that highest ridge between Bethel and Ai, the prospect before them was indeed

unrivaled. Looking back northwards, the eye would rest on the mountains which divide Samaria from

Judaea; westwards and southwards, it would range over the later possession of Benjamin and Judah, till in

the far distance it descried the slope on which Hebron lay. But the fairest vision was eastward: in the

extreme distance, the dark mountains of Moab; at their foot, the Jordan, winding through a valley of untold

fertility; and in the immediate foreground, the range of hills above Jericho. As the patriarchs gazed upon it,

the whole cleft of the Jordan valley was rich with the most luxuriant tropical vegetation, the sweetest spot of

all being around the Lake of Sodom, at that time probably a sweetwater lake, the "circuit" of the plain

resembling in appearance, but far exceeding in fertility and beauty, the district around the Sea of Galilee. In

this "round" of Jordan, and by the waters of Sodom, rich cities had sprung up, which, alas! were also the

seat of the most terrible corruption. As Lot saw this "round" or district, fair like Paradise, green with

perennial verdure, like the part of Egypt watered by the Nile, his heart went out after it, unmindful of, or not

caring to inquire into, the character of its inhabitants. The scene might well have won the heart of any one

whose affections were set on things beneath. Lot's heart was so set; and he now vindicated by his choice

the propriety of his being separated from Abram. Assuredly their aims went asunder, as the ways which

they took. Yet, even thus, God watched over Lot, and left him not to reap the bitter fruit of his own choice.

Nor was Abram left in that hour without consolation. As most he needed it when alone, and with apparently

nothing but the comparatively barren hills of Judaea before him, Jehovah once more renewed to him, and

enlarged the promise of the land, far as his eye could range, bestowing it upon Abram and his "seed for

ever." For the terms of this promise were not made void by the seventy years which Judah spent in the

captivity of Babylon, nor yet are they annulled by the eighteen centuries of Israel's present unbelief and

dispersion. The promise of the land is to Abram's "seed for ever." The land and the people God has joined

together; and though now the one lies desolate, like a dead body, and the other wanders unresting, as it

were a disembodied spirit, God will again bring them to each other in the days when His promise shall be

finally established. So Abram must have understood the word of Jehovah. And when, so to speak, he now

took possession by faith of the promised land, he was directed to walk through it. In the course of these

wanderings he reached Hebron, one of the most ancient cities of the world, where in the wood of one,

Mamre, he pitched his tent under a spreading terebinth, and built an altar unto Jehovah. This place seems

through the rest of his life to have continued one of the centers of his movements.

Meanwhile Lot had taken up his abode in a district which, like the rest of Canaan at the time of Joshua's

conquest, was subdivided among a number of small kings, each probably ruling over a city and the

immediately surrounding neighborhood. For twelve years had this whole district been tributary to