Painting: “Abraham and Lot Divide The Land,” by Claes Corneliszoon Moeyaert (1592-1655)
The Departure Of Lot (Genesis 13:5-18)
In this section of Genesis, Abraham has come into the Promised Land, but a famine has caused him to go down into Egypt. You may remember how, because of Abraham’s deception, his wife Sarah was taken into the Pharaoh’s harem. Abraham ended up being embarrassed and rebuked by the Pharaoh.
As we begin Genesis 13, Abraham returns back into the land of Canaan together with Sarah and his nephew Lot. You will remember that Lot had come with Abraham when Abraham entered the Land of Canaan.
Now, during all this time, God had been blessing Abraham even though Abraham had only partially obeyed God. His partial obedience was actually disobedience, of course, but God was merciful to him. That’s another message altogether, but while Abraham was learning to obey, God was patient with him.
Abraham was supposed to leave his ancestral city of Ur of the Chaldees, but he disobeyed by first going to Haran with his family. Abraham didn’t fully obey until his father died, and only then did he leave for the Land of Canaan.
* He was also supposed to leave behind his kindred, but he took Lot with him.
* He also took all the people and possessions he had obtained, and so he took a lot of baggage into his inheritance, everything he had accumulated during his season of disobedience.
* So, those were three points of partial obedience.
5 Lot also, who went with Abram, had flocks and herds and tents. 6 Now the land was not able to support them, that they might dwell together, for their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together. 7 And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. The Canaanites and the Perizzites then dwelt in the land.
8 So Abram said to Lot, “Please let there be no strife between you and me, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen; for we are brethren. 9 Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me. If you take the left, then I will go to the right; or, if you go to the right, then I will go to the left.”
10 And Lot lifted his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere (before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah) like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt as you go toward Zoar. 11 Then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east. And they separated from each other. 12 Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom. 13 But the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the LORD.
14 And the LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: “Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are—northward, southward, eastward, and westward; 15 for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever. 16 And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered. 17 Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you.”
18 Then Abram moved his tent, and went and dwelt by the terebinth trees of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and built an altar there to the LORD.
So, we find that even though the land was fertile, Abraham and Lot had been so blessed that they were crowding each other and competing for resources.
We also see that Abraham is generous. He is willing to give Lot anything he wants, and he gives him the choice of the best land. Bear in mind that Lot wasn’t even supposed to be there. I wonder if Abraham thought Lot was part of the fulfillment of God’s promise concerning descendants. Whatever the case, Lot leaves, and he goes away, going as far as the outskirts of Sodom.
More Revelation
What's interesting to me, aside from Abraham’s generosity, is the greater revelation that now comes to him. As soon as Lot has been removed from him, there is fresh revelation from God. He had revelation before, but now God gives more. God gives him a greater understanding of his inheritance. Why is this, and how do we know? It’s because Abraham now receives a commission to walk in that inheritance, to explore it, and to make his presence known and felt in the land.
We’ve all heard many times that names are of great significance in Hebrew. It’s certainly something of tremendous significance here, in my opinion, and nobody who speaks Hebrew would have missed the fact that Lot’s name is very unusual. His name is also important to the story. The name of Lot actually means a veil or a covering.
Now, we live 4,000 years down the road, so we have no idea why Lot was given this name. I can only speculate that he was born with a veil over his face. Perhaps you’ve heard that some children are born with a membrane called a veil over their faces. This is something that’s totally harmless, and it’s easily removed at birth. It’s quite rare, and just about one out of about every 80,000 children is born with it. My suspicion is that this is why Lot was given this name, because he was born with that unusual membrane or veil across his face.
Of course, God uses things like that to highlight spiritual lessons for us. For Abraham, having a Lot with him, having all that excess baggage in his life because of partial obedience, was like having a veil over his eyes. It kept him from seeing further into the purposes of God for his life.
Notice in verse 14 that Moses emphasizes the removal of Lot, the lifting of the veil. Moses says: And the LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: “Lift your eyes now and look...” That’s very powerful, and it’s not at all coincidental. If we were reading it in Hebrew it would be a easily recognizable play on words.
Christians often say that disobedience hinders us, but we don’t always think about how it hinders us. It’s not necessarily because God is angry at us and opposes us. Being cut off from God’s Voice and His revelation for our lives could be one of the main ways that disobedience hinders our progress. When we hold onto the veil of the old life, the covering of partial disobedience, and make accommodations for it, we are unable to see what God has for us. The result? We can’t see what our next steps are supposed to be.
As soon as Lot was removed, Abraham began to see better. He also received permission to start walking around and exploring more of what God had always intended to give to him as an inheritance.
A little while later, Lot was captured, and I think that knowing a little bit about his inheritance enabled Abraham to rescue his nephew. The kings of Mesopotamia had taken Lot captive, and Abraham chased them all the way past Damascus. How did he do that? Probably because he had recently become more familiar with the Land of Canaan. He was able to develop strategies to fight in places that until recently he had only just heard of. There are a lot of obvious applications there for us in terms of spiritual warfare. Obedience will give us greater vision and greater permission from God to explore our inheritance, and that in turn will enable us to rescue more people who are in trouble.
Sometimes we get frustrated because we don’t make quicker progress. We may not even realize that some point of disobedience in our lives is blinding us, and crippling us. This is why we need to stay in the Word of God, and stay in the place of prayer. The closer we draw to the Lord in love and obedience, the more we’ll be able to see his help, and the inheritance we have in Him – what He has made available to us.
By contrast, the worldly thinking of Lot, having his lack of vision, will cause people to move to the plain of Jordan, where it all looks very easy. Like Lot, people can head back east, away from the altars of God. They move in the direction of Sodom like Lot did. Actually, Lot is taken captive in Chapter 14 because he soon ended up living in Sodom.
Worldly-thinking people like Lot also separate themselves from people who are hungry for God, people God has blessed. Of course, Abraham did tell him to go, but notice that Lot didn’t have the spirit of Ruth. Lot didn’t have the spirit of Ruth to say, “Do not ever urge me to go, nor desert your side and leave you.” He didn’t hunger for the things of God or the people of God more than he hungered for wealth and the appearance of prosperity that the plain of Jordan represented to his veiled eyes.
Friends, we need to have God remove our Lots, remove our veils. This is why Paul, in his marvelous Ephesians 1 prayer, doesn’t pray for us to have spiritual blessings in heavenly places, because we already do have them. Instead, he prays that we would know that we have them, and he prays that we would experience them.
Coming to the Lord with a desire to be set free from everything that hinders our love and obedience is a key step for our growth.
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