Beth-el - Genesis 13

With the Egyptians believing that Sarah is Abraham’s sister, she’s put in the Pharaoh’s harem and “he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels.” It’s a difficult pill for me to swallow that Sarah gets put into a brothel and Abraham gets rich and somehow that’s ok with everyone, but I’m going to look at it from the perspective that Jesus is the ultimately champion of women and accept that I don’t know or understand everything. But there is an interesting result of Sarah being in Pharaoh’s harem and I’ve always wondered how Pharaoh put all of this together because “the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram’s wife.” If I remember correctly the plague is widespread infertility, Pharaoh figures out that this is a curse from God on him because Sarah isn’t actually just Abram’s sister but also his wife. Pharaoh is not pleased and makes it sound like, if only he had known that she was his wife, he wouldn’t have messed with her, which we know isn’t true, he would have just killed her husband, the mental gymnastics here are astonishing. So Pharaoh tells Abram to leave and take his wife and all this wealth that he had accumulated with him and told his men to leave him alone. Abram leaves Egypt “and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south. And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.” Abram makes his camp around Beth-el and makes an altar, but it turns out that not only has Abram done well for himself, but that Lot has too. That’s all well and good, but it turns out that this place that they are camped at can only support so many people and animals, and the guys taking care of Abram’s cattle and the guys taking care of Lot’s cattle started fighting with each other, I assume over good feeding spots and water, etc. Abram didn’t want contention in his group but also knew that the land they were in could not handle both groups, but he offers Lot the choice of any part of the land and says that wherever Lot chooses, Abram will take his people in the opposite direction. It doesn’t seem like there’s much in the way of rigging this, Lot can choose whatever land he thinks is best and then Abram will go somewhere else. Turns out, geographically, “the plain of Jordan” is a super nice place “that it was well watered every where… even as the garden of the Lord.” Naturally Lot chooses this place and he “journeyed east… and pitched his tent toward Sodom,” but turns out that “the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly.” I have a very specific opinion about Sodom and Gomorrah but we will get into that another time. After Lot left, the Lord tells Abram to look at all the land that is left and promises that this land will be given to him and his seed “for ever.” Again, maybe it’s because I don’t feel like anywhere is home or I’m not particularly attached to one single place, being promises land doesn’t seem like that big of a deal for me. But maybe if I lived anciently and struggled to survive because of famine and drought and disease, etc. maybe a place that was overflowing with food, water, and health would be a great blessing, like when people are promised “a land of milk and honey” that they can buy “without money and without price.” It makes sense in that context. Abram is also promised from God “I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that is a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.” Again, this doesn’t really appeal to me, but I’m probably just missing the context. The Lord encourages Abram to explore this newly promised land and Abram ends up moving his tent to Hebron and builds “an altar unto the Lord.” The contrast between Lot’s pitching his tent toward Sodom and Abram’s building of an altar seems like it was mentioned specifically because if Lot’s tent was miles away from the city, the opening of the tent flap would probably have been more functional than significant enough to mention. So it seems like the mention of Lot’s tent direction and the contrast to Abram’s building an altar is purposefully stated to set up a scene coming up later.