the Week of Christ the King / Proper 29 / Ordinary 34
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Genesis 13:3
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And he journeyed on from the Negeb as far as Bethel to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,
And he went on his journeys from the South even to Beth-el, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beth-el and Ai,
He left southern Canaan and went back to Bethel where he had camped before, between Bethel and Ai,
And he journeyed from place to place from the Negev as far as Bethel. He returned to the place where he had pitched his tent at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai.
And he went on his journeys from the south even to Beth-el, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beth-el and Hai;
He went on his journeys from the South even to Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,
And he turnede ayen bi the weye in which he cam fro the south in to Bethel, `til to the place, in which bifore he hadde sett tabernacle, bitwixe Bethel and Hay,
And he goeth on his journeyings from the south, even unto Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the commencement, between Bethel and Hai --
From the Negev he journeyed from place to place toward Bethel, until he came to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had formerly been pitched,
Abram moved from place to place in the Southern Desert. And finally, he went north and set up his tents between Bethel and Ai,
As he went on his travels from the Negev, he came to Beit-El, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beit-El and ‘Ai,
And he went on his journeys from the South even to Beth-el, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beth-el and Ai,
And travelling on from the South, he came to Beth-el, to the place where his tent had been before, between Beth-el and Ai;
And he went foorth on his iourney, from the south towarde Bethel, vnto the place where his tent had ben at the begynnyng, betwene Bethel and Hai:
And he went on his journeys from the south as far as Bethel; as far as the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai;
Abram continued traveling around. He left the Negev and went back to Bethel. He went to the place between the city of Bethel and Ai, where he and his family had camped before.
And he went on his journeys from the South even to Beth-el, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beth-el and Ai;
And hee went on his iourneyes from the South, euen to Beth-el, vnto the place where his tent had bene at the beginning, betweene Beth-el and Hai:
And 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;
He traveled from the Negev as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,
He journeyed on by stages from the Negeb as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,
And he went his way, by his removals, from the South even as far as to Bethel, - as far as the place where his tent was at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai:
And he went on his iourney from ye South toward Beth-el, to the place where his tent had bene at ye beginning, betweene Beth-el & Haai,
And he went on his journey from the south as far as Beth-el, to the place where he had pitched his tent at first, between Beth-el and Ai;
Then he left there and moved from place to place, going toward Bethel. He reached the place between Bethel and Ai where he had camped before
And he returned by the way, that he came, from the south to Bethel, to the place where before he had pitched his tent between Bethel and Hai,
And he journeyed on from the Negeb as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,
And he went to the place whence he came, into the wilderness as far as Baethel, as far as the place where his tent was before, between Baethel and Aggai,
And he went on his journeys from the South even to Beth-el, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beth-el and Ai;
He went by stages from the Negev to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had formerly been,
He went on his journeys from the South even to Beit-El, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beit-El and `Ai,
And he went according to his journey from the Negev, then to Bethel, to the place where his tent was at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,
And he went on his journeys from the south, even to Bethel, to the place where his tent had been there at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,
And he wente on forth from the south vnto Bethel, vnto the place where his tent was at ye first, betwene Bethel and Ay:
He moved on from the Negev, camping along the way, to Bethel, the place he had first set up his tent between Bethel and Ai and built his first altar. Abram prayed there to God .
And he went on his journeys from the Negev as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,
And he went on his journey from the South as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,
From the Negev, they continued traveling by stages toward Bethel, and they pitched their tents between Bethel and Ai, where they had camped before.
He went on his journeys from the Negev as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,
And he went on his journeys from the Negev as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,
Contextual Overview
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
from: Genesis 12:6, Genesis 12:8, Genesis 12:9
Bethel and Hai: i.e., The place which was afterwards called Bethel by Jacob, and so called when Moses wrote; for its first name was Luz - Genesis 28:19.
Reciprocal: Genesis 13:1 - the south Genesis 35:1 - Bethel Leviticus 13:3 - deeper Hebrews 11:9 - dwelling
Cross-References
Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the [great] terebinth (oak) tree of Moreh. Now the Canaanites were in the land at that time.
So Abram said to Lot, "Please let there be no strife and disagreement between you and me, nor between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, because we are relatives.
"Is not the entire land before you? Please separate [yourself] from me. If you take the left, then I will go to the right; or if you choose the right, then I will go to the left."
Gill's Notes on the Bible
And he went on in his journeys from the south,.... He took the same tour, went the same road, stopping at the same resting places, as when he went down to Egypt; having learned, as Jarchi observes, the way of the earth, that a man should not change his host. Though some, as Ben Gersom, understand it of his taking his journeys as were suitable for his cattle, as they were able to bear them, and not overdrive them, lest he should kill them, but made short stages, and frequently stopped and rested. And thus he went on through the southern part of the land, until he came
even to Bethel; as it was afterwards called, though now Luz,
Genesis 28:19
unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning; when he first came into the land of Canaan, to a mountain
between Bethel and Hai; afterwards called Mount Ephraim, and was four miles from Jerusalem on the north t; see Genesis 12:8.
t Bunting's Travels, &c. p. 59.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
- Abram and Lot Separate
7. פרזי perı̂zı̂y, Perizzi, “descendant of Paraz.” פרז pārāz, “leader,” or inhabitant of the plain or open country.
10. ככר kı̂kar, “circle, border, vale, cake, talent;” related: “bow, bend, go round, dance.” ירדן yardēn, Jardan, “descending.” Usually with the article in prose. צער tso‛ar, Tso‘ar, “smallness.”
18. ממרא mamrē', Mamre, “fat, strong, ruler.” חברון chebrôn, Chebron, “conjunction, confederacy.”
Lot has been hitherto kept in association with Abram by the ties of kinmanship. But it becomes gradually manifest that he has an independent interest, and is no longer disposed to follow the fortunes of the chosen of God. In the natural course of things, this under-feeling comes to the surface. Their serfs come into collision; and as Abram makes no claim of authority over Lot, he offers him the choice of a dwelling-place in the land. This issues in a peaceable separation, in which Abram appears to great advantage. The chosen of the Lord is now in the course of providence isolated from all associations of kindred. He stands alone, in a strange land. He again obeys the summons to survey the land promised to him and his seed in perpetuity.
Genesis 13:1-4
Went up out of Mizraim. - Egypt is a low-lying valley, out of which the traveler ascends into Arabia Petraea and the hill-country of Kenaan. Abram returns, a wiser and a better man. When called to leave his native land, he had immediately obeyed. Such obedience evinced the existence of the new power of godliness in his breast. But he gets beyond the land of promise into a land of carnality, and out of the way of truth into a way of deceit. Such a course betrays the struggle between moral good and evil which has begun within him. This discovery humbles and vexes him. Self-condemnation and repentance are at work within him. We do not know that all these feelings rise into consciousness, but we have no doubt that their result, in a subdued, sobered, chastened spirit, is here, and will soon manifest itself.
And Lot with him. - Lot accompanied him into Egypt, because he comes with him out of it. The south is so called in respect, not to Egypt, but to the land of promise. It acquired this title before the times of the patriarch, among the Hebrew-speaking tribes inhabiting it. The great riches of Abram consist in cattle and the precious metals. The former is the chief form of wealth in the East. Abram’s flocks are mentioned in preparation for the following occurrence. He advances north to the place between Bethel and Ai, and perhaps still further, according to Genesis 13:4, to the place of Shekem, where he built the first altar in the land. He now calls on the name of the Lord. The process of contrition in a new heart, has come to its right issue in confession and supplication. The sense of acceptance with God, which he had before experienced in these places of meeting with God, he has now recovered. The spirit of adoption, therefore, speaks within him.
Genesis 13:5-7
The collision. Lot now also abounded in the wealth of the East. The two opulent sheiks (elders, heads of houses) cannot dwell together anymore. Their serfs come to strife. The carnal temper comes out among their dependents. Such disputes were unavoidable in the circumstances. Neither party had any title to the land. Landed property was not yet clearly defined or secured by law. The land therefore was in common - wherever anybody availed himself of the best spot for grazing that he could find unoccupied. We can easily understand what facilities and temptations this would offer for the strong to overbear the weak. We meet with many incidental notices of such oppression Genesis 21:25; Genesis 26:15-22; Exodus 2:16-19. The folly and impropriety of quarreling among kinsmen about pasture grounds on the present occasion is enhanced by the circumstance that Abram and Lot are mere strangers among the Kenaanites and the Perizzites, the settled occupants of the country.
Custom had no doubt already given the possessor a prior claim. Abram and Lot were there merely on sufferance, because the country was thinly populated, and many fertile spots were still unoccupied. The Perizzite is generally associated with, and invariably distinguished from, the Kenaanite Genesis 15:20; Genesis 34:30; Exodus 3:8, Exodus 3:17. This tribe is not found among the descendants of Kenaan in the table of nations. They stand side by side with them, and seem therefore not to be a subject, but an independent race. They may have been a Shemite clan, roaming over the land before the arrival of the Hamites. They seem to have been by name and custom rather wanderers or nomads than dwellers in the plain or in the villages. They dwelt in the mountains of Judah and Ephraim Judges 1:4; Joshua 17:15. They are noticed even so late as in the time of Ezra Ezra 9:1. The presence of two powerful tribes, independent of each other, was favorable to the quiet and peaceful residence of Abram and Lot, but not certainly to their living at feud with each other.
Genesis 13:8-9
The strife among the underlings does not alienate their masters. Abram appeals to the obligations of brotherhood. He proposes to obviate any further difference by yielding to Lot the choice of all the land. The heavenly principle of forbearance evidently holds the supremacy in Abram’s breast. He walks in the moral atmosphere of the sermon on the mount Matthew 5:28-42.
Genesis 13:10-13
Lot accepts the offer of his noble-hearted kinsman. He cannot do otherwise, as he is the companion, while his uncle is the principal. He willingly concedes to Abram his present position, and, after a lingering attendance on his kinsman, retires to take the ground of self-dependence. Outward and earthly motives prevail with him in the selection of his new abode. He is charmed by the well-watered lowlands bordering on the Jordan and its affluents. He is here less liable to a periodical famine, and he roams with his serfs and herds in the direction of Sodom. This town and Amorah (Gomorrah), were still flourishing at the time of Lot’s arrival. The country in which they stood was of extraordinary beauty and fertility. The River Jordan, one of the sources of which is at Panium, after flowing through the waters of Merom, or the lake Semechonitis (Huleh), falls into the Sea of Galilee or Kinnereth, which is six hundred and fifty-three feet below the level of the Mediterranean, and thence descends into the basin of the Salt Sea, which is now thirteen hundred and sixteen feet beneath the same level, by a winding course of about two hundred miles, over twenty-seven threatening rapids.
This river may well be called the Descender. We do not know on what part of the border of Jordan Lot looked down from the heights about Shekem or Ai, as the country underwent a great change at a later period. But its appearance was then so attractive as to bear comparison with the garden of the Lord and the land of Egypt. The garden of Eden still dwelt in the recollections of men. The fertility of Egypt had been recently witnessed by the two kinsmen. It was a valley fertilized by the overflowing of the Nile, as this valley was by the Jordan and its tributary streams. “As thou goest unto Zoar.” The origin of this name is given in Genesis 19:20-22. It lay probably to the south of the Salt Sea, in the wady Kerak. “And Lot journeyed east” מקדם mı̂qedem. From the hill-country of Shekem or Ai the Jordan lay to the east.
Genesis 13:12
The men of Sodom were wicked. - The higher blessing of good society, then, was missing in the choice of Lot. It is probable he was a single man when he parted from Abram, and therefore that he married a woman of Sodom. He has in that case fallen into the snare of matching, or, at all events, mingling with the ungodly. This was the damning sin of the antediluvians Genesis 6:1-7. “Sinners before the Lord exceedingly.” Their country was as the garden of the Lord. But the beauty of the landscape and the superabundance of the luxuries it afforded, did not abate the sinful disposition of the inhabitants. Their moral corruption only broke forth into greater vileness of lust, and more daring defiance of heaven. They sinned “exceedingly and before the Lord.” Lot had fallen into the very vortex of vice and blasphemy.
Genesis 13:14-18
The man chosen of God now stands alone. He has evinced an humble and self-renouncing spirit. This presents a suitable occasion for the Lord to draw near and speak to His servant. His works are re-assuring. The Lord was not yet done with showing him the land. He therefore calls upon him to look northward and southward and eastward and westward. He then promises again to give all the land which he saw, as far as his eye could reach, to him and to his seed forever. Abram is here regarded as the head of a chosen seed, and hence, the bestowment of this fair territory on the race is an actual grant of it to the head of the race. The term “forever,” for a perpetual possession, means as long as the order of things to which it belongs lasts. The holder of a promise has his duties to perform, and the neglect of these really cancels the obligation to perpetuate the covenant. This is a plain point of equity between parties to a covenant, and regulates all that depends on the personal acts of the covenanter. Thirdly, He announces that He will make his seed “as the dust of the earth.” This multitude of seed, even when we take the ordinary sense which the form of expression bears in popular use, far transcends the productive powers of the promised land in its utmost extent. Yet to Abram, who was accustomed to the petty tribes that then roved over the pastures of Mesopotamia and Palestine, this disproportion would not be apparent. A people who should fill the land of Canaan, would seem to him innumerable. But we see that the promise begins already to enlarge itself beyond the bounds of the natural seed of Abram. He is again enjoined to walk over his inheritance, and contemplate it in all its length and breadth, with the reiterated assurance that it will be his.
Genesis 13:18
Abram obeys the voice of heaven. He moves his tent from the northern station, where he had parted with Lot, and encamps by the oaks of Mamre, an Amorite sheik. He loves the open country, as he is a stranger, and deals in flocks and herds. The oaks, otherwise rendered by Onkelos and the Vulgate “plains of Mamre,” are said to be in Hebron, a place and town about twenty miles south of Jerusalem, on the way to Beersheba. It is a town of great antiquity, having been built seven years before Zoan (Tanis) in Egypt Numbers 13:22. It was sometimes called Mamre in Abram’s time, from his confederate of that name. It was also named Kiriath Arba, the city of Arba, a great man among the Anakim Joshua 15:13-14. But upon being taken by Kaleb it recovered the name of Hebron. It is now el-Khulil (the friend, that is, of God; a designation of Abram). The variety of name indicates variety of masters; first, a Shemite it may be, then the Amorites, then the Hittites Genesis 23:0, then the Anakim, then Judah, and lastly the Muslims.
A third altar is here built by Abram. His wandering course requires a varying place of worship. It is the Omnipresent One whom he adores. The previous visits of the Lord had completed the restoration of his inward peace, security, and liberty of access to God, which had been disturbed by his descent to Egypt, and the temptation that had overcome him there. He feels himself again at peace with God, and his fortitude is renewed. He grows in spiritual knowledge and practice under the great Teacher.
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse Genesis 13:3. Beth-el — See chap. Genesis 8:0.
