Wednesday Bible Study: Abraham plank by plank Part VI

 

I wanted to get you up a map of what MAY BE the Sodom-Gomorrah situation a while before we get there, so you can have a handle on the area involved- but I don't want to get there just yet.  My story of Abram has rolled into Genesis 13, but the building of Abraham has rolled to- ME.

You see, I have seen much of my life in Abram's journey.  Starting in the "Ur of the Chaldees" of not really knowing Jesus, to being called but stuck in the family/friends/circumstances of Haran; then to just enough obedience for God to show me where I SHOULD be, but moving with the worldly into Egypt.  In Egypt, I gathered great treasure (my children), but wasn't where I belonged.  Finally, my son, my ten-year-old "Pharaoh", chastised me for the way I was living, and I made it back to a still incomplete obedience in "Bethel" (So if you look at the upper left of the inset, you can find Bethel and stick a "You Are Here" there for me).  

And this is the point we find Abram.  Chapter 13 of Genesis gives us 4 important parts of the Abram story.  The first one, you may remember from last time:

Gen 13:2  Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold. 

Gen 13:3  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, 

Gen 13:4  to the place where he had made an altar at the first. And there Abram called upon the name of the LORD. 

So you see that little dotted loop south of Bethel, and Bethel is in one corner of it and Ai was in the other.  And this was where he was AT THE BEGINNING, when God told him, "This is it."  This was, I believe, an act of repentance by Abram for Egypt, and he 'called upon the name of the Lord.'  He had had enough of listening to himself, and was ready to obey- just like me when little KC asked me basically whether I had a "church life" and a "real life".  Part of that obedience, it seems, became what to do with the rest of his "family baggage"- Lot.  They had huge herds by now- and what with competing with the "Canaanites"- descendants of Noah's son Ham through his son Canaan- and the "Perizzites", who seem to be an unrelated group, perhaps from Japheth's descendants-, it was a bit crowded.  Abram, for all intents Lot's father, could have ordered him back to Haran, back into the Negev, anywhere.  After all, God had already told Abram all the land would be his.  But Abram had learned a thing or two about humility, and putting others above himself.  And so...

Gen 13:8  Then Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we are kinsmen. 

Gen 13:9  Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.” 

Now if you look again at the map, the layout wasn't quite what it is now.  Lot looked at the well watered Jordan Valley, "In the direction of Zoar."  It looks to me that "the Jordan Valley" included much of what would soon be under the salt waters of the Dead Sea, but at this point (maybe) the Jordan still came out the other side and watered the area where the Cities of the Plain- Sodom, Gomorrah, Zoar, Admah, and Zeboiim- lay.  Zoar was at the southern end of this valley, and on the far side of the Dead Sea from where Abram was.

Gen 13:12  Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom. 

Gen 13:13  Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the LORD. 

This was kind of a teaser- we would get back to this story in a while.  The important things to glean here were 1) Abram was moving in a direction that the Lord wanted- and 2) Lot, without Abram's newfound discernment, and going from the example that the "Old Abram" gave him in Egypt, had no qualms dwelling among  people less righteous than himself -as Peter tells us in his 2nd letter:

2Pe 2:7  ...and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 

2Pe 2:8  (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard)...

The third important happening was that, now that he and God were back on "speaking terms", God had something more to tell him:

 Gen 13:14  The LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, 

Gen 13:15  for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. 

Gen 13:16  I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. 

Gen 13:17  Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.”

Note here, that the point, "after Lot had separated from him", is stressed.  God was not going to further elucidate his plan with the "family baggage" still there.  Bethel, in the north of what would one day be called Judea, was going to be the 'center' of the land God was going to give him.  Note also, that how a man in his 80's by now, and a woman in her 70's, were going to make "Offspring as the dust of the earth" wasn't yet discussed.  As Abram's obedience increased, so too the knowledge and wisdom God would give him.  In addition to building Abraham's character, He was also building his understanding.

Which is why I say, "I am here".  But just as He is not done with me, He's not done with Abram.  And there was one more move to this section of the story...

Gen 13:18  So Abram moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron, and there he built an altar to the LORD. 

Hebron, about halfway between Bethel and Zoar, was a town of some note.  In Numbers, we get these tidbits about Hebron:  

Num 13:22  They went up into the Negeb and came to Hebron. Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, were there. (Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.) 

And this is not as meaningless as it looks.  That Zoan, built seven years afterwards, was the major provincial capital, Tanis, in Egypt some 600 years later- which attests to how ancient Hebron was.  In fact, some rabbinical tales say that Ham built this for his son Canaan, and then built Zoan in Egypt for his son Mizraim (the ancestor of Egypt).  And that Anak- he was the father of the Giants.  So while Lot dwelt in the bosom of Sodom, Abram lived in the shadow of giants...