The Preacher's Homiletical Commentary

Genesis 13:1-4

CRITICAL NOTES.—

Genesis 13:1. Went up out of Egypt] In the language of the Jew the direction to Jerusalem from every quarter was upwards; besides, Egypt was a low-lying country and the traveller would have to ascend on his way to the hilly country of Canaan.—Into the south] Heb. Towards the south. Not the south of Egypt, but the southern region of Palestine. A certain part of the country was called “the south” before the times of the Patriarchs. The LXX. has εις την ερημον, into the desert; which conveys the same meaning, for Judea was bounded on the south by the desert region of Idumea.—

Genesis 13:3. And he went on his journey] Heb. According to his removings. He proceeded after the manner of a nomad, striking his tent frequently and performing his journey by stations.—Between Bethel and Hai] “Stanley well describes this point as a conspicuous hill, its topmost summit resting on the rocky slopes below, and distinguished by its olive groves, offering a natural base for the altar, and a fitting shade for the tent of the patriarch” (Jacobus)—Called on the name of the Lord] This implies more than an ordinary prayer: he re-established public worship.—

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Genesis 13:1

THE BELIEVER LEARNING FROM HIS GREAT ENEMY

It is an old saying that “It is lawful to learn from an enemy.” We may strive to overcome him, to protect ourselves with all care, and to maintain our cause. Still, he may teach us many lessons. We may refuse to unite with him, but we cannot help being instructed. The world is the great enemy of the believer, and Egypt was to Abram the representative of all worldliness. Abram was faith, Egypt was carnality. The patriarch had sojourned in the world’s kingdom, and had learned those solemn lessons which, as it too often happens, only a bitter experience can teach. He returned a sadder, but a wiser man. By the strength of Divine grace the believer may recover from the effects of the danger to which he had exposed himself by too close an alliance with the world. Even his faults and failings may result in spiritual gain. The lessons of wisdom may be dearly bought, still they are the secured possessions of the soul. The believer who has fallen into the world’s snares, or comes dangerously near to them, learns—

I. That it is not safe to leave the paths marked out by Divine Providence. While Abram dwelt in Canaan, in the land which God had promised to give him, he was in the way of duty and of Providence, and was therefore safe. Calamity drove him to seek refuge in Egypt. He consulted his own safety, leaned to his own understanding, instead of seeking to know what was the Divine will. He ought to have trusted in Providence, and kept within the area of the promise. It is a dangerous experiment to leave the paths of Providence for any advantages the world may offer.

1. While we are in the path of Providence we may expect Divine direction. God honours the law of life which He has laid down for man by protecting and strengthening him while he observes it. There are special promises of grace to a sincere and exact obedience. When the sense of duty is so strong that we are regardless of any worldly consequences to ourselves, God will guide us and find a way to bring us out of the evil. To submit to be ruled absolutely by the will of God is meekness, which is the true conquering principle. They only have the true victory over all that is really evil, who acknowledge God in all their ways.

2. When we leave the paths of Providence we are thrown upon the resources of our own wisdom and strength, and can only expect failure. The world is too powerful and cunning an enemy for the believer to encounter by any might and skill of his own. He who would conquer must not engage in a private expedition on his own charges, but must have all the strength of the kingdom of God lawfully engaged on his side. He must enter the conflict as one of the loyal and obedient hosts of God. The believer, himself redeemed from the world, can never be kept above that world but by the strength of a Divine power. The grace of God is not a sudden impulse which suffices once for all, but a source of perpetual strength. When we cease to receive from that, the power of evil gains upon us and we are in spiritual danger.

3. Every step we take from the paths of Providence only increases the difficulty of returning. Though Abram followed his own will in going down to Egypt, he still retained his hold upon God. His heart was set upon obedience, and he only erred in not waiting for a clear sense of the Divine guidance. Though his fault was not grievous, it brought him into an entanglement with the world from which he could only extricate himself with difficulty. The danger continually increased, and the moral situation to which he had brought himself was perplexing. When once we leave the clear paths of duty which the will of God points out, our moral danger increases, and the difficulty of returning. Moral deviation generates a fearfully increasing distance from the good we have left. Another lesson which the believer may learn from his enemy is—

II. That the friendship of the world involves deep spiritual loss. Abram’s strong faith and firm principle of obedience could not save him from danger when exposed to the influences of the world, during his sojourn in Egypt. The world is an enemy that must be always regarded as such. There must be no pause in our spiritual warfare, no friendly overtures under the protection of a truce. The believer who courts friendship with the world, though he proceeds with much caution and firm purpose of integrity, is sure to suffer spiritual loss. Thus, in the case of Abram—

1. The delicacy of the moral principle was injured. By his prevarication Abram had exposed his wife to danger, and himself to an irreparable loss. He saw that wealth, power, and rank were arrayed against him, and he sought his own safety by a false expediency. The step was then easy to deceit, and to the dangerous verge of absolute falsehood. He had learned this from the world, which had taught him to swerve from his better purpose, to be otherwise than his better self. It is a great calamity when the delicacy of conscience is injured. Fresh sin becomes easier, and even doubtful things deepen into the dark colours of evil. Above all, it is dangerous to depart from truth—to rest our moral being in any degree upon an unreality. The contagion of that which is false rapidly corrupts our whole moral nature.

2. There was actual spiritual loss. When Abram turned aside from the truth and selfishily sought his own ends, the sense of the Divine presence must have been less clear. The faith in Providence to protect and guide him in the time of danger must have been less strong. The fervour of his first dedication to God must have greatly abated. The whole character was weakened. At first he had faith so strong that he could leave all at God’s command and venture upon an unknown and untried journey. He was satisfied with light for one step at a time, and trusted God for the future. Now he refuses to tell the whole truth, to take the consequences, and to trust in God to find the way of deliverance. Any loss of faith, of the clear insight of conscience, of the comforting and supporting sense of the Divine presence, is to be deplored. We cannot indulge in friendship with the world without some injury, and there is the danger of total loss. This is the dark side of the picture, but there is a way of escape. We may, through the grace of God, repair the losses we have sustained. The world teaches us some sad lessons, yet hereby we learn wisdom.

III. That the soul’s safety is best secured by revisiting, in loving memory, the scenes where God was first felt and known. “And he went on his journey from the south, even to Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai” (Genesis 13:3). He returned to the Land of Promise, where he could be assured of God’s protection and His grace. There God had blessed him, there he experienced the first fervours of faith, the first sensations and stirrings of a new life. Thus, when the world has injured our faith or hope in God, or tempted us to evil, our way of return is marked out for us. We have to “do our first works,” and to “remember the years of the right hand of the Most High.” The believer, when his soul has been injured by the world, derives comfort and encouragement from the past—from revisiting the scenes where God was first felt and known.

1. He is aided by remembering the strength and fervour of his early faith and love. When God first appears to the soul, and faith and love are awakened, we feel strong for duty, and all difficulties seem to vanish. Through the impulse of our first devotion we continue for a season loving and serving with an ardent mind. But when we grow cold, or the world has gained an advantage over us in an unguarded hour, we may revive our languishing graces by the thought of what we once were, and still may be, if we return to our first love. The torch of an almost expiring faith and devotion may be rekindled at the altar where we were first consecrated to God. We can thus take our stand upon a fact in our spiritual history, and believe that God is able to repeat his former kindness.

2. Memory may become a means of grace. It is well for us to look backwards, as well as forwards by the anticipations of hope. What God has done for us in the past is a pledge of what He will do in the future, if we continue faithful to His grace. We may use memory to encourage hope. “Because Thou hast been my help; therefore in the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice.” Let us imitate Abram, who returned to the sweet memorial places where he first met God. There we know that we shall have succour and deliverance.

IV. There must be a fresh consecration to God. Abram went at once to Bethel, where at the beginning he had pitched his tent, and built an altar to God. There he “called on the name of the Lord.” This implies a fresh consecration of himself, and points out the method by which we may recover our spiritual loss. Such a fresh consecration is necessary, for there are no other channels of spiritual blessing, but those by which it first flowed to us. There is no new way of restoration. We must come back to Him who first gave us our faith and made reconciliation. This renewed consecration of ourselves to God involves—

1. The acknowledgment of our sin. It was sin that made, at first, our reconciliation with God necessary, and fresh sin renews the obligation to seek His face.

2. The conviction that propitiation is necessary to obtain the favour of God. Repentance for the sinful past is not sufficient; for it often fails to repair the evils that we have brought upon ourselves. There is still a dread behind that we are answerable for our sins to One whom we have offended. Such has been the universal feeling of mankind, who have added sacrifices to their repentance. They have felt that God must be propitiated—that they must seek His favour by some appointed way of mercy. We need an altar and a sacrifice. Some expedient is necessary to restore the alienated heart of man back to God. We confess by offering sacrifice that in strict justice we deserve the penalty, yet that Divine mercy has a way of escape for us so that we may see salvation.

3. The open profession of our faith. “Abram called on the name of the Lord.” He who knows the salvation of God must confess Him before men. The believer cannot live to himself; he must stand forth as an example to others, a witness for God in the world. God can be seen but dimly in His works. He is most of all manifested in His saints. By their possession of truth and righteousness they reflect His intellectual and moral image. It is necessary that God should be represented to the world by good men. To call upon the name of the Lord is to acknowledge our relation to Him, and the duties thence arising; that His benefits demand recognition and praise. When we make an open profession of our faith before men we glorify God, we revive and keep in full vigour the sense of our adoption, and feel that in all our wanderings we are still God’s children and His witnesses in the world.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Genesis 13:1. When the course of God’s Providence opens up a way of escape from the scenes of temptation and trial, our duty is to follow in it.

We are safe only when we leave the land of carnality and dwell in the land of promise.
Unreality and deceit are some of the characteristic marks of the world, and the children of faith do not always escape their infection.
In Egypt the Church—the chosen people—was introduced to the world. Egypt was to Abram, to the Jewish people also, to the whole course of the Old Testament, what the world, with all its interests and pursuits and enjoyments, is to us. But while Egypt, with its pride of wealth and art and power, its temples and pyramids, is almost forgotten, the name of the shepherd patriarch lives. Egypt is a type of the world-kingdom, abounding in wealth and power, offering temptations to a mere carnal sense. But Abram had encountered its worldliness and pride, and had been in danger of losing his personal and domestic peace, and was glad, doubtless, to escape from the land, and yet be once more within the boundaries of the Land of Promise.—(Jacobus.)

Abram’s deliverance from Egypt is a prophecy of the final deliverance of God’s people from this present evil world.
Lot accompanied Abram on his journeys as joined to him by the tie of natural relationship, and it may be also that the association contributed to his prosperity; but the event will tell how he has separate interests and is governed by a prevailing selfishness of nature.

Genesis 13:2. We have an account of the return of Abram from the land of Egypt rich. It has been observed that the blessedness of the Old Testament is prosperity, while that of the New Testament is affliction. Let not men say from this that the law of God is altered; it is we who have altered in conceptions of things. There was a time when men fancied that afflictions were proofs of God’s anger, but the revelation of God in Christ has since manifested to us the blessedness of affliction; for it is the cross that God bestows as His highest reward on all His chosen ones.—(Robertson.)

Riches, if rightly used, do not hinder men from going after God.

Genesis 13:3. The believer cannot find his true rest where God is not enjoyed.

Abram moves to Bethel, where he had known God at the first. Thus the heart obeys the superior attraction. The magnetic needle may be disturbed by some force from its position, but when the constraint is removed it trembles towards the pole. In the midst of all his wanderings the heart of the patriarch pointed true.
Bethel:

1. The scene of the manifestation of God.
2. The birthplace of a new spiritual life.
3. The home of the most precious memories.
4. The earthly counterpart of heaven.

In things spiritual, to come back to our first love is true wisdom.
With his heart set, not upon his earthly possessions but upon his heavenly inheritance, he measured his steps to the place where he might “compass God’s altar,” and renew those delightful experiences which still dwelt upon his memory. It is well known with what exquisite emotions we re-visit, after a long absence, the scenes with which we were familiar in childhood and youth. The sight of the well-remembered places and objects calls up a thousand interesting associations, and our past existence seems for a time to be renewed to us. But to the pious heart how much more delightful and exhilarating is the view of scenes where we have experienced striking instances of providential kindness, where we have received token of the Divine favour, where we have held communion with God, and been refreshed with the manifestations of His love. Bethel was a place thus endeared by association to Abram, and it is only the heart that is a stranger to such feelings that will find any difficulty in accounting for his anxiety to tread again its pleasant precincts, and breathe the air which was shed around it.—(Bush.)

Genesis 13:4. Abram returns to the place of his altar in Bethel. In like manner Christian settlements, towns, and villages, cluster around their churches.—(Lange.)

Tent and altar were now in his mind as he had enjoyed them at first. We remember our sweet home and our sweet church after we have roamed in a land of exile. We yearn to get back to where we have enjoyed the dear circle of our family, and that of our Christian brethren—where we have lived, and where we have worshipped. Because it was Bethel, he loved it, even as the house of God (Psalms 84:1).—(Jacobus.)

Coming to the altar, and calling upon the name of the Lord, regard—I. Public religion.

1. The witness to, and confession of God before men.
2. The missionary element. By such an action Abram was spreading the knowledge of God amongst men. True religion must be aggressive and make war upon the enemy’s camp. The patriarch’s office was to generate faith in others. II. Private religion.
1. Confessions of sin. God cannot be approached directly, but by some way of mediation. This implies that man has sinned, and has no longer access to God except by a way of mercy which God Himself appoints.
2. Supplication for forgiveness. The altar implies that God is offended by the sin of man, and, therefore, His mercy must be sought.
3. The necessity of sacrifice to propitiate the Divine favour. The stroke of justice must fall upon the sinner’s substitute. The life sacrificed upon the altar is accepted instead of that of the suppliant. Our altar is the cross.
4. The revival of the spirit of adoption. Abram had lost that clear sense of the Divine acceptance which he once enjoyed, and now he seeks to recover it by returning to the place where God at a former time met him in mercy.

Every time we come to God, even though we may have to do so in great penitence and humiliation, we renew our strength.
He who first gave us our spiritual life is necessary afterwards to sustain it.
The soul of the believer has its true home in the house of God, where His glory is manifested. By the strength and beauty of the Divine presence he enjoys there his own home, and the whole scene of his life becomes consecrated.
The manner in which “the place of the altar” is mentioned, seems to intimate that he chose to go thither, in preference to another place, on this account. It is very natural that he should do so; for the places where we have called on the name of the Lord, and enjoyed communion with Him, are, by association, endeared to us above all others. There Abram again called on the name of the Lord; and the present exercises of grace, we may suppose, were aided by a remembrance of the past. It is an important rule in choosing our habitations, to have an eye to the place of the altar. If Lot had acted on this principle, he would not have done as is here related of him.—(Fuller.)

ABRAM’S JOURNEY TO THE PLACE OF THE ALTAR

“The steps of a good man,” says the Psalmist, “are ordered by the Lord, and He delighteth in his way.” The truth of this has never been disputed in the Church, and proofs of the regard which God entertains to His devoted children may be derived from all parts of Scripture, which unite to prove that the eye and hand of an overruling Providence have been constantly engaged on their behalf. The history of Abram shows the individual attention which God bestows towards His faithful servants. Their names are held in imperishable memorial, their interests are perpetually consulted, nothing which concerns them is too minute to escape the Divine notice—their birthplace, their journeyings, their crosses, their comforts, their enemies, their friends. The great empires of the world, and the names of their rulers and disturbers, are seldom mentioned but in connection with the Church. Cain’s generation is numbered in haste, but the generations of the godly are carefully recorded. Seth’s posterity are written in a large scroll and more legible hand, with the number of the years in which they lived, which in the case of Cain’s posterity is not noticed. God remembers Noah’s cattle as well as his sons. Jacob’s flocks and herds are distinctly noted; and here all that concerns Abram is deemed worthy of attention—his journeyings, his companions, his possessions, the place where his tent was fixed, the circumstances which led to the erection of his altar, and the fact of his offering his customary devotions. We notice—

I. His love to the Land of Promise, which all the attractions of Egypt could not extinguish or overpower. Egypt was at this time the most important country in the world, the resort of all nations. From the earliest times it was called the world’s great granary, a country so fair and fertile, that the Egyptians boasted that they could feed all men and feast all the gods. It is noticed, too, that Abram was very rich, and had probably great increase of his wealth in Egypt, which was a greater temptation to him to protract his stay. But Egypt, with all her plenty and pleasure, had not stolen away his heart from the Promised Land. Neither had he so laden himself with thick clay, as that he was disinclined to strike his tent and pursue his journey, but he went from strength to strength. All this was done by faith. Let us imitate his great example. In the midst of all we enjoy, remember how much more we have in hope. In the midst of peace, prosperity, honours, and enjoyments, let us still consider that we are pilgrims, and while we thankfully accept the favours showed us in a strange country, let us not forget our better home. A Land of Promise contents Abram; he leaves the possession to his posterity. Abram went up from Egypt, so there should be daily an ascension of our minds to the better country above. Abram took all he had; the Christian is not content to go to Heaven alone. Happy it is to journey to Heaven when accompanied by those we love.

II. His veneration for the place where God first appeared to him. He went on his journey to Bethel. Many a weary step he took till he came to his old altar. He went to sanctify that good he had got in Egypt, to give God thanks for it, and to consecrate it to Him. Enemies may part us and our tents, but not us and our God. The remembrance of the sweet communion and intercourse he had with God at that place was delightful and reviving to his mind. It was there God had appeared to him when he first set his foot in the land of Canaan, and the recollection appears to have been hallowed to him as it was to Jacob in after times. It was his first special time of dedication to God. It was there he built his first altar—there he received his first promise—there he offered his first prayer—there he recorded his first vow. The review of the same was eminently satisfactory and grateful to his mind. Twice it is mentioned, “the place where his tent had been,” “the place of the altar.” There may be in the Journey of life many inviting scenes, many fertile spots, but there is no place like the place of the altar. From this spot nothing that Egypt and the intermediate countries could offer was able to divert Abram. He came back prosperous, but his heart was unchanged. Time is apt to wear out the sense of mercies. Many in their travels leave religion behind them.

III. His concern wherever he was to erect his altar. Wherever we go we must take our religion with us.

1. As a public profession.

2. As keeping up family religion. Wherever he had a tent God had an altar.

ILLUSTRATIONS
BY THE
REV. WM. ADAMSON

Abram and Lot! Genesis 13:1. We have here—I. The Contention, which was

(1) unseemly,
(2) untimely, and
(3) unnecessary. II. The Consolation, which was
(1) unbounded,
(2) undoubted, and
(3) unearthly. Or, we have here—I. The Churlishness of the herdsmen. II. The Selfishness of Lot. III. The Unselfishness of Abram, and IV. The Graciousness of God. Or, we have here—I. The Return of Abram,
(1) forgiven and
(2) favoured. II. The Request of Abram,
(1) forbearing, and
(2) foregoing. III. The Reward of Abram (l) forgetting the earthly and
(2) foreshadowing the heavenly inheritance. The Lesson-Links or Truth-Thoughts are—
1. Wealth means
(1) strife,
(2) sorrow, and
(3) separation.
2. Abram manifests
(1) faith,
(2) forbearance, and
(3) forgetfulness of self.
3. Worldly love means
(1) stupidity,
(2) suffering, and
(3) sinfulness.
4. God manifests
(1) favour,
(2) fulness, and
(3) faithfulness to Abram.

“The pilgrim’s step in vain,

Seeks Eden’s sacred ground!

But in Hope’s heav’nly joys again,

An Eden may be found.”—Bowring.

Returns and Reviews! Genesis 13:1.

(1) The poet has immortalised the Swiss patriot’s sentiments on returning to the Alpine crags and peaks after strange and perilous experiences in exile. The historian has inscribed on the tablet of Church history the devout emotions of Arnaud on his return from danger and exile to the Vaudois Valleys. The litterateur has depicted on the page of his tale the joyful sensations of the emigrant, returning in safety and wealth to the home from which he had gone forth in peril and poverty.

(2) Abram had been driven by famine into the fruitful fields of Egypt, where he had narrowly escaped reaping death as the fruit of his fears and folly. God had in His wise and merciful Providence brought him back again to Hebron. He, therefore, calls on the name of the Lord. He, no doubt, received with thankfulness the Lord’s intimations of mercy as connected with his previous sojourn; and he, doubtless, acknowledged with gratitude God’s loving interposition with Pharaoh in his behalf.
(3) It is well to go back in review of old spots and past experiences in order to call up instrumentally thereby, says Doudney, the gracious acts, interposing goodness, and boundless benefits of our covenant-God in Christ. The light so shining upon the past prompts us to take down our harp from the willows, and to sing—

“His love in times past forbids me to think,
He’ll leave me at last in trouble to sink.”

Flocks and Herds! Genesis 13:2.

(1) In a very old Egyptian tomb near the Pyramids the flocks and herds of the principal occupant are pourtrayed. The numbers of them are told as 800 oxen, 200 cows, 2,000 goats, and 1,000 sheep. Job at first had 7,000 sheep, 500 yoke of oxen, 3,000 camels, etc. We can thus form some idea of the number and magnitude of the patriarchal flocks and herds.
(2) At the present day these are no exaggeration, however startling the figures sound. In an Australian sheep-run one grazier has nearly 20,000 sheep. Not long ago an American sheepowner had as many as 9,000 browsing on the heights of Omaha, so that when a traveller looked forth at daybreak the mountains seemed like waves of the sea. In Zululand the flocks and herds of Cetewayo were immense.

“Abram’s well was fann’d by the breeze,

Whose murmur invited to sleep;

His altar was shaded with trees,

And his hills were white over with sheep.”—Shenstone.

Patriarchal Wealth! Genesis 13:2.

(1) Dr. Russell tells us that the people of Aleppo are supplied with the greater part of their butter, cheese, and flesh by the Arabs, Rushmans, or Turcomans, who travel about the country with their flocks and herds, as the patriarchs did of old. Before America became so thickly peopled, its primitive white patriarchs wandered with flocks over the richly-clothed savannahs and prairies. Having collected vast stores of cheese, honey, skins, etc., they would repair to the townships and dispose of them.

(2) The Hebrew patriarchs no doubt supplied the cities of Canaan in like manner. Hamor, in Genesis 34:21, expressly speaks of the patriarchs thus trading with his princes and people. La Rogue says that in the time of Pliny the riches both of the Parthians and Romans were melted down by the Arabs, who thus amassed large treasures of the precious metals. This probably explains how Abraham was rich, not only in cattle, but in silver and gold. Not that Abram trusted in his riches.

“Oh! give me the riches that fade not, nor fly!
A treasure up yonder! a home in the sky!
Where beautiful things in their beauty still stay,
And where riches ne’er fly from the blessed away.”—Hunter.

Communion! Genesis 13:4.

(1) Watson says, that he knows of no pleasure so rich—no pleasure so hallowing in its influences, and no pleasure so constant in its supply of solace and strength, as that which springs from the true and spiritual worship of God. Pleasant as the cool water brooks are to a thirsty hart, so pleasant is it for the soul to live in communion with God.
(2) Rutherford wrote to his friend from the prison of Aberdeen, “The king dineth with his prisoners, and his spikenard casteth a smell; he hath led me to such a pitch and degree of joyful communion with himself as I never before knew.” This reminds us of Trapp’s quaint speech, that a good Christian is ever praying or praising: he drives a constant trade betwixt earth and heaven.
(3) Abram built his altar while the Canaanites looked on. He lifted up a testimony for God, and God honoured him; so that Abimelech was constrained to say, “God is with thee in all that thou doest.” Reader, in Greenland, the salutation of a visitor, when the door is opened, is this, “Is God in this house?” Remember that the home which has no family altar has no Divine delight.
“’Tis that which makes my treasure,

’Tis that which brings my gain;

Converting woe to pleasure,

And reaping joy for pain.”—Guyon.