Genesis 13:10

And Lot lifted up his eyes The spot near Bethel, from which the view described in this verse can be obtained, is easily identified. Travellers speak in glowing terms of the scene commanded by this piece of high ground.

all the Plain(R.V. marg. Circle) of Jordan The word kikkar, a "round," or "circle" (Skinner renders "Oval"), was applied by the Israelites to the broader portion of the level country on either side of the river Jordan, extending northwards as far as the river Jabbok, and southwards, originally, according to the tradition, to the supposed site of the submerged cities of the Plain at the lower end of the Dead Sea. Cf. Gen 19:24-29; 2 Samuel 18:23; 1 Kings 7:46. The kikkaris specially mentioned in connexion with Jericho in Deuteronomy 34:3; Nehemiah 3:22; Nehemiah 12:28. The present passage suggests, that the narrative emanated from a source, according to which the formation of the Dead Sea was subsequent to the destruction of the cities of the Plain (19), and that its bed had previously been a fertile agricultural region.

well watered The basin of the Jordan is famous for its fertility. The climate is tropical, and the soil is watered by the Jordan and its tributaries.

before the Lord destroyed, &c. The writer pictures this scene of fertility extending itself to the southern extremity of the Dead Sea, before the catastrophe described in Genesis 19:24-29.

like the garden of the Lord "The garden of Jehovah" is the garden of Eden (chap. 2; cf. Isaiah 51:3), the ideal of beauty and fertility. "Like the land of Egypt"; the writer adds a second simile. "The land of Egypt" was well known for the richness of its soil and for the abundance of its irrigation. The two similes, following in succession, have been thought to overload the sentence, but are not, on that account, to be regarded as glosses.

as thou goest unto Zoar Zoar, a town situated probably in the S. E. of the Dead Sea (cf. Genesis 19:22): and hence this clause, as it stands, must be connected with "the Plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where," the intervening clauses being parenthetical.

Another reading, "Zoan," found in the Syriac Peshitto, would connect the clause with the mention of Egypt, by specifying the fertile district of the famous city of Tanis on the east of the Nile Delta.