Genesis: Chapter Fourteen (Abram Rescues Lot)

In which a completely nonsensical war breaks out and Lot becomes the only Sodomite worth a thought.

MEANWHILE!

Amraphel, Atrioch, Kedorlaomer, and Tidal (the kings of Shinar, Ellasar, Elam, and Goiim) start a war against Bera, Birsha, Shinab, Shemeber, and Zoar (the kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Bela). The latter group has been under the command of Kedorlaomer, and they don't like it. They rebel. (14:1-4)

This war rages on for fourteen years, when Kedorlaomer and his crew finally destroy the Rephaites, the Zuzites, the Emites, and the Horites, then turn back toward En Mishpat (also known as Kadesh) and conquer that entire region. (14:5-7)

Sodom amasses his forces in the Valley of Siddim, and that's where the final battle goes down. (14:8-9)

"Now the Valley of Siddim was full of tar pits, and when the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some of the men fell into them and the rest fled to the hills." (14:10) Kedorlaomer's crew wins the battle (because the Sodomites and Gomorrans all ran away, so it's kind of a default thing), and they "seized all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their food" (14:11) and then they take off to return home.

But the plot thickens when Lot, who's living near Sodom, is taken away by the Elamese forces along with everything he owns (14:12).

One of the Sodomite escapees runs to Abram, somehow knowing that Abram and Lot were related despite their having split up in the last chapter. Abram gets angry (and you wouldn't like him when he's angry), and he gathers up the 318 men that had settled around him and allied with him over the past unknown amount of years to track down his nephew. (14:13-14)

One night, Abram hatches a devious plan. He separates his 318 men into smaller groups who each go out and attack different places in the dead of night. "He recovered all the goods and brought back his relative Lot and his possessions, together with the women and the other people." (14:15-16)

There's something particularly odd about all of this. Stay with me here --

An army made up of five kings' people go to war against an army of four kings' people. The slightly larger army runs away from the smaller one. Why? Was the other army noticably larger? Were there more able-bodied people on the "good" side than Sodom had? Besides, this was a rebellion, not a mild complaint. A true rebellion can't be slapped on the wrist. That's not going to stop anything. A true rebellion happens when people decide they hate the way they're living and they decide to fight against it, death being a completely viable alternative to the oppression.

Sodom, et al were one army ahead of the game, and yet they ran away! I know I'm being a bit nitpicky here, but this is not war! This isn't even an attempt at war. This was nothing more than a bunch of people making threats en masse about something they don't know or care enough about to die for.

And now, despite the fact that five entire armies went to war and lost to four entire armies, Abram thinks it's a really good idea to make his own go at those four armies with a little over three hundred men. I have speculated in previous chapters that Abram was one taco short of a combination plate, and this is proof of such.

But for whatever reason (probably because he's God's chosen one), he manages to succeed. What's more, "After Abram returned from defeating Kedorlaomer and the kings allied with him, the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the Valley of Shaveh." (14:17)

So Abram kills the king, and suddenly everyone in the Sodomite group is his best friend, but the guys from the Kedorlaomer camp don't do anything? They don't, say, amass four armies and come after Abram? They already know that, even though the Sodomites are Abram's good buddies, they just run at the first sign of trouble. And 318 men fighting four armies will not survive. As George Zimmer might say, "I guarantee it."

The king of Jerusalem breaks out the bread and wine. This king is also a priest, and he blesses Abram:

Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
Creator of heaven and earth.
And blessed be God Most High
who delivered your enemies into your hand.

Abram was chosen by God, so it's not like he needed the blessing. I'd also like to take a moment to point out that somebody just thanked the Christian deity for allowing people to be killed. Just sayin'.

That brings us up through 14:20, in which Abram gives a tenth of everything he recovered from his escapade to the priest/king for blessing him. Jeez, this Abram guy is really not smart at all.

The king of Sodom seems to be a mostly nice guy. He tells Abram that he doesn't want all the possessions that Abram is about to give to him. He only wants the people. (14:21)

But Abram rejects the offer because of how the Sodomites "were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord" (Gen 13:13). He says,

I have raised my hand to the Lord, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, and have taken an oath that I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the thong of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, "I made Abram rich." I will accept nothing but what my men have eaten and the share that belongs to the men who went with me — to Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre. Let them have their share.

What a prick! So I know that the Sodomites were supposedly working against God, but we haven't been told what exactly they were doing that was so bad. And I know that Abram was supposedly blessed by God. But still, this is taking it a bit far, don't you think? Abram saved his nephew Lot — who is somehow the only special Sodomite in the bunch, the only one who isn't "wicked" and "sinning greatly against the Lord" — and then rejects payment for it on the grounds that the Sodomites are evil people (God said so!).

That sounds familiar and relevant somehow. It sounds exactly like the way that the far right Christian fundamentalists sound when they try to speak politically. They're full of an uneducated, pompous self-righteousness that they believe is the only thing they need to make sense of the world, when in reality, they're just stupid people listening to a fake God telling them lies. They'll make exceptions for anything they feel doesn't match their worldview and make up excuses to match those decisions. They'll even warp truth. I imagine Abram is rationalizing this by thinking that Lot wasn't really a Sodomite. Lot was somehow forced into living there or something (he wasn't; it was his choice). That's a lot like killing someone, but thinking that you're exempt from the repercussions because God told you to do it.

Genesis: Chapter Thirteen (Abram and Lot Separate)

In which a fight between nephew and uncle is narrowly avoided by Abram being a generally cool guy, and in which God lies and lies and lies and lies and...

The first thing this chapter does is inform you that Abram and his crew have begun the journey home to the Negev, now extremely wealthy. They have an abundance of livestock and precious metals. (13:1-2) Abram "went from place to place until he came to Bethel". This is where, in Gen 12, he built the altar. Once again, he calls "on the name of the Lord". (13:3-4)

Lot, Abram's nephew, has been traveling all over the countryside with his aunt and uncle. His father, Haran (who is Abram's brother), died back in 11:28. In a way, I'm kinda glad that this crew is who it is. We learned from Gen 11 that people aren't afraid of committing incest, and I'm getting kinda tired of having to read about it. Sarai is not immediately blood related to either of her companions, so unless Abram and Lot decide to go at it, incest among these three is impossible.

In 13:5-6, Lot has some possessions that he's been carrying around, but he has to stop and settle because "the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together." I'm not sure what this means. And "I'm not sure what this means" is something I've said so many times by now that I'm not sure it holds any meaning any more. What's the problem? Is it that they simply can't find enough physical space for all of their cattle, silver, gold, and tents that they have to split up? There's no footnote here to explain what "the land could not support them" really means. Support, when referring to physical strength like I think this is, means the ability to assist and keep one on one's feet, but the land didn't just start caving in beneath them because it wasn't held up by enough support columns.

After deciding to split up, Abram's slaves who tend Abram's cattle start to argue with Lot's slaves who tend to Lot's cattle. Abram tries to calm things down by suggesting:

Let's not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and mine, for we are brothers [Figuratively, not literally; they're literally uncle and nephew. -Ed.]. Is not the whole land before you? Let's part company. If you go to the left, I'll go to the right; if you go to the right, I'll go to the left.

That's redundant, but peaceful, and it brings us all the way through 13:9.

Lot knows that the land of Jordan has enough water to support his cattle's drinking habit, and they split up without any further argument. Lot heads into Jordan while Abram moves back into Canaan. 13:10 mentions that "This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah," which doesn't happen in my Bible until Gen 19, and I have no idea why we need a note explaining that something hasn't happened yet when we had no idea that whatever that thing was ever happened, and when we weren't going to find out about it for another six chapters. Way to go, Bible, giving us spoilers for yourself. Ah, it's okay. The best parts were in the trailer, anyhow.

Lot finally settles down near the town of Sodom. The Sodomites "were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord" (13:13).

Meanwhile, Abram is visited by God. God instructs him to

Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you."

Yep. Once again, in 13:14-17, God makes another empty promise. He says that the land belongs to all of Abram's offspring, but we know from 11:30 that Abram's wife Sarai is barren, and cannot bear children. If Abram wants offspring, either Sarai is going to somehow become fertile or Abram's going to have to sneak off and have an affair. Surely, since Abram was chosen by God to make this two-chapter-long journey, and since Abram is such a shining example of a human being, and since this is the Bible where God manages to do impossible things (that's called a miracle), I'm betting that Abram stays loyal to his wife and Sarai's uterus begins to magically work.

Abram believes God's lies once again, and he moves to live "near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron," and then he builds another altar (13:18).

Abram and Sarai's journey to the center of the middle east is a long one, and they've left behind them a trail of altars and diseases like some kind of twisted, Arab Hansel and Gretel. One way or another, God is lying to his people here. Twice in the past two chapters has God mentioned Abram's offspring, but never once mentioning how that's going to be made possible. And he's very long-winded, at that.

Genesis: Chapter Twelve (The Call of Abram, Abram in Egypt)

In which God selects Abram at random to be falsely rewarded for doing nothing, and in which Sarai is kidnapped into sexual slavery by the Egyptian Pharoah.

God begins commanding again right off the bat in Chapter Twelve. "Leave your country, your people and your father's household," he says to Abram, "and go to the land I will show you." God promises Abram that he will start a "great nation" and that God will "make [Abram's] name great." God "will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse" (12:1-3). God really is down with this whole vengeance thing. Aside from choosing people who marry their infertile cousins at random and granting them a legacy, he sure does like to tell these people that anybody who isn't nice to them will feel the terrible wrath of the lord.

So Abram takes off with his nephew Lot and his wife Sarai. They take all their things and all of their slaves (God doesn't seem to have a problem with slavery) and leave town when Abram is seventy-five years old. Or like, six and a half if you're counting in real time (12:4-5).

They pass into the land of the Canaanites until they finally stop at the "great tree of Moreh at Shechem." God offers the land to Abram, saying, "To your offspring I will give this land." (12:7)

Wait... What? *rifles through pages, finds passage* AHA! Genesis 11:30 says, "Now Sarai was barren; she had no children."

I'm having trouble reconciling what it means when God says one thing knowing that it means nothing. This is an empty promise. Abram will have no offspring because his wife is barren. She is infertile. She is not a baby-making machine. So when God says that the offspring of Abram and Sarai will inherit the land, he is telling Abram comforting nothings, probably to convince Abram to do something. Does Abram realize he's been taken? Did he just want a change of scenery and take the opportunity when God handed it to him? Who knows? One thing's for sure. Whether Abram knows it or not, God is lying to Abram.

Abram must not be aware of this because in 12:8 Abram "built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord." Then in 12:9 he moves on to a place called Negev.

When famine encompasses Egypt, Abram decides to spend some time on the African continent (12:10). I'm left to assume that he does so to bring some kind of aid to the Egyptians because the Bible does not provide a reason for Abram's actions. But he does have a fear of the Egyptians. He thinks that when they see Sarai's beauty, they will kill Abram to take Sarai for their own. He proposes in 12:13 that she pose as his sister (which is not too far off from the truth) so that this will not happen.

Sure enough, when Abram and Sarai show up, the Pharoah's officials think Sarai is worthy of presentation to their king. They take Sarai to the palace. The Pharoah approves of Sarai and thinks her "brother" is so awesome that "Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, menservants and maidservants, and camels." (12:14-16)

God takes pity on Sarai because of how unfairly she is treated by the Pharoah. The book doesn't say what kind of horrible atrocities are done to her, but one might assume sexual slavery. In 12:17, God "inflicted serious diseases on Pharoah and his household" because of it, fulfilling half of his promise from before.

The Pharoah, through his punishment, becomes aware of Abram and Sarai's ruse. He confronts Abram, reiterates Abram's plan back, returns Sarai to her husband, and tells them to get out of the country. Abram gets to take all of the cool stuff the Pharoah gave him. (12:18-20)

What's left unexplained at the end of this chapter is why Abram went to Egypt in the first place, and what he did while he was there aside from wind up in some wacky hijinks with the king. I understand there was a famine, but generally speaking, people don't move toward a place of dispair unless they are there to provide aid in some way. In a monarchy such as Egypt was, the people are going to get what the king gives them, and external help will be no help at all. Abram perhaps didn't understand this and went anyway. But while he was down there, he didn't do anything to that end. His wife got kidnapped, which obviously causes problems with the rest of the itenerary, and he spent the rest of his trip watching the Pharoah undergo various illnesses.

Personally, I think this chapter is nothing more than an illustration of God following through on something that didn't involve killing people. God did make a guy sick, however, and he did make a rather large empty promise to Abram. In the end, I'm still left making wild conjectures at why God selected Abram, what he selected Abram for, and why Abram went to Egypt. In literary jargon, God's selection of Abram and subsequent commandment for him to move about the countryside could be seen as a McGuffin, an event that takes place solely for the purpose of catalyzing an unrelated plot.