Text -- Genesis 13:1-7 (NET)

Abram’s Solution to the Strife

13:1 So Abram went up from Egypt into the Negev. He took his wife and all his possessions with him, as well as Lot. 13:2 (Now Abram was very wealthy in livestock, silver, and gold.) 13:3 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. 13:4 This was the place where he had first built the altar, and there Abram worshiped the Lord. 13:5 Now Lot, who was traveling with Abram, also had flocks, herds, and tents. 13:6 But the land could not support them while they were living side by side. Because their possessions were so great, they were not able to live alongside one another. 13:7 So there were quarrels between Abram’s herdsmen and Lot’s herdsmen. (Now the Canaanites and the Perizzites were living in the land at that time.)

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Gen 13:1

¹ tn Or “the South [country]” (also in v. 3).

sn Negev is the name for the southern desert region in the land of Canaan.

² tn Heb “And Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all which was his, and Lot with him, to the Negev.”

NET Notes: Gen 13:2

¹ tn Heb “heavy.”

² tn This parenthetical clause, introduced by the vav (ו) disjunctive (translated “now”), provides information necessary to the point of the story.

NET Notes: Gen 13:3

¹ tn Heb “on his journeys”; the verb and noun combination means to pick up the tents and move from camp to camp.

² map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

³ tn The words “he returned” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁴ tn Heb “where his tent had been.”

NET Notes: Gen 13:4

¹ tn Heb “to the place of the altar which he had made there in the beginning” (cf. Gen 12:7-8).

² tn Heb “he called in the name of the Lord.” The expression refers to worshiping the Lord through prayer and sacrifice (see Gen 4:26; 12:8; 21:33; 26:25). See G. J. Wenham, Genesis (WBC), 1:116, 281.

NET Notes: Gen 13:5

¹ tn Heb “was going.”

² tn The Hebrew idiom is “to Lot…there was,” the preposition here expressing possession.

NET Notes: Gen 13:6

¹ tn The potential nuance for the perfect tense is necessary here, and supported by the parallel clause that actually uses “to be able.”

² tn The infinitive construct לָשֶׁבֶת (lashevet, from יָשַׁב, yashav) explains what it was that the land could not support: “the land could not support them to live side by side.” See further J. C. de Moor, “Lexical Remarks Concerning Yahad and Yahdaw,” VT 7 (1957): 350-55.

³ tn The same infinitive occurs here, serving as the object of the verb.

NET Notes: Gen 13:7

¹ tn The Hebrew term רִיב (riv) means “strife, conflict, quarreling.” In later texts it has the meaning of “legal controversy, dispute.” See B. Gemser, “The rîb – or Controversy – Pattern in Hebrew Mentality,” Wisdom in Israel and in the Ancient Near East [VTSup], 120-37.

² sn Since the quarreling was between the herdsmen, the dispute was no doubt over water and vegetation for the animals.

³ tn This parenthetical clause, introduced with the vav (ו) disjunctive (translated “now”), again provides critical information. It tells in part why the land cannot sustain these two bedouins, and it also hints of the danger of weakening the family by inner strife.