Genesis Chapters 10 - 14: Abram Travels the World

Bring on the begats!

First is a list of Japheth and Ham's descendants. They have lots of kids and they all live a long time.

"Wow. That's a really nice tower! These people have some

 ambition.... Hmmm.... maybe a little too much."

Their people start spreading out and some of them decide to build a tower to show how awesome they are and make a name for themselves. God comes and sees this and thinks it's a bit much.

So he goes and scrambles up their language so that they can't talk to each other and make such ambitious plans, and he scatters them all away from the city they were building.

Next is a list of Shem's descendants. On and on. Lots of kids, everyone lives a long time. But kind of less and less time with every generation. After eleven generations, we get to Abram (eventually known as Abraham) and Abram's nephew Lot.

Abram's father, Terah, takes Abram, Lot, and Sarai (Abram's wife) and travels toward Caanan. But they stop in Haran and Terah dies there. God tells Abram to keep going to Caanan, so he and Lot and Sarai pack up and go. In Caanan, God tells Abram that he'll give this land to his descendants and Abram builds an altar there.

And then he keeps on walking... all the way to Egypt.

Abram is worried that the people there will see how beautiful his wife is and kill him and steal her away, so he tells her to lie and say she's his sister. And of course, the Pharaoh thinks she's beautiful and takes her to be his wife. And he treats Abram nicely and gives him livestock and slaves because he thinks he's the pretty lady's brother.

God brings down some nastiness on Pharaoh and he realizes that it's because Sarai is Abram's wife. He yells at Abram for lying to him and tells them to take their stuff and go.

The moral (?) of the story: It's ok to lie and let your wife be carried off by a king to save your own skin. You might even get very wealthy in the process! Totally worth it!

Abram, Sarai and Lot and all their male and female slaves and camels and sheep and oxen and donkeys and silver and gold go back to Caanan. Abram and Lot both have tons of stuff and are starting to get in each others' way, so they split up. Lot chooses to go east toward the Jordan Valley toward Sodom. Once Lot is gone, God tells Abram that everything he can see is going to be given to his offspring forever. Abram moves his tent to Hebron and builds an altar.

It would make a good movie.

Lot's decision to go to Sodom is a poor one. There are quite a few wars going on and Sodom and Gomorrah get overrun by four allied kings. Lot and his family and possessions get taken away by the enemy. Abram hears of this and takes 318 trained fighting men and rescues Lot and all his people from the four kings. I wish there was more detail about this against-all-odds rescue.

Abram returns and the priest-king of Salem blesses Abram and Abram gives him a tenth of everything. The king of Sodom offers Abram all the spoils of his conquest (except for the slaves... the king wants those). Abram declines so no one can say that the king made him rich, but he tells the other people who fought with him to take their share.