Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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was made to Lot, which Abram might have insisted on, to the total exclusion of Lot, yet he allows him to come in partner with him, and tenders an equal share to one that had not an equal right, and will not make God's promise to patronize his quarrel, nor, under the protection of that, put any hardship on his kinsman.
(3.) He gives him his choice, and offers to take up with his leavings: If thou wilt take the left hand, I will go to the right. There was all the reason in the world that Abram should choose first; yet he recedes from his right. Note, It is a noble conquest to be willing to yield for peace' sake; it is the conquest of ourselves, and our own pride and passion, Mt 5:39, 40. It is not only the punctilios of honour, but even interest itself, that in many cases must be sacrificed to peace.
10 And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it
was well watered everyw here, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar.
We have here the choice that Lot made when he parted from Abram. Upon this occasion, one would have expected,
1. That he should have expressed an unwillingness to part from Abram, and that, at least, he should have done it with reluctancy.
2. That he should have been so civil as to have remitted the choice back again to Abram. But we find not any instance of deference or respect to his uncle in the whole management. Abram having offered him the choice, without compliment he accepted it, and made his election. Passion and selfishness make men rude. Now, in the choice which Lot made, we may observe,
How much he had an eye to the goodness of the land. He beheld all the plain of Jordan, the flat country in which Sodom stood, that it was admirably well watered everywhere (and perhaps the strife had been about water, which made him particularly