Holy Moly: Family Strife

So Abram and his family, and Lot and his family, have been kicked out of Egypt.  Why Lot got kicked out when it was Abram who did the things necessitating being kicked out is uncertain.  Maybe Abram made Lot come along.  "So Egypt is getting too hot to hold someone of my awesomeness.  Come on Lot, let's hit the road."

"But I've got a home and lands and friends here..."

"They're not your friends.  You need to come with us."

"But..."

"Come on Lot."

Well, turns out that the land they go to can't support both of their families and flocks.  Or maybe Lot remembered being dragged out of Egypt by Abram.  There's fighting between the clans.

Abram has a solution.  "Why don't you go over there, and I'll go over here.  The land is wide and full of resources.

Or maybe Lot said, "Listen, Abram, I... need to be alone for a while.  It's not you, it's me."

The Bible makes sure we know that there were Canaanites and Perizzites living on the land too.  That's probably because we're foreshadowing some things, but it might also be to point out that Abram and Lot were in hostile territory.  To me, it just points out the total land grab that's going on here.  I'm not bashing Abram and Lot; they're not going around lopping off Perizzite heads or anything to conquer the territory.  But it does smack a bit of the white man landing on the shores of America and claiming the land because hey, no one's living... sorry, could you brown people move out of my sight line... as I said, no one is living here.

Lot heads to Sodom.  Sodom is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.  We'll get back to them.

God says to Abram, "Hey, so this land is all yours and you're going to have so many descendants that they'll be like specks of dust."  Are the Canaanites and Perizzites consulted?  Of course not.

But there are other ways to read this: God is still obsessed with the "being fruitful and multiplying" thing.  At the time, if you were an extremely beset-upon tribe like Israel, pumping out the offspring was probably not just a good idea but a matter of survival.  I'm not even talking about the horrifying infant mortality rates: they're living in lands which, while God has given the land to them, are still occupied by other tribes who might not be friendly.  Increasing the size of the clan was for safety as well as anything else.

These are just-so stories, people.  There's nothing wrong with that.  Why does Israel live here now?  Why do we have these lands?  Why are people trying to oppress us?  See, there was this guy named Abram...