What Does Genesis 13:11 Mean?

So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The men parted company. The decision is made and executed. Lot takes the well-watered plain; the separation happens. The phrase "chose for himself" is the key descriptor of Lot's decision-making process: this is a self-directed choice, made by looking at the land and selecting what appeared best for his own household. There is nothing obviously wrong with the decision; it is a reasonable choice given the visible evidence. It will turn out to be the beginning of a tragically compromised trajectory.

The eastward direction is worth noting: east in Genesis is consistently the direction of exile and separation from blessing. Cain settled east of Eden. Babel's builders moved east. Now Lot moves east while Abram stays in the west of Canaan. The geography of the narrative is encoding a theological direction: movement away from the covenant community and toward the fertile but compromised east is the opposite of the movement toward the Promised Land. Lot's east is pragmatically reasonable and theologically ominous.

The men parted company. The separation of Abram and Lot, which began as a pastoral dispute, has produced a fundamental fork in their trajectories. Lot will continue to appear in the Genesis narrative, but from this chapter forward, his story is supplementary to Abram's rather than interwoven with it. The covenant thread has clearly assigned itself to the one who stayed in the west, who offered the choice generously, who called on the name of the Lord at the altar. Lot's well-watered plain will not provide him with the security he sought in it; Abram's rocky covenant land will not fail the one God is walking with.