What Does Genesis 13:9 Mean?

"Is not the whole land before you? Let's part company. If you go to the left, I'll go to the right; if you go to the right, I'll go to the left." The offer is remarkable in its simplicity and its generosity. Abram gives Lot the first choice of all the land visible from their shared position. He does not take the senior position that his age, his calling, and his divine promise would have entitled him to claim. He offers his nephew the entire range of the visible land without restriction or preference.

The offer is all the more significant given that this is the Promised Land. God has told Abram that all of this land is for him and his descendants. He is offering the first choice of the promise to someone who did not receive the promise. This is either extraordinary faith, the confidence that God's promise cannot be thwarted by Lot's choice, so the choice doesn't matter, or extraordinary generosity, or both. The text does not specify which internal state motivated the offer; it simply records the offer, and the reader is left to weigh its meaning.

The directional offer, left-right or right-left, is the oldest recorded family real estate negotiation in the Bible. It is also the model of a specific kind of generosity: offering the other person the initiative, letting them choose without staking a prior claim. Jesus taught the same principle in a different form: if someone takes your tunic, give him your coat as well; if someone compels you to go one mile, go two. The generosity that offers more than is required, that does not insist on what it is entitled to, is the generosity that Abram models here and that Jesus teaches as the kingdom norm.