Abram’s offer

Abram asks that there be no strife, for they are men, brothers (BSB “we are kinsmen”). Lot is Abram’s brother’s son (12:5); Driver takes brothers as “near relatives” The Hebrew order is between me and you, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen. BSB reverses both pairs, and at the herdsmen it follows the Greek order (your herdsmen, then my herdsmen), not the Hebrew; see “Men, brothers” and the offer of left or right and LXX Gen 13:5–13: strife, the herdsmen and Lot’s choice. He asks whether all the land is not before Lot, and offers, if Lot goes left, to go right, and if right, to go left. Calvin writes that Abram “voluntarily sacrifices his own right” Keil says “he was magnanimous”, and that he left the choice “in the confident assurance that the Lord would so direct the decision, that His promise would be fulfilled” Driver says he “generously offers his nephew the first choice” Skinner finds in the narrator “the magnanimity which springs from fellowship with God” The offer may show generosity and trust in the promise of 12:7, or it may sit in tension with that promise, since Abram puts the choice of land in Lot’s hands. Both views are attributed; no verdict is given.