On his return from Egypt Abraham's relations to his own family were
disturbed by annoying circumstances. Strife developed between the
herdmen of his cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle. Abraham
furnished his herds with muzzles, but Lot made no such provision, and
when the shepherds that pastured Abraham's flocks took Lot's shepherds
to task on account of the omission, the latter replied: "It is known of
a surety that God said unto Abraham, 'To thy seed will I give the
land.' But Abraham is a sterile mule. Never will he have children. On
the morrow he will die, and Lot will be his heir. Thus the flocks of
Lot are but consuming what belongs to them or their master." But God
spoke: "Verily, I said unto Abraham I would give the land unto his
seed, but only after the seven nations shall have been destroyed from
out of the land. To-day the Canaanites are therein, and the Perizzites.
They still have the right of habitation."
Now, when the strife extended from the servants to the masters, and
Abraham vainly called his nephew Lot to account for his unbecoming
behavior, Abraham decided he would have to part from his kinsman,
though he should have to compel Lot thereto by force. Lot thereupon
separated himself not from Abraham alone, but from the God of Abraham
also, and he betook himself to a district in which immorality and sin
reigned supreme, wherefore punishment overtook him, for his own flesh
seduced him later unto sin.
God was displeased with Abraham for not living in peace and harmony
with his own kindred, as he lived with all the world beside. On the
other hand, God also took it in ill part that Abraham was accepting Lot
tacitly as his heir, though He had promised him, in clear, unmistakable
words, "To thy seed will I give the land." After Abraham had separated
himself from Lot, he received the assurance again that Canaan should
once belong to his seed, which God would multiply as the sand which is
upon the sea-shore. As the sand fills the whole earth, so the offspring
of Abraham would be scattered over the whole earth, from end to end;
and as the earth is blessed only when it is moistened with water, so
his offspring would be blessed through the Torah, which is likened unto
water; and as the earth endures longer than metal, so his offspring
would endure forever, while the heathen would vanish; and as the earth
is trodden upon, so his offspring would be trodden upon by the four
kingdoms.[82]
The departure of Lot had a serious consequence, for the war waged by
Abraham against the four kings is intimately connected with it. Lot
desired to settle in the well-watered circle of the Jordan, but the
only city of the plain that would receive him was Sodom, the king of
which admitted the nephew of Abraham out of consideration for the
latter.[83] The five impious kings planned first to make war upon Sodom
on account of Lot and then advance upon Abraham.[84] For one of the
five, Amraphel, was none other than Nimrod, Abraham's enemy from of
old. The immediate occasion for the war was this: Chedorlaomer, one of
Nimrod's generals, rebelled against him after the builders of the tower
were dispersed, and he set himself up as king of Elam. Then he
subjugated the Hamitic tribes living in the five cities of the plain of
the Jordan, and made them tributary. For twelve years they were
faithful to their sovereign ruler Chedorlaomer, but then they refused
to pay the tribute, and they persisted in their insubordination for
thirteen years. Making the most of Chedorlaomer's embarrassment, Nimrod
led a host of seven thousand warriors against his former general. In
the battle fought between Elam and Shinar, Nimrod suffered a disastrous
defeat, he lost six hundred of his army, and among the slain was the
king's son Mardon. Humiliated and abased, he returned to his country,
and he was forced to acknowledge the suzerainty of Chedorlaomer, who
now proceeded to form an alliance with Arioch king of Ellasar, and
Tidal, the king of several nations, the purpose of which was to crush
the cities of the circle of the Jordan. The united forces of these
kings, numbering eight hundred thousand, marched upon the five cities,
subduing whatever they encountered in their course,[85] and
annihilating the descendants of the giants. Fortified places, unwalled
cities, and flat, open country, all fell in their hands.[86] They
pushed on through the desert as far as the spring issuing from the rock
at Kadesh, the spot appointed by God as the place of pronouncing
judgment against Moses and Aaron on account of the waters of strife.
Thence they turned toward the central portion of Palestine, the country
of dates, where they encountered the five godless kings, Bera, the
villain, king of Sodom; Birsha, the sinner, king of Gomorrah; Shinab,
the father-hater, king of Admah; Shemeber, the voluptuary, king of
Zeboiim; and the king of Bela, the city that devours its inhabitants.
The five were routed in the fruitful Vale of Siddim, the canals of
which later formed the Dead Sea. They that remained of the rank and
file fled to the mountains, but the kings fell into the slime pits and
stuck there. Only the king of Sodom was rescued, miraculously, for the
purpose that he might convert those heathen to faith in God that had
not believed in the wonderful deliverance of Abraham from the fiery
furnace.[87]
The victors despoiled Sodom of all its goods and victuals, and took
Lot, boasting, "We have taken the son of Abraham's brother captive," so
betraying the real object of their undertaking; their innermost desire
was to strike at Abraham.[88]
It was on the first evening of the Passover, and Abraham was eating of
the unleavened bread,[89] when the archangel Michael brought him the
report of Lot's captivity. This angel bears another name besides,
Palit, the escaped, because when God threw Samael and his host from
their holy place in heaven, the rebellious leader held on to Michael
and tried to drag him along downward, and Michael escaped falling from
heaven only through the help of God.[90]
When the report of his nephew's evil state reached Abraham, he
straightway dismissed all thought of his dissensions with Lot from his
mind, and only considered ways and means of deliverance.[91] He
convoked his disciples to whom he had taught the true faith, and who
all called themselves by the name Abraham.[92] He gave them gold and
silver, saying at the same time: "Know that we go to war for the
purpose of saving human lives. Therefore, do ye not direct your eyes
upon money, here lie gold and silver before you." Furthermore he
admonished them in these words: "We are preparing to go to war. Let
none join us who hath committed a trespass, and fears that Divine
punishment will descend upon him." Alarmed by his warning, not one
would obey his call to arms, they were fearful on account of their
sins. Eliezer alone remained with him, wherefore God spake, and said:
"All forsook thee save only Eliezer. Verily, I shall invest him with
the strength of the three hundred and eighteen men whose aid thou didst
seek in vain."[93]
The battle fought with the mighty hosts of the kings, from which
Abraham emerged victorious, happened on the fifteenth of Nisan, the
night appointed for miraculous deeds.[94] The arrows and stones hurled
at him effected naught,[95] but the dust of the ground, the chaff, and
the stubble which he threw at the enemy were transformed into
death-dealing javelins and swords.[96] Abraham, as tall as seventy men
set on end, and requiring as much food and drink as seventy men,
marched forward with giant strides, each of his steps measuring four
miles, until he overtook the kings, and annihilated their troops.
Further he could not go, for he had reached Dan, where Jeroboam would
once raise the golden calves, and on this ominous spot Abraham's
strength diminished.[97]
His victory was possible only because the celestial powers espoused his
side. The planet Jupiter made the night bright for him, and an angel,
Lailah by name, fought for him.[98] In a true sense, it was a victory
of God. All the nations acknowledged his more than human achievement,
and they fashioned a throne for Abraham, and erected it on the field of
battle. When they attempted to seat him upon it, amid exclamations of
"Thou art our king! Thou art our prince! Thou art our god!" Abraham
warded them off, and said, "The universe has its King, and it has its
God!" He declined all honors, and returned his property unto each man.
Only the little children he kept by himself. He reared them in the
knowledge of God, and later they atoned for the disgrace of their
parents.
Somewhat arrogantly the king of Sodom set out to meet Abraham. He was
proud that a great miracle, his rescue from the slime pit, had been
performed for him, too. He made Abraham the proposition that he keep
the despoiled goods for himself.[99] But Abraham refused them, and
said: "I have lift up mine hand unto the Lord, God Most High, who hath
created the world for the sake of the pious, that I will not take a
thread nor a shoe-latchet nor aught that is thine. I have no right upon
any goods taken as spoils,[100] save only that which the young men have
eaten, and the portion of the men who tarried by the stuff, though they
went not down to the battle itself." The example of Abraham in giving a
share in the spoils even unto the men not concerned directly in the
battle, was followed later by David, who heeded not the protest of the
wicked men and the base fellows with him, that the watchers who staid
by the stuff were not entitled to share alike with the warriors that
had gone down to the battle.[101]
In spite of his great success, Abraham nevertheless was concerned about
the issue of the war. He feared that the prohibition against shedding
the blood of man had been transgressed, and he also dreaded the
resentment of Shem, whose descendants had perished in the encounter.
But God reassured him, and said: "Be not afraid! Thou hast but
extirpated the thorns, and as to Shem, he will bless thee rather than
curse thee." So it was. When Abraham returned from the war, Shem, or,
as he is sometimes called, Melchizedek, the king of righteousness,
priest of God Most High, and king of Jerusalem, came forth to meet him
with bread and wine.[102] And this high priest instructed Abraham in
the laws of the priesthood and in the Torah, and to prove his
friendship for him he blessed him, and called him the partner of God in
the possession of the world, seeing that through him the Name of God
had first been made known among men.[103] But Melchizedek arranged the
words of his blessing in an unseemly way. He named Abraham first and
then God. As a punishment, he was deposed by God from the priestly
dignity, and instead it was passed over to Abraham, with whose
descendants it remained forever.[104]
As a reward for the sanctification of the Holy Name, which Abraham had
brought about when he refused to keep aught of the goods taken in
battle,[105] his descendants received two commands, the command of the
threads in the borders of their garments, and the command of the
latchets to be bound upon their hands and to be used as frontlets
between their eyes. Thus they commemorate that their ancestor refused
to take so much as a thread or a latchet. And because he would not
touch a shoe-latchet of the spoils, his descendants cast their shoe
upon Edom.[106]