Genesis13chapter 13

This chapter is heard inside the third portion of the annual cycle, in the same sitting as the call of Abram and the covenant that follows it (src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts). The parting of Abram and Lot is read without a break from the return out of Egypt. The card above carries the portion and the prophetic reading set beside it.

Rashi is quoted here from the public domain Rosenbaum and Silbermann edition, and Radak from the CC-BY translation of Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash.

Rashi reads the journeys of the third verse as the same road taken back. Abram lodged at the inns he had used going down, and Rashi draws from it that "one should not change his inn" (Rashi on Genesis 13:3:1, citing Arakhin 16b). He gives a second reading, that Abram paid on the way back the debts he had run up on the way down (same comment, citing Genesis Rabbah 41:3).

Radak reads the return to the altar as a rule of prayer. Abram came back to the very place where he had prayed before. Radak takes it that a man should fix one place to pray in, because familiar surroundings hold the mind steady (Radak on Genesis 13:4:1).

Rashi reads the quarrel of the seventh verse as a quarrel about robbery. The herdsmen of Lot grazed in other people's fields, and the herdsmen of Abram rebuked them. The answer given was that the land was promised to Abram and that Lot was his heir. Rashi points to the same verse naming the Canaanite and the Perizzite still in the land (Rashi on Genesis 13:7:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 41:5). He reads the offer of the ninth verse as a promise of help. Wherever Lot settled, Abram would stay near him as a shield, and the rescue of the next chapter is where that stood good (Rashi on Genesis 13:9:1).

Ibn Ezra carries five comments on this chapter that the corpus holds by reference alone, because the licence Sefaria reports for the English version keeps the text out. They are Ibn Ezra on Genesis 13:1:1, 13:2:1, 13:5:1, 13:6:1 and 13:15:1.

Rashi carries four sayings of the rabbis on this chapter, and each stands here as what they taught.

The first is on the wealth of Lot. Rashi asks what brought it to him, and reports the answer that it came of his going with Abram (Rashi on Genesis 13:5:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 41:3 and Pesikta Rabbati). The second is on the word for brothers in the eighth verse. He gives kinsmen as the plain sense, and reports the Midrash that the two men were alike in the face (Rashi on Genesis 13:8:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 41:6).

The third is on Lot settling near Sodom. Rashi notes that the men of Sodom were wicked and that Lot moved in among them anyway. He reports that the rabbis read the rotting of the name of the wicked in Proverbs 10:11 from this verse (Rashi on Genesis 13:13:1, citing Yoma 38b).

The fourth is on the word that came after the parting. Rashi reports that God spoke to Abram once Lot had gone, and that while the wicked man was with him the word had kept away (Rashi on Genesis 13:14:1, citing Midrash Tanchuma, Vayetzei 10). On the promise of the sixteenth verse he reads the dust plainly, that the seed will be past counting as the dust is past counting (Rashi on Genesis 13:16:1).

The corpus records forty places where the Midrash and the Talmud cite this chapter, thirty three under Midrash and seven under Talmud, with the locator for each one and no text. Bereshit Rabbah reads the fifth verse at 41:4, the seventh at 41:5 and the eighth at 41:6. It reads the ninth verse at 52:4 and 60:9, the fourteenth at 41:8, and the eighteenth at 39:16 and 54:6.

Aggadat Bereshit reads the second verse at 16:2, 34:1 and 34:2, the seventh at 13:3, the tenth at 25:2 and the thirteenth at 25:1. It reads the fifteenth verse at 82:2 and the seventeenth at 21:1 and 64:1. Bamidbar Rabbah reads the tenth verse at 18:10, the fifteenth at 16:3 and the sixteenth at 14:12. Midrash Lekach Tov reads the first, fourth, sixth and eighth verses at the locators of the same names, and Pesikta Rabbati reads the first five verses at 3:1.

The Talmud is cited at Arakhin 16b:17 and 16b:18 on the third verse, Bava Kamma 93a:2 on the fifth and Avodah Zarah 19a:1 on the thirteenth. It is cited at Megillah 16a:15 on the sixteenth verse, and the Jerusalem Talmud reads the eleventh at Sanhedrin 10:3:4.