Parashat Lech Lecha - Fifth Aliyah

After Abram rescues his nephew Lot and brings back the captives and property taken in the war, the king of Sodom offers him a division: the people will return to the king, and Abram will keep the property. Abram refuses to take anything for himself, so that the king of Sodom cannot claim to have made him rich. God then promises Abram protection and a great reward, and Abram raises what he still lacks: he has no son to inherit from him.

Giving up your own share, not someone else’s

Abram refuses to take property for himself, but makes clear that the food his men have already eaten will not be returned. In addition, Aner, Eshkol and Mamre, his allies who joined him, will receive their share of the property.

Rashi adds that they guarded the equipment while Abram and his servants fought, yet they are still entitled to their share. He connects this to the division David later established: those who guard the equipment also receive a share of the spoils alongside the fighters.

We can see a distinction in Abram’s refusal: he decides what he will not take for himself, while making sure that others receive their share.

What good is wealth if there is no one to leave it to?

When God promises him a reward, Abram responds with a question. He is childless, and Eliezer, a member of his household, is set to inherit from him. Radak explains that the question concerns reward in this world: what benefit will prosperity and wealth bring Abram if, at his death, they pass to others and he has no son to leave them to?

God answers that Eliezer will not be his heir; a son born to Abram will inherit from him. He takes him outside, directs his gaze toward the stars and promises that so shall his descendants be. The conversation moves from the property Abram will leave behind to the generations that will come from him.

Who credits whom with righteousness?

Abram believes in God, and the verse concludes: “vayachsheveha lo tzedakah” (excerpt from Genesis 15:6).

Translation: “And he reckoned it to him as righteousness.”

Rashi explains that God counts Abram’s faith as a merit.

Ramban offers another reading: Abram is the one who attributes the promise to God’s righteousness. He understands that the son will be given to him through God’s righteousness, rather than as a reward dependent on his own merits. He therefore stops fearing that sin might cause the promise to be revoked.

The son has not yet been born. According to this reading of Ramban, what has changed by the end of the aliyah is Abram’s confidence: even the possibility that he might sin in the future does not cancel the promise he has received.