What does Genesis 13:1 mean?
Abram and his company were forced to enter the land of Egypt in search of food in a time of famine. Now they have been sent back out of Egypt by an angry Pharaoh. God had afflicted Pharaoh's household with a plague, because Pharaoh took Abram's wife Sarai for his own wife. This incident was caused by two factors. The first was Sarai's great beauty (Genesis 12:14). The other was Abram's decision to tell a lie in the form of a half-truth: that Sarai was his sister (Genesis 12:13). This was Abram's cowardly attempt to keep jealous men from attacking him in order to have access to Sarai (Genesis 12:12).Even though Abram lied, God intervened to protect His own plan for Abram and Sarai's lives. In short, Abram had been faithless, but God had proved Himself faithful. Abram had even become wealthier, leaving Egypt with all the goods Pharaoh gave to him when taking Sarai for his own. Now the company arrives back in the desert-like area of the Negeb (or Negev), in the southern part of the land of Canaan.