After leaving Egypt, Abram and Lot, his nephew, decided to separate from each other so that there would be enough to sustain each respective household. Genesis 13 tells the story, where, from Bethel, Lot went to the south and east, towards Sodom. Abram went south and west, settling near Hebron.
At a later point, a regional war took place. A group of four kings from the north invaded the land of Canaan, capturing Sodom and taking Lot prisoner too. Lot wasn’t the only captive, all of whom were probably deeply concerned about their now-uncertain fate. One man, though, was able to escape! He found Abram, then told him about Lot. Genesis 14 has the rest of the story.
Text, Genesis 14:13-16, KJV: 13 And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew; for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner: and these were confederate with Abram. 14 And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan. 15 And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. 16 And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people.
Thoughts: the identity of this one escapee is never stated but he carried some of the most important news Abram ever heard. First, he told Abram that Sodom was taken (implied), and then he told Abram Lot had been captured along with others. Finally he may have been able to provide Abram with an educated guess as to where this group was going. They had not gone further south, towards Egypt; they probably wouldn’t go east into the deserts; Canaan was close to the Mediterranean Sea so they likely didn’t go west, either. That left north and north-east, but that may have been meaningless to Abram. Genesis 11 and 12 tell how he left Ur of the Chaldees and settled in Haran, but that city wasn’t very close to the land of Elam or some of the other places mentioned in the story.
Eventually Abram led his own trained servants, 318 men, on a rescue mission to find Lot. He did, and recovered everything, as recorded in Genesis 14. But the likelihood of Abram’s success would have been a lot less if not for this unsung hero, an anonymous person who dared to escape captivity and evaded being re-captured before he found Abram.
Each one of us has news and a message for someone. May the Lord put us together, those who have a message to tell, and those who need to hear the message!
Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV)