My father Abdhulraman died in the land of Egypt.
Part of his heart he left in Damascus as a boy, and part he left in Ur as a man, and that part of his heart which remained became knit to the struggles of the desert itself. Life in the wilderness, and the famine which drove us toward Egypt, emaciated my father, but they also gave him something to bear up under and to overcome.
In Egypt, we sat by pots of meat and ate all that we wanted. We ate fish at no cost. We dined on the finest of cucumbers and melons and leeks and onions and garlic. The man who had survived so many trials did not survive these luxuries. It seemed that having made it through the famine, he was finally able to rest, and rest he did.
We inquired of Abram what sort of burial El would have us to give Abdhulraman, but God was strangely silent on the matter. The Egyptians, knowing that this was a great man among Abram’s household, embalmed him after their customs and entombed him in one of their magnificent tombs. I cannot say that this was not fitting. He was a man who lived many lives in many places, and so even his death and burial were something strange and new to him.
Thus I became the chief of Abram's servants and so the chief herdsman of his many, many flocks, including that great influx of animals from the hand of Pharaoh. And thus, in turn, I was drawn into bitter conflict with Otiartes.
There was much land in Egypt that was suitable for our herds and readily available, for keeping sheep in an abomination to the Egyptians, and so the land of Goshen was ours for grazing. Even so, Otiartes often found reason to quarrel over the movements of Abram’s herds. In his mind the distinction between the herds of Abram and those of his master Lot was clear and important, and no perceived injustice must be done to the flocks of Lot. He perceived injustice always, for Abram’s flocks always fared better than Lot’s, and so he always suspected that we were grazing the best lands ahead of him and leaving his flocks with the remnant.
On many an occasion Otiartes came to me demanding that Abram's flocks move to some different area, even an area we had grazed just days before. When I raised his concerns with Abram, without fail my lord acquiesced to the demands of the household of Lot. Why the man Lot should even distinguish between his herds and Abram’s was beyond me, as Lot was indisputably Abram’s heir. But there is much that I do not understand about this family, for neither do I understand why Abram would consistently let his nephew take advantage of him.
If the tension between Otiartes and myself began in Egypt, it grew in intensity during our exodus, for now we must travel together in the same direction, at roughly the same speed, and Lot’s insistence, mediated to me through his servant, to consistently graze ahead of us left us with less than what Abram’s immense flocks needed.
But the man Abram refused to assert his authority, nor even his right to an equal share of this land that he himself had led us into. I admit, I took some satisfaction from watching Abram’s herds grow greater and greater, while Lot’s herds remained more or less constant, despite his insistence on putting himself first. It must surely have been an act of God. Adonai seems determined to bless the man, and all who are not jealous of his success rejoice to see it.