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Genesis 13 (CSB)

Map of Abraham's travels (with explanation)

Welcome to As He Leads - a Bible Study Podcast for Busy Women. I'm Rachel and I apologize for the long break between episodes again! In real time, it is now January 13th, 2026, and the end of 2025 was just crazy! ...

Now, there's a bit going on in this chapter, not as full as some, but it definitely has some things to talk about. First, we have to remember that Abram's command originally was to leave his home, leave his family, and go to the land that God would tell him about. And yet, he brought Lot, servants, all kinds of things. Lot is still with him all these years later, through Abram's deception of the Egyptians, through the moving around in Canaan. And now, after all of their travels, all of their nomadic lifestyle, they are back in Canaan. The famine is over, and their group of people is so big, they can't be supported by the land.

I'm using a lot of John MacArthur's notes today because he wrote some things that make sense and are easy to understand. His Genesis book that covers Genesis 12 through 33 on page 17 in reference to verse 6, where it says that the land was not able to support them. Bible scholars have given a conservative estimate of Abram's traveling household, and it would be at least 1,000 people.

He also had flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, people who worked for him, and the people who worked for him also had their own possessions, tents, cooking utensils, and animals for travel. So on and so forth. Add to this Lot's household.

The reminder that the Canaanites and Perizzites were still in the land is kind of a nod to the fact that they weren't walking around unseen. Abram, with his large group of people, would have drawn attention. Add in the fighting between the herdsmen of Abram and the herdsmen of Lot… That's not bearing well as a witness. ...

So, Abram is kind of the sole representation of Yahweh at this point. So, the fighting between his guys and the Lot’s guys is not a good representation of the God of the Universe.

When we get to the point where Abram says to Lot, “We've got to split up. You've got to go your way, and I'm going to go mine,” he gives Lot the choice. In a patriarchal society like this, in those kinds of societies, the older man has seniority, and his word is law. Abram set that aside and allowed Lot to choose which way he would go, and Abram would go the opposite way.

It's kind of significant. People, in my experience at least, aren't fond of giving up control. Once they have control, they use it sometimes for good, sometimes not so good. But Abram gave up control of where he would go even, with all his people under him, and allowed Lot to choose first.

Now Lot, as a younger man, as many young men and young women, wanted power. He wanted wealth. He wanted that status that came with wealth. That's why, when he lifted his eyes, which is a significant Old Testament phrase, he saw what he wanted most. He picked out the choice land and wealth.

If you've ever looked at aerial footage of Israel and the Gaza area, there's not a lot of green spots over there. There's a lot of green just around the rivers and seasonally around the wadis. These dry valleys are great for camping in during the warmer months, but during the rainy months they can quickly turn into a river. Lot followed his desire for wealth and comfort all the way to Sodom.

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https://asheleadsabiblestudyforbusywomen.wordpress.com/2025/11/13/genesis-12-faithfulness-obedience/

Join me as we read through Genesis 11 and discuss the Tower of Bable and the genealogy of Abram.

Please note, I made a couple minor errors when reccording (that I don't know how to fix). The correct website for Answers In Genesis is answersingenesis.org. The correct name of the article is "Ancient Biblical Lifespans: Did Adam Live Over 900 Years?" I was apparently remembering the email header, not the actual article name. I apologize for any inconvenience. I do have links to the correct website and article in the shownotes and transcript here.

Welcome back to As He Leads - a Bible study podcast for busy women!

I hope you enjoyed walking through Genesis 10 with me today. It is certainly a tongue twister! (Read that as there was heavy editing in this episode.) As promised, I am including a list of resources that I hope you will find useful.

This is a link to the Map of Nations we read about today. ( https://www.bible-history.com/maps/2-table-of-nations.html )

The Bible app I mentioned is the Tecarta Bible app. I don't make any money by recommending them, but I have had such a great experience with their product, I am happy to do so. You can check them out in both the Google and Apple stores as well as online at https://tecartabible.com/home .

They also have the super awesome Tecarta Bible Search app. It is also available for both Android and Apple products. All you need is a key word or phrase, or general theme of a verse, to start a search and the app does the digging for you.

The other resource I mentioned is also wonderful - The Blue Letter Bible. You can check out there website at https://www.blueletterbible.org/ or their app for Apple and Android products.

I'm working on adding the podcast information to a blog style page. I'll also post occasional updates there. You can find it at https://asheleadsabiblestudyforbusywomen.wordpress.com. You can reach me there or at as.he.leadsblog@gmail.com.

I look forward to our next journey together, As He Leads!

Rachel Kennedy

Welcome to As He Leads - a Bible study podcast for busy women. Today's podcast covers Genesis 9 and is read using the English Standard Version (ESV) of The Bible.

In today's show, I mentioned several resources that I'd share with you. I was trying to upload show notes from my phone and accidentally published the podcast, so I apologize if a random link was all you found here!

Resource links I promised:

For post-flood information, click here.

If you are struggling with pornography addiction, I have Christian resources here from Focus on the Family or here from Hope & Joy in Christ. There are many other Christian based resources out there. Please feel free to reach out directly to me if you are in need of a listening ear.

Notes used from The MacArthur Bible Commentary

• 9:25-27 Cursed be Canaan. The shift from Ham to his son Canaan established the historic legitimacy of Israel’s later conquest of the Canaanites. These were the people with whom Israel had to do battle shortly after they first heard Moses’ reading of this passage. Here, God gave Israel the theological basis for the conquest of Canaan. The descendants of Ham had received a sentence of judgment for the sins of their progenitor. In 10:15-20, the descendants of Canaan are seen to be the earlier inhabitants of the land later promised to Abraham.
• 9:26 may Canaan be his servant. Conquered peoples were called servants, even if they were not household or private slaves. Shem, the ancestor of Israel, and the other “Semites” were to be the masters of Ham’s descendants, the Canaanites. The latter would give their land to the former.
• 9:27 dwell in the tents. This means that spiritual blessings would come to the Japhethites through the God of Shem (v. 26) and the line of Shem from which Messiah would come.

Notes from Dr. Thomas L. Constable's Notes on Genesis available online here.

• The Noahic Covenant was a suzerainty treaty that God made with humankind through Noah.[526] In it, He promised to "never again destroy all flesh" with a "flood [of] water" (v. 11).
• "A peculiar difficulty arises in v. 10 for those who hold that the Flood was partial and not universal. They must support the strange supposition that God made a covenant with those creatures only which went forth from the ark. Others that never entered the ark must do without the benefits of such a covenant."
• The sign God appointed to remind people of this promise, and to guarantee its veracity, was the rainbow ("bow"; v. 12-15; cf. 6:12). There may have been rainbows before this pronouncement, but now God attached significance to the rainbow.
• "It is not impossible that with the Flood came altered atmospheric and cloud conditions, for geologic evidence points to an earlier age when a climate uniformly tropical prevailed also in the artic region.
• The Canaanites became known for their shameless depravity in sexual matters.[550] ... In view of what studies on the effects of viewing pornography have taught us, it should be no surprise that the root of the depraved Canaanite culture was looking at someone's nakedness. We need to be very careful about viewing nudity. It can lead to an addiction that results in complete corruption, and finally ends in divine judgment.

As always, please feel free to reach out with any thoughts or questions!

Rachel Kennedy

as.he.leadsblog@gmail.com

Welcome to As He Leads, a Bible study podcast for busy women! Today's show notes include notations and situations from the podcast episode, as well as other interesting tidbits that didn't make the cut into the show this time.

My favorite verses from this chapter:

• verse 1: "Then God remembered Noah..." Noah was not truly forgotten by God but was delivered by Him.
• verse 13: "...in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth..."
• verse 21: "And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma..." Our worship today is the same pleasing aroma when we bring it to God with an obedient and joyful heart!
• verse 22: The implied global changes here just astound me.

Another interesting thing I found while combing through this chapter was the choice of birds used. Ravens and Doves are very different types of birds in many ways. I'll include notes from both MacArthur and Constable below on the details.

Our Takeaways from Genisis 8:

1. God Remembered Noah. He extended mercy and deliverance from death and destruction. God made a promise to us, through this covenant with Noah, that He will not completely destroy the earth. His reference to seasons is repeated in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.
2. Noah was patient and obedient. Gen 8:6-18 detail each step in the process Noah took before God said he could leave the ark. His first act on dry land was to build an altar and make a sacrifice of thanksgiving and worship.

When you are facing your ark moments - those seemingly unending trials, periods of unrest, family struggles, relationship issues - be like Noah

• Remain Faithful - 1 Corinthians 10:13
• Be Patient - Psalm 33:18
• Be Obedient - Matthew 26:39

From Dr. Thomas Constable's Notes on Genesis available at planobiblechapel.org/soniclight/

• "When Moses wrote that "God remembered" someone, in this case "Noah," he meant that God extended mercy to him or her by delivering that person from death or destruction or from barrenness (30:22). God's rescue of Noah foreshadows His deliverance of Israel in the Exodus."
• "The raven in seeking food settles upon every carcass it sees, whereas the dove will only settle on what is dry and clean."
• Noah's "altar" is the first altar mentioned in the Bible. His "burnt offerings" were for worship. Some of the burnt offerings in the Mosaic cultus (system of worship) were for the same purpose. Specifically, a burnt offering made atonement and expressed the offerer's complete personal devotion to God. As the head of the new humanity, Noah, with his sacrifice, represented all humankind.

From The MacArthur Bible Commentary

• 8:7-12 a raven . . . a dove. Ravens survive on a broad range of food types. If any food was available outside the ark, the raven could survive. In contrast, a dove is much more selective in its food choices. The dove’s choice of food would indicate that new life had begun to grow; thus Noah and his family could also survive outside the ark.
• 8:14-16 Noah and his family had been in the ark for 378 days (cf 7:4, 10, 11).
• 8:22 While the earth remains. With many alterations from the global flood, God reestablished the cycle of seasons after the catastrophic interruption.

Please reach out with any questions or concerns at as.he.leadsblog@gmail.com!

Rachel K

Welcome back to As He Leads, a Bible study podcast for busy women! I apologize for the long break. I had some health issues that had to get sorted out at the end of 2020 and they prevented me from being able to move forward with this study. God is good and I am feeling much better, so we begin again where we left off.

As promised, I want to provide you with information from people who have done their ark research. Click here for comparative details about the size of the ark and the Biblical account of the flood versus other localized, mythological floods. Click here for more details about the number of and caring for the animals on board.

Reference notes:

Dr. Thomas L Constable's Notes on Genesis from soniclight.com

• "7:1-10 God, in His grace, invited Noah to enter the ark with his family (v. 1; cf. 8:15). God took the initiative, as He later did in calling Abram (cf. 12:1). This is the first occurrence of the offer "Come" in the Bible (v. 1, NET). This invitation continues throughout Scripture, the last offer being in Revelation 22:17. God extends the invitation to people, He urges them to take advantage of the perfect provision He has made for their preservation, and He offers it in a time of impending judgment and gloom."

MacArthur Bible Commentary

• "7:11 ... all the fountains of the great deep were broken up. The subterranean waters sprang up from inside the earth to form the seas and rivers (1:10; 2:10-14), which were not produced by rainfall (since there was none), but by deep fountains in the earth. Such a catastrophe would also easily explain why so many of the earth’s mountain ranges give evidence of having once been under the sea. the windows of heaven. The celestial waters in the canopy encircling the globe were dumped on the earth and joined with the terrestrial and the subterranean waters (cf 1:7). This ended the water canopy surrounding the earth and unleashed the water in the earth; together, these phenomena began the new system of hydrology that has since characterized the earth (see Job 26:8; Eccl. 1:7; Is. 55:10; Amos 9:6). The sequence in this verse, indicating that the earth’s crust breaks up first, then the heavens drop their water, is interesting because the volcanic explosions that would have occurred when the earth fractured would have sent magma and dust into the atmosphere, along with gigantic sprays of water, gas, and air-all penetrating the canopy and triggering its downpour."

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

• "7:16 and the Lord shut him in — literally, “covered him round about.” The “shutting him in” intimated that Noah had become the special object of divine care and protection, and that to those without the season of grace was over (Matthew 25:10)."

Today's challenge was brought to you from Hebrews 13:8 (ESV), which says, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." Friends, if we believe the Bible is the true and living Word of God, then we believe Noah built an ark that was divinely filled and protected. Then we believe Methuselah lived to be 969 years old. We believe that the God of All Creation spoke and everything came into existence, then we must also believe He can and will and does carry us through the storms of life.

As always, feel free to send me questions, concerns, comments, or compliments through the messages here or at as.he.leadsblog@gmail.com! I look forward to our next study!

Rachel Kennedy

P.S. If you are enjoying this podcast, please share it with a friend!

Welcome back to As He Leads - a Bible Study Podcast for busy women! Our passage for today covers the increasing corruption of earth and Noah's pre-flood instructions. I want to apologize for the awkward end of the podcast. I was having technical issues during editing and couldn't get it quite the way I wanted.

Excerpts from The MacArthur Bible Commentary:

• 6:2 the sons of God saw the daughters of men. The sons of God, identified elsewhere almost exclusively as angels (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7), saw and took wives of the human race. This produced an unnatural union which violated the God-ordained order of human marriage and procreation (Gen. 2:24). Some have argued that the sons of God were the sons of Seth who cohabited with the daughters of Cain; others suggest they were perhaps human kings wanting to build harems. But the passage puts strong emphasis on the angelic versus human contrast. The NT places this account in sequence with other Genesis events and identifies it as involving fallen angels who indwelt men (see notes on 2 Pet. 2:4, 5; Jude 6). Matthew 22:30 does not necessarily negate the possibility that angels are capable of procreation, but just that they do not marry. However, to procreate physically, demons had to possess human, male bodies.
• The word nephilim is from a root meaning “to fall,” indicating that they were strong men who “fell” on others in the sense of overpowering them (the only other use of this term is in Num. 13:33). They were already in the earth when the “mighty men” and “men of renown” were born. The fallen ones are not the offspring from the union in verses 1 and 2.
• The word order is one of increasing spiritual quality before God: just is to live by God’s righteous standards; perfect sets him apart by a comparison with those of his day; and that he walked with God puts him in a class with Enoch (5:24).
• 6:15, 16 While the ark was not designed for beauty or speed, these dimensions provided extraordinary stability in the tumultuous floodwaters. A cubit was about eighteen inches long, making the ark 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. A gigantic box of that size would be very stable in the water, impossible to capsize. The volume of space in the ark was 1.4 million cubic feet, equal to the capacity of 522 standard railroad box cars, which could carry 125,000 sheep. It had three stories, each fifteen feet high; each deck was equipped with various rooms (lit. “nests”).

Excerpts from Dr. Thomas L. Constable Notes on Genesis, 2020 Edition (available here)

• The ark was about 450 feet long (1 1/2 American football fields), 75 feet wide (7 standard parking spaces), and 45 feet high (a typical four-story building). It had three decks, and over 100,000 square feet of deck space. There were over 1 million cubic feet of space in it. This is a volume capacity of approximately 860 railroad boxcars. It had a floating capacity (its buoyancy; the total weight it could float) of almost 14,000 gross tons.
• What a splendid figure this man makes, a picture of solitary goodness! He was the one saint of that day. It is possible, therefore, to be good even though we have to stand alone. It is possible to be right with God even amidst surrounding iniquity. God is the same today as He was to Noah, and if only we are willing to fulfill the conditions we too shall walk with God and please Him.

Please reach out with any questions or concerns at as.he.leadsblog@gmail.com!