Abram risked his life for Lot because he was his brother; cf. 1 John 3. 16. In the only battle he ever fought in his life, Abram had taken on an unbeaten group of conquering kings on their way home from a series of great victories. Abram, against all the odds, had won, and was returning home exhausted from the victory, when he met Melchizedek, who had come out to bless him, Heb. 7. 17.
Melchizedek was not the only king to meet him that day. Melchizedek gave him physical and spiritual refreshment, but Bera, the king of Sodom offered a huge fortune, but with strings attached! Abram realized that the price was too great, for Bera would afterwards have said, ‘I have made Abram rich’, Gen. 14. 23, but Abram said that ‘I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD’, v. 22. God had given him all his success, and although by common consent he had every right to the goods he had recovered, his pilgrim character was at stake. Lot had joined these ungodly men, but Abram was going to continue living his separated and uncompromized life, whatever the cost!
Now Abram had made himself an enemy of the kings he had put to rout, and had every reason to be afraid! But, just then, Abram was given the vision first recorded in the Bible, during which the Lord said to him, ‘Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward’, 15. 1. Abram needed the reassurance that his act of faith had not been an act of folly that would bring rapid retribution, and that turning down a fortune had not been rash. However, the Lord promised Himself as Abram’s shield and exceeding great reward. Abram took the opportunity to ask about his progeny, and the LORD gave him great pledges about the certainty and number of his heirs in coming generations, 15. 2-5.
Abram immediately believed the Lord’s promises, and the Lord in turn ‘counted it [i.e. his faith] to him for righteousness’, 15. 6. Abram, for all else he had, lacked the kind of righteousness that God demanded, but on account of his faith, it was reckoned to him, see Rom. 4. 3 - 6, 9, and 20; Gal. 3. 6-14; Jas. 2. 23.
