In (Genesis 13:10), Lot "lifted up his eyes and saw the whole plain of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere." A simple observation about good farmland. But the ancient Aramaic translators of Targum Jonathan saw something far darker in that gaze, and their single added word transforms the entire story.
The Targum says Lot "uplifted his eyes towards fornication"—and then beheld the well-watered plain. The translators did not describe what Lot saw. They described what Lot wanted. His eyes were already seeking sin before they landed on the landscape. The lush Jordan Valley was not the temptation. It was the excuse. Lot chose Sodom not despite its wickedness but because of it.
The Targum also explains the dispute between Abraham's shepherds and Lot's shepherds in a way the Hebrew never does. In Genesis, we learn only that "there was strife" (Genesis 13:7). The Targum fills in the details: Abraham had specifically instructed his shepherds not to graze among the Canaanites and Perizzites, and to restrain their cattle from trespassing on others' pastures. Lot's shepherds ignored these rules entirely, "feeding in the grounds of the Kenaanaee and Pherizaee." The argument was not about grazing rights. It was about ethics—Abraham demanded scrupulous honesty while Lot's people took whatever they pleased.
The depravity of Sodom also gets a far more detailed treatment. Where Genesis says only that "the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners" (Genesis 13:13), the Targum catalogs their crimes: they "sinned in their bodies," "sinned with open nakedness," shed "innocent blood," and "practiced strange worship." Four distinct categories of transgression, escalating from personal corruption to idolatry. The translators wanted no ambiguity about what made Sodom worthy of destruction.
And one quiet addition changes the theology of the whole chapter. Lot prospered, the Targum notes, only because he "was remembered through the righteousness of Abraham." Every sheep and ox Lot owned was borrowed merit. When he walked toward Sodom, he was spending someone else's spiritual credit.
And Abram went up from Mizraim, he and his wife (and) all that he had; and Lot with him, to go to the south.
And Abram had become very strong in cattle, in silver, and in gold.
And he proceeded in his journeyings from the south unto Bethel, and returned to the place where he had outspread his tabernacle at the first, between Bethel and Ai,
to the place of the altar which he had made there at the beginning; and Abram prayed there in the Name of the Lord.
And also unto Lot, who was remembered through the righteousness of Abram, there were sheep and oxen and tents.
And the land could not sustain them to dwell together, because their possessions were great, and they were not able to dwell together.
And contentions arose between the shepherds of Abram's flock, and the shepherds of the flocks of Lot; for the shepherds of Abram had been instructed by him not to go among the Kenaanaee and the Pherizaee, who, as yet, had power in the land, and to restrain the cattle that they should make no depredation in going to the place of their pasture: but the shepherds of Lot would go and feed in the grounds of the Kenaanaee and Pherizaee who yet dwelt in the land.
And Abram said to Lot, Between me and thee let there not now be controversy, nor between my shepherds and thy shepherds; for we are brother-men.
Is not all the land before thee? Separate then from me. If thou to the north, I to the south: if thou to the south, I to the north.
And Lot uplifted his eyes towards (the place of) fornication; and beheld all the plain of Jardena that it was altogether well watered, before the Lord in his wrath had destroyed Sedom and Amorah; a land admirable for trees, as the garden of the Lord, and for fruitage, as the land of Mizraim as thou goest up to Zoar.
And Lot chose to him all the plain of Jardena; and Lot journeyed from the east, and they separated the one man from his brother.
Abram dwelt in the land of Kenaan, and Lot dwelt in the towns of the plain, and spread his tabernacle towards Sedom.
And the men of Sedom were depraved in their wealth one with another, and they sinned in their bodies; they sinned with open nakedness, and the shedding of innocent blood, and practiced strange worship, and rebelled greatly against the name of the Lord.
And the Lord said to Abram, after that Lot had separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look, from the place where thou art, to the north and to the south, to the east and to the west:
for all the land that thou seest will I give unto thee, and to thy sons, for ever.
And I will make thy sons manifold as the dust of the earth, as that, as it is impossible for a man to number the dust of the earth, so also it shall be impossible to number thy sons.
Arise journey in the land, and make occupation of it in length and breadth; for to thee will I give it.
And Abram stretched his tent (and made folds) for oxen and sheep, and came and dwelt in the vale of Mamre which is in Hebron, and builded there an altar before the Lord.
