We have here an account of the only military action we ever find Abram engaged in, and to this he was not prompted by avarice or ambition, but purely by a principle of charity. Considering the impropriety of Lot's conduct, he might have found a very plausible pretence for declining to expose himself and his servants to the danger which it was reasonable to suppose would attend the enterprise; but his love to his relation, who, notwithstanding his late error, was, upon the whole, a righteous man, and his compassion for him and his family in their distress, induced him to undertake this difficult and hazardous service, and his faith in the providence and promises of God supported him in it, and brought him through it much to his honour, and for the comfort of his nephew and many others.
Abram is here called the Hebrew, and because the word signifies passage, some have thought that he is so called from his passing the Euphrates; but it is much more probable that he is called so from his great and good ancestor Eber, mentioned Genesis 10:24; Genesis 11:14, in and by whom the primitive language and true religion were preserved; and, therefore, though Abram had five other progenitors between Eber and him, who were persons of less note, he is rightly denominated from Eber, because he revived the memory and work of Eber, kept up the same language, and eminently propagated the same true religion.