Abram returns to his former altar—"at the first"; this is a great principle, be it for Christian or Jew; it is the history of the stock of faith—great principles. Lot, favored heretofore with him, chooses what is good, and well watered, but the scene of God's judgment, into which he gets.
Abram gives up, and has only the scene of judgment, and gets all things, and it is promised now to him, and his seed, as in chapter 12: 7. This was when in the land, always an actual thing, not a promise for a principle to all, though we may apply it in a sense.
We have the entire separation of faith from a portion in this world, so that it should come into the inheritance of God's counsels—worldliness in him that had not the promises, or however did not act in faith as renouncing the world, having to dwell in the place of judgment, acting on the senses and selfishness to which this was then the best place, the apparent place of the Lord's blessing; this also is a type of the Jews.
Note in verse 12, Lot pitched toward—up to, even to—Sodom, but in verse 12 of the next chapter he was settled here.