Rescue, Kings and Melchizedek

The four kings carry names of the right shape for their regions. Chedorlaomer is good Elamite, Kudur-Lagamar, “servant of Lagamar”, a goddess of Elam; Tidal matches Tudhaliya, a Hittite royal name; Arioch resembles a name in the Mari letters. The old identification of Amraphel with Hammurabi is now largely abandoned.

Rashi, following Genesis Rabbah, heard the first two names as puns: Bera, “in evil”, and Birsha, “in wickedness”. Shinab and Shemeber are named, but the king of Bela is not. The five cities of the plain are those listed in the border of 10:19.

“Which is the salt sea” explains an old name by a later landscape: the vale of Siddim is now under water. The shallow southern basin of the Dead Sea is the usual guess. Numbers 34:3 uses “the salt sea” as the ordinary name for the Dead Sea.

Elam lay beyond the Tigris, and its kings were a real power in Mesopotamia in the early second millennium. Twelve years of tribute, rebellion in the thirteenth, reprisal in the fourteenth: the counting is the plain language of vassal treaties, and the overlord is a thousand miles away.

The first peoples struck are the old giant races Deuteronomy remembers: the Rephaim, of whom Og of Bashan was the last (Deuteronomy 3:11), and the Emim, “terrors”, whom the Moabites displaced (Deuteronomy 2:10–11). Ashteroth Karnaim means “Astarte of the two horns”.

The Horites of mount Seir are the people Esau’s descendants will later push out (Deuteronomy 2:12; Genesis 36:20). El-paran is probably Elath, at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba, the southern end of the campaign.

En-mishpat, “spring of judgment”, is Kadesh, where Israel will spend years in the wilderness. Amalek is Esau’s grandson (36:12), not yet born, so “the country of the Amalekites” names the ground by its later owners. Hazezon-tamar is En-gedi, according to 2 Chronicles 20:2.

The five kings choose to fight at home, in their own valley, on ground they knew. The list is given again in full, down to the repeated note on Zoar, and the next two verses show what that familiar ground does to them.

In verse 1 Amraphel stood first; here Chedorlaomer leads the list, since he is the overlord the rebels answered to. “Four kings with five” is the tally, and the smaller alliance wins.

“Slimepits” are pits of bitumen, the chemar that served as mortar at Babel (11:3). The Dead Sea throws up lumps of it, and Greek writers called it Lake Asphaltites. “Fell there” cannot mean died, since the king of Sodom reappears in verse 17; he fell in, or hid in them.

“Goods” is rekhush, the word for the “substance” of Abram and Lot in 12:5 and 13:6, the possessions that made the two men part. The invaders take it, and the food, and go home by the way they came.

Of all the captives of five cities only one is named, and he is named for his relation to Abram: “Abram’s brother’s son”. Genesis follows the war only as far as it touches this household.

This is the first time anyone in Scripture is called a Hebrew, Ivri. The word is used mostly by or before outsiders, as by Potiphar’s wife of Joseph in 39:14. The Greek rendered it “the migrant”. “Confederate” is literally “masters of a covenant”, sworn allies.

“Trained” is chanikhim, found only here, from the root of dedication, chanukkah. The Talmud (Nedarim 32a) noted that the letters of Eliezer, Abram’s steward in 15:2, add up to 318. Dan was called Laish until Judges 18:29 renamed it, so the name is the later one.

A divided force, a night attack, and a pursuit past Damascus, about a hundred and fifty miles beyond Dan. Hobah lies “on the left hand” of Damascus, which on Hebrew orientation means to the north. This is the first mention of Damascus in Scripture.

In verse 12 Lot was “Abram’s brother’s son”. Here he is “his brother Lot”, the word Abram used in 13:8, “we be brethren”. “Brought back” and “brought again” are the same verb, a full restoration.

The king’s dale is where Absalom will set up his pillar in 2 Samuel 18:18, traditionally near Jerusalem. Hebrews 7:1 takes up this very phrase, “returning from the slaughter of the kings”. The king of Sodom comes out first, but he will not speak first.

Melchizedek is the first person called a priest, kohen, in Scripture, and El Elyon, “the most high God”, is a title heard here for the first time. Psalm 76:2 sets Salem beside Zion: “In Salem also is his tabernacle.” Bread and wine are provisions for weary men.

“Possessor” is qoneh, which can mean owner or maker. The phrase “El, creator of earth” turns up in Phoenician and other West Semitic inscriptions, so Melchizedek uses a title his region knew, and blesses Abram by it.

“Delivered” is miggen, which sounds like magen, shield; in the next chapter God says “I am thy shield”, magen (15:1). The Hebrew does not name who gave the tithe to whom, and Hebrews 7:4 takes it that Abram gave it.

The king of Sodom brings no bread and no blessing, and his first word is “Give”. By custom the victor kept the spoil. He asks back only the “persons”, nefesh, and offers Abram what Abram had already taken.

A raised hand is the gesture of an oath, as when God says in Deuteronomy 32:40, “I lift up my hand to heaven.” The perfect tense can mean Abram swore before the battle. He takes Melchizedek’s title and puts the covenant name in front of it: the LORD, the most high God.

The Hebrew is the clipped form of an oath, “if I take”, with the curse left unsaid. The King James turns it into “that I will not take”. The latchet is the thong of a sandal, the strap John the Baptist says he is unworthy to untie in Mark 1:7.

“Save only” is beladay, “nothing for me”. The allies were named Mamre, Eshcol and Aner in verse 13; here they come in reverse, Aner, Eshcol, Mamre. The “young men” are Abram’s fighting servants, fed from the spoil on the way back.