Melchizedek

The blessing runs in two directions, and both matter. Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth, and then blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. Melchizedek blesses the man and credits the victory to God in the same breath, so the blessing is not flattery of a returning general. Then four words with no explanation attached: and he gave him tithes of all. A tenth, given by Abram to this priest, four hundred years before the law that will command tithes and centuries before a Levite exists. Genesis does not tell us why Abram did it. It simply records that he did, and the writer of Hebrews will build an argument on it.

A thousand years later one verse in a psalm of David pulls this forgotten priest back into the centre of Scripture. The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. The psalm is addressed to a king, and it promises him a priesthood, which under the law was impossible: kings came from Judah and priests from Levi, and the two offices were kept apart so firmly that Uzziah was struck with leprosy for crossing the line. So the verse points past every king David knew. It is sworn rather than merely said, and it says for ever, and it names an order older than Aaron's and outside Israel altogether. This single verse is quoted or alluded to more often in the New Testament than almost any other.

The letter reads the Genesis account closely, and part of its reading is about what Genesis does not say. First being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace: the names are translated, because in Hebrew they mean those things. Then the famous line: without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life. In a book that records genealogies for nearly everyone, Melchizedek appears with none. No parents, no tribe, no birth, no death. The letter is arguing from the silence of the record, not claiming that a man walked the earth without parents, and that is how the earliest readers understood it. The silence makes him a fitting picture: made like unto the Son of God, abideth a priest continually.

The conclusion follows from the oath. If perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, no second order would have been needed, and Psalm 110 would not have been written. Since it was, the priesthood has changed, and there is made of necessity a change also of the law, because the two were issued together. The objection that Jesus came from Judah, of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood, is answered by the same psalm: this priest is made not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. Death is what limited the old priests, and they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death. This one continueth ever, and the practical result closes the chapter. He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. The sacrifice is offered once, and the priest who offered it does not have to be replaced.