Genesis 14:17-18
Out of a city with no history
Two kings come to meet Abram in the King’s Valley. One of them brings out bread and wine and is introduced as priest of God Most High.
People of the Bible
Melchizedek
Three verses, no genealogy, no beginning and no end given, and the rest of the Bible keeps coming back to him.
Melchizedek appears once in Genesis, in the space of three verses, and then vanishes. He is king of Salem and priest of God Most High, and he comes out to meet Abram on the road back from a rescue with bread and wine. He blesses Abram, blesses God for the victory, and receives a tenth of everything. Nothing is said about where he came from, who his father was, or what happened to him. In a book built out of genealogies, that silence is the loudest thing about him.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Melchizedek
- 01
- 02
Genesis 14:19-20
The blessing and the tenth
He blesses Abram by the maker of heaven and earth, and blesses God for the deliverance. Abram gives him a tenth without being asked.
- 03
Genesis 14:21-24
What Abram would not take
Straight afterwards the king of Sodom offers him the goods. Abram refuses so that no one can say a man made him rich. Having just met a real priest sharpens the refusal.
Why it matters
Because Genesis gives him no lineage, later Scripture is able to use him for something no ordinary priest could carry. Psalm 110 promises a king who is also a priest forever in his order, and Hebrews builds an entire argument on the fact that this priesthood is older than Levi and outside the law. He is also the reason Abram refuses the king of Sodom in the next breath.
1 song
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
