In the days of Amraphel, king of Shinar; Arioch, king of Ellasar; Chedorlaomer, king of Elam; and Tidal, king of Goiim, they made war with Bera, king of Sodom; Birsha, king of Gomorrah; Shinab, king of Admah; Shemeber, king of Zeboiim; and the king of Bela (also called Zoar). All these joined together in the valley of Siddim (also called the Salt Sea). They served Chedorlaomer for twelve years, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled. In the fourteenth year Chedorlaomer came, and the kings who were with him, and struck the Rephaim in Ashteroth Karnaim, the Zuzim in Ham, the Emim in Shaveh Kiriathaim, and the Horites in their Mount Seir, to El Paran, which is by the wilderness. They returned, and came to En Mishpat (also called Kadesh), and struck all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites, that lived in Hazazon Tamar. The king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (also called Zoar) went out; and they set the battle in array against them in the valley of Siddim against Chedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goiim, Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings against the five. Now the valley of Siddim was full of tar pits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and some fell there. Those who remained fled to the hills. They took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their food, and went their way. They took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, who lived in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.
One who had escaped came and told Abram, the Hebrew. At that time, he lived by the oaks of Mamre, the Amorite, brother of Eshcol and brother of Aner. They were allies of Abram. When Abram heard that his relative was taken captive, he led out his three hundred eighteen trained men, born in his house, and pursued as far as Dan. He divided himself against them by night, he and his servants, and struck them, and pursued them to Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. He brought back all the goods, and also brought back his relative Lot and his goods, and the women also, and the other people.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15 1. And it came to pass in the days…
1. And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel. The history related in this chapter is chiefly worthy of remembrance, for three reasons: first, because Lot, with a gentle reproof, exhorted the men of Sodom to repentance; they had, however, become altogether unteachable, and desperately perverse in their wickedness. But Lot was beaten with these scourges, because, having been allured and deceived by the richness of the soil, he had mixed himself with unholy and wicked men. Secondly, because God, out of compassion to him, raised up Abram as his avenger and liberator, to rescue him, when a captive, from the hand of the enemy; in which act the incredible goodness and benevolence of God towards his own people, is rendered conspicuous; since, for the sake of one man, he preserves, for a time, many who were utterly unworthy. Thirdly, because Abram was divinely honored with a signal victory, and was blessed by the mouth of Melchizedek, in whose person, as appears from other passages of Scripture, the kingdom and priesthood of Christ was shadowed forth. As it respects the sum of the history, it is a horrible picture both of the avarice and pride of man.
The human race had yet their three progenitors, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, living among them; by the very sight of whom they were admonished, that they all sprung from one family, and one ark. Moreover, the memory of their common origin was a sacred pledge of fraternal connection, which should have bound them to assist each other, by mutual good offices. Nevertheless, ambition so prevailed, that they assailed one another on all sides, with sword and armor, and each attempted to subdue the rest. Wherefore, while we see, at the present day, princes raging furiously, and shaking the earth to the utmost of their power; let us remember that the evil is of ancient date; since the lust of dominion has, in all ages, been too prevalent among men. Let us, however, also remark, that no fault is worse than that loftiness of mind, which many deem a most heroical disposition. The ambition of Chedorlaomer was the torch of the whole war: for he, inflamed with the desire of triumphing, drew three others into a hostile confederacy. And pride compelled the men of Sodom and their allies to take arms, for the purpose of shaking off the yoke.
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That Moses, however, records the names of so many kings, while Shem was yet living, (although derided by profane men as fabulous,) will not appear absurd, if we only reflect that this great propagation of the human race, was a remarkable miracle of God. For when the Lord said to Noah himself, and to his sons, Increase and multiply, he intended to raise them to the hope of a far more excellent restoration than would have taken place, in the ordinary course of nature. This benediction is indeed perpetual, and shall flourish even to the end of the world: but it was necessary that its extraordinary efficacy should then appear; in order that these earliest fathers might know, that a new world had been divinely inclosed within the ark. By the Poets, Deucalion with his wife, is feigned to have sown the race of men after the deluge, by throwing stones behind him. But it followed of necessity, that the miserable minds of men should be deluded with such trifles, when they departed from the pure truth of God; and Satan has made use of this artifice, for the purpose at discrediting the veracity of the miracles of God. For since the memory of the deluge, and the unwonted propagation of a new world, could not be speedily obliterated, he scattered abroad clouds and smoke; introducing puerile conceits, in order that what had before been held for certain truth, might now be regarded as a fable. It is however to be observed, that all are called kings by Moses, who held the priority in any town, or in any considerable assembly of men. It is asked, whether those kings who followed Chedorlaomer dwelt at a great distance; because Tidal is called the king of nations? There are those who imagine that he reigned over different nations far and wide; as if he was a king of kings. The ancient interpreter fetches Arioch from Pontus; which is most absurd. I rather think the true reason of the name was, that he had a band composed of deserters and vagrants, who, having left their own country, had resorted to him. Therefore, since they were not one body — natives of his own country — but gathered together from a promiscuous multitude, he was properly called king of nations. In saying that the battle was fought in the vale of Siddim, or in the open plain, which, when Moses wrote, had become the Salt Sea, it is not to be doubted that the Dead Sea, or the lake Asphaltites, is meant. For he knew whom he was appointed to instruct, and therefore he always accommodated his words to the rude capacity of the people; and this is his common custom in reference to the names of places, as I have previously intimated. Before, however, the battle was fought, Moses declares that the inhabitants of the region were partially beaten. It is probable that all had been scattered, because they had no leader, under whose auspices they might fight, until five kings advanced to meet them with a disciplined army. Now, though Chedorlaomer had rendered so many people tributary to him by tyranny rather than by lawful authority, and on that account his ambition is to be condemned; yet his subjects are justly punished for having rashly rebelled. For although liberty is by no means to be despised, yet the subjection which is once imposed upon us cannot, without implied rebellion against God, be shaken off; because ‘every power is ordained by God,’ notwithstanding, in its commencement, it may have flowed from the lust of dominion, (Romans 13:1.) Therefore some of the rebels are slaughtered like cattle; and others, though they have clothed themselves in armor, and are prepared to resist, are yet driven to flight; thus, unhappily to all concerned, terminates the contumacious refusal to pay tribute. And such narratives are to be noticed that we may learn from them, that all who strive to produce anarchy, fight against God.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 7, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15 Of a people gathered of divers countries.
Of a people gathered of divers countries.
That is, of Babylon: by kings here, meaning, them that were governors of cities.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–16 Gen 14:1 And it came to pass in the…
Gen 14:1 And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations;
Ver. 1. In the days of Amraphel,] i.e., Nimrod, as R. Salomon saith: or Ninus, as others.
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King of nations.] Of a people made up of sundry nations, saith Lyra. Symmachus rendereth it, King of Scythians: others, of Pamphylia.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 i.e. Of a people which came to him out…
i.e. Of a people which came to him out of several nations, (being allured possibly by his fame, or by promises and privileges granted to them), and put themselves under his government. Or Goiim is the name of a certain place or country, so called from the confluence of divers people or nations thither, as Tyrus is called the mart of nations, Isa 23:3, upon the same account.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 13 We have here an account of the first war…
We have here an account of the first war that ever we read of in scripture, which (though the wars of the nations make the greatest figure in history) we should not have had the history of if Abram and Lot had not been concerned in it. Now, concerning this war, we may observe,
I. The parties engaged in it. The invaders were four kings, two of them no less than kings of Shinar and Elam (that is, Chaldea and Persia), yet probably not the sovereign princes of those great kingdoms in their own persons, but either officers under them, or rather the heads and leaders of some colonies which came out of those great nations, and settled themselves near Sodom, but retained the names of the countries from which they had their origin. The invaded were the kings of five cities that lay near together in the plain of Jordan, namely, Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Zoar. Four of them are named, but not the fifth, the king of Zoar or Bela, either because he was much more mean and inconsiderable or because he was much more wicked and inglorious than the rest, and worthy to be forgotten.
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II. The occasion of this war was the revolt of the five kings from under the government of Chedorlaomer. Twelve years they served him. Small joy they had of their fruitful land, while thus they were tributaries to a foreign power, and could not call what they had their own. Rich countries are a desirable prey, and idle luxurious countries are an easy prey, to growing greatness. The Sodomites were the posterity of Canaan whom Noah had pronounced a servant to Shem, from whom Elam descended; thus soon did that prophecy begin to e fulfilled. In the thirteenth year, beginning to be weary of their subjection, they rebelled, denied their tribute, and attempted to shake off the yoke and retrieve their ancient liberties. In the fourteenth year, after some pause and preparation, Chedorlaomer, in conjunction with his allies, set himself to chastise and reduce the rebels, and, since he could not have it otherwise, to fetch his tribute from them on the point of his sword. Note, Pride, covetousness, and ambition, are the lusts from which wars and fightings come. To these insatiable idols the blood of thousands has been sacrificed.
III. The progress and success of the war. The four kings laid the neighbouring countries waste and enriched themselves with the spoil of them (Gen 14:5-7), upon the alarm of which it had been the wisdom of the king of Sodom to submit, and desire conditions of peace; for how could he grapple with an enemy thus flushed with victory? But he would rather venture the utmost extremity than yield, and it sped accordingly. Quos Deus destruet eos dementat - Those whom God means to destroy he delivers up to infatuation. 1. The forces of the king of Sodom and his allies were routed; and, it should seem, many of them perished in the slime-pits who had escaped the sword, Gen 14:10. In all places we are surrounded with deaths of various kinds, especially in the field of battle. 2. The cities were plundered, Gen 14:11. All the goods of Sodom, and particularly their stores and provisions of victuals, were carried off by the conquerors. Note, When men abuse the gifts of a bountiful providence to gluttony and excess, it is just with God, and his usual way, by some judgment or other to strip them of that which they have so abused, Hos 2:8, Hos 2:9. 3. Lot was carried captive, Gen 14:12. They took Lot among the rest, and his goods. Now Lot may here be considered, (1.) As sharing with his neighbours in this common calamity. Though he was himself a righteous man, and (which is here expressly noticed) Abram's brother's son, yet he was involved with the rest in all this trouble. Note, All things come alike to all, Ecc 9:2. The best of men cannot promise themselves an exemption from the greatest troubles in this life; neither from our own piety nor our relation to those that are the favourites of heaven will be our security, when God's judgments are abroad. Note, further, Many an honest man fares the worse for his wicked neighbours. It is therefore our wisdom to separate ourselves, or at least to distinguish ourselves, from them (Co2 6:17), and so deliver ourselves, Rev 18:4. (2.) As smarting for the foolish choice he made of a settlement here. This is plainly intimated when it is said, They took Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom. So near a relation of Abram should have been a companion and disciple of Abram, and should have abode by his tents; but, if he choose to dwell in Sodom, he must thank himself if he share in Sodom's calamities. Note, When we go out of the way of our duty we put ourselves from under God's protection, and cannot expect that the choices which are made by our lusts should issue to our comfort. Particular mention is made of their taking Lot's goods, those goods which had occasioned his contest with Abram and his separation from him. Note, It is just with God to deprive us of those enjoyments by which we have suffered ourselves to be deprived of our enjoyment of him.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–16 And it came to pass, in the days of…
And it came to pass, in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar,.... Or Babylon, as Onkelos, where Nimrod began his kingdom, Gen 10:8. This was Nimrod himself, as the Jewish writers generally says; though more likely Ninyas the son of Ninus and Semiramis, and grandson of Nimrod; or rather some petty prince or deputy governor of Shinar, under the king of Babylon; since, though named first, he was not the principal in this war, but fought under the king of Elam, and as an ally and auxiliary of his; and it may be the kingdom of Babylon was not as yet of any great extent and power, and that all those stories told of Ninus, Semiramis, and Ninyas, are mere fables; and indeed we hear nothing in Scripture of this kingdom, and the kings of it, from this time, until the times of Merodach Baladan, the son of Baladan king of Babylon, in the reign of Hezekiah king of Judah; nor of the Assyrian kingdom, and the kings of it, until Pul king of Assyria, in the times of Menahem king of Israel; wherefore it is greatly to be questioned, whether those kingdoms rose to any considerable height until these times: though some think that Shinar here does not intend Shinar in Chaldea or Babylon, which was too far distant from Abram, but Shinar in Mesopotamia, a large city at the foot of a mountain, three days distant from Mansil, which is now, in Arabic, called Singjar, and by Ptolemy, Singara (n).
Arioch king of Ellasar; or Telassar, according to the Targum of Jonathan, a place in Mesopotamia, inhabited by the children of Eden, Isa 37:12; and Stephanus (o) makes mention of a city in Coelesyria, upon the borders of Arabia, called Ellas, of which this prince may be thought to be the governor; or rather he was king of a people called Elesari, whose country is placed by Ptolemy (p) in Arabia; and could Ninyas be thought to be Amraphel, this king would bid fair to be Ariaeus a king of Arabia, or a son of his of the same name, that was a confederate of Ninus, as Diodorus Siculus (q) relates out of Ctesias. Next follows:
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Chedorlaomer king of Elam; or the Elamites, as the Vulgate Latin version, the Persians, see Act 1:9. This led Diodorus (r) to say, that the war Moses speaks of is what the Persians waged against the Sodomites. This seems to have been the most powerful prince at this time, to whom the five kings of Sodom, &c. had been subject for twelve years, but now had rebelled, and to subdue them again he came forth, with three other kings his allies, see Gen 14:4; but if Elam is the same with Persia, as it often signifies, or with Elymais, a part of Persia, that kingdom could not be at this time so large and potent as it has been since; or Chedorlaomer would not have stood in need of the assistance of other princes against such petty kings as those of Sodom, &c. Nor does it seem credible that he should come out of Persia, and pass through so great a part of the world as the countries of Assyria, Chaldea, Mesopotamia, Syria, and part of Arabia and of Canaan, to bring five such small towns or cities into subjection to him, as he must, as Sir Walter Raleigh (s) observes; nor could the trifle of goods, as they may be comparatively called, he carried off, be an equivalent to the expense he must be at in so long a march. It is more probable, therefore, that this was the name of some place near to the land of Canaan, built by some of the posterity of Elam, the son of Shem, and called after the name of their ancestor; or it may be a colony of the Elamites in those parts, of which this prince was their head and chief:
and Tidal king of nations; that is, either of other nations distinct from those before mentioned, so Aben Ezra; or else, as he also observes, the name of a province; or as Jarchi and Ben Melech, the name of a place called Goim, because there were gathered together many out of various nations and places, and they set a man to reign over them, whose name was Tidal; just as one of the Galilees in later times was called Galilee of the nations, for a like reason. Sir Walter Raleigh (t) conjectures, that as there were many petty kingdoms joining to Phoenicia and Palestine, as Palmyrene, Batanea, Laodicene, Apamene, Chalcidice, Cassiotis and Celibonitis, these might be gathered together under this man. According to Eupolemus (u), an Heathen writer, these several princes were Armenians that fought with the Phoenicians, and overcame them, by whom Lot was carried captive. Josephus (w) indeed, accommodating himself to the Greek historians, and in favour of them, says that the Assyrians at this time were masters of Asia, and led out an army under four generals, and made the kings of Sodom, &c. tributary to them; and they rebelling against them, made another expedition upon them under these four kings as their generals, and conquered them: but it seems not likely that the Assyrian monarchy was so large at this time; or if it was, these live petty kings of the plain of Jordan, who had not so much ground as our Middlesex, as Sir Walter Raleigh (x) observes, and perhaps not a quarter of the people in it, would never have dared to have engaged with so powerful an adversary.
(n) Hyde Hist. Relig. Pers. c. 2. p. 46. (o) De Urbibus. (p) Geograph. l. 6. c. 7. (q) Bibliothec. l. 2. p. 90. (r) Apud Drusium in loc. (s) History of the World, par. 1. B. 2. c. 1. sect. 13. p. 138. (t) Ibid. sect. 11. p. 137. (u) Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 17. p. 418. (w) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 9. (x) Ut supra, (History of the World, par. 1. B. 2. c. 1.) sect. 10. p. 136.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 5, 13, 14, 16 We have in this chapter,
We have in this chapter,
I. A war with the king of Sodom and his allies, ver. 1-12.
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II. Abram's rescue of Lot from captivity, ver. 13-16.
III. Abram's return from that expedition, ver. 17. with an account of what passed, (1.) Between him and the king of Salem, ver. 18-20. (2.) Between him and the king of Sodom, ver. 21-24. In part fulfilled, that God would make his name great.
We have here an account of the first war that ever we read of in scripture, in which we may observe. [1.] The parties engaged in it. The invaders were four kings; two of them no less than kings of Shinar and Elam - That is, Chaldea and Persia; yet probably not the sovereign princes of those great kingdoms, but rather the heads of some colonies which came out thence, and settled themselves near Sodom, but retained the names of the countries from which they had their origin. The invaded were the kings of five cities that lay near together in the plain of Jordan, Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Zoar. [2.] The occasion of this war was, the revolt of the five kings from under the government of Chedorlaomer.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 The war of four confederate kings against the five…
CHAPTER XIV
The war of four confederate kings against the five kings of
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Canaan, 1-3.
The confederate kings overrun and pillage the whole country, 4-7.
Battle between them and the kings of Canaan, 5, 9.
The latter are defeated, and the principal part of the armies
of the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah slain, 10;
on which these two cities are plundered, 11.
Lot, his goods, and his family, are also taken and carried
away, 12.
Abram, being informed of the disaster of his nephew, 13,
arms three hundred and eighteen of his servants, and pursues
them, 14;
overtakes and routs them, and recovers Lot and his family,
and their goods, 15, 16;
is met on his return by the king of Sodom, and by Melchizedek,
king of Salem, with refreshments for himself and men, 17, 18.
Melchizedek blesses Abram, and receives from him, as priest
of the most high God, the tenth of all the spoils, 19, 20.
The king of Sodom offers to Abram all the goods he has taken
from the enemy, 21;
which Abram positively refuses, having vowed to God to receive
no recompense for a victory of which he knew God to be the
sole author, 22, 23;
but desires that a proportion of the spoils be given to Aner,
Eshcol and Mamre, who had accompanied him on this expedition, 24.
NOTES ON CHAP. XIV
Verse 1. In the days of Amraphel] Who this king was is not known; and yet, from the manner in which he is spoken of in the text, it would seem that he was a person well known, even when Moses wrote this account. But the Vulgate gives a different turn to the place, by rendering the passage thus: Factum est in illo tempore, ut Amraphel, c. "It came to pass in that time that Amraphel, c." The Chaldee Targum of Onkelos makes Amraphel king of Babylon, others make him king of Assyria some make him the same as Nimrod, and others, one of his descendants.
Arioch king of Ellasar] Some think Syria is meant but conjecture is endless where facts cannot be ascertained.
Chedorlaomer king of Elam] Dr. Shuckford thinks that this was the same as Ninyas, the son of Ninus and Semiramis; and some think him to be the same with Keeumras, son of Doolaved, son of Arphaxad, son of Shem, son of Noah; and that Elam means Persia; see Ge 10:22. The Persian historians unanimously allow that Keeumras, whose name bears some affinity to Chedorlaomer, was the first king of the Peeshdadian dynasty.
Tidal king of nations] גוים goyim, different peoples or clans. Probably some adventurous person, whose subjects were composed of refugees from different countries.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 5, 13, 14 Gen 14:1-2. We have here an account of the…
Gen 14:1-2. We have here an account of the first war that we read of in Scripture, in which we may observe: 1st, The parties engaged in it. The invaders were four kings; two of them no less than kings of Shinar and Elam; that is, Chaldea and Persia; yet, probably, not the sovereign princes of those great kingdoms, but rather the heads of some colonies which came out thence, and settled themselves near Sodom, but retained the names of the countries from which they had their original. The invaded were the kings of five cities that lay near together in the plain of Jordan, Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Zoar. 2d, The occasion of this war was, the revolt of the five kings from under the government of Chedorlaomer.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On v1 - Abram Rescues Lot
- Abram Rescues Lot
1. אמרפל 'amrāpel, Amraphel; related: unknown. אלריוך 'aryôk, Ariok, “leonine?” related: ארי 'arı̂y, “a lion:” a name re-appearing in the time of Daniel Dan 2:14. אלסר 'elāsār Ellasar (related: unknown) is identified with Larsa or Larancha, the Λάρισσα Larissa or Λαράχων Larachōn of the Greeks, now Senkereh, a town of lower Babylonia, between Mugheir (Ur) and Warka (Erek) on the left bank of the Frat. כדרלעמר kedārlā‛omer, Kedorla’omer, was compared by Col. Rawlinson with Kudur-mapula or mabuk, whose name is found on the bricks of Chaldaea, and whose title is Apda martu, ravager of the west. He translates it “servant of Lagamer,” one of the national divinities of Susiana. It is also compared with Kedar el-Ahmar, “Kedar the Red,” a hero in Arabian story. תדעל tı̂d‛āl, Tid’al, “terror.” גוים gôyı̂m, Goim, “nations.”
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2. ברע bera‛, Bera‘, “gift?” ברשׁע bı̂rsha, Birsha‘, “long and thick?” Arabic שׁנאב shı̂n'āb, Shinab, “coolness?” אדמה 'admâh, Admah, “red soil” שׁמאבר shem'ēber, Shemeber, “high-soaring?” צביים; tsebôyı̂ym, Tseboim, “gazelles.” בלע bela‛, Bela‘, “devouring.”
3. שׂדים śı̂dı̂ym, Siddim, “plains, fields.”
5. רפאים repā'ı̂ym, Rephaim, “the still, the shades, the giants.” קרנים עשׁתרת (ashterot-qarnayı̂m, ‘Ashteroth-Qurnaim, “ewes of the two horns”; according to Gesenius, “stars of the two horns.” The first word may be singular, “ewe,” or “star.” The latter meaning is gained by connecting the word with the Persian sitareh and the Greek ἀστήρ astēr, “star.” Ashteroth is the moon or the planet Venus, whence Astarte. זוּזים zûzı̂ym, Zuzim; related: “glance, gush.” הם hām, Ham, “rush, sound, crowd.” אימים 'eymı̂ym, Emim, “terrible.” שׁיח־קריתים shāvēh-qı̂ryātāyı̂m, Shaveh, “plain”; Qiriathaim, “two cities;” related: “meet.”
6. חרי chorı̂y, Chori, troglodyte; verb: “bore;” noun: “cave.” שׁעיר sē‛ı̂yr, Se‘ir, “rough, shaggy.” פארן איל 'eyl-pā'rān, El, “tree, oak, terebinth, palm”; Paran, “bushy, or cavernous.”
7. משׁפט עין ‛eyn-mı̂shpāṭ, ‘En-mishpat, “well of judgment.” קדשׁ qādēsh, Qadesh, “consecrated.” עמלקי ‛ǎmālēkı̂y, ‘Amaleki, “a people that licks up.” תמר חצצן chatstson-tāmār, Chatsatson-tamar, “cuttiny of the palm.”
13. עברי ‛ı̂brı̂y ‘Ibri, a descendant of Eber. אשׁכל 'eshkol, Eshkol, “cluster of grapes.” ענר ‛ǎner, ‘Aner; related: unknown.
14. דן dan, Dan, “ruler, judge.”
15. חיבה chôbâh, Chobah, “hidden.” דמושׂק dameśeq, Dammeseq. a quadraliteral; related: “hasty, active, alert.”
18. מלכיצדק malkı̂y-tsedeq, Malkitsedeq, “king of righteousness.” שׁלם shālēm, Shalem. “peace.” אל 'êl, El, “lasting, strong; strength.”
20. מגן mı̂gēn, “give, deliver;” related: “mag, may.”
The community of feeling and of faith was not yet wholly broken up between Abram and Lot, or between them and the nations out of whom Abram had been called. An interesting glimpse is at the same time presented of the daring and doing of fierce ambition in those early times. A confederacy of potentates enter upon an extensive raid or foray, in which Lot is taken captive. This rouses the clannish or family affection of Abram, who pursues, overtakes, and defeats the retreating enemy, and recovers his friend, as well as all the prisoners, and property that had been taken. On his return he receives refreshment and blessing from a native prince who is priest to the most high God.
Gen 14:1-12
The raid is minutely described in Gen 14:1-12. The dominant confederacy consists of four kings. Many generations back the first world power, consisting of four cities, was established by Nimrod in the land of Shinar Gen 10:8-10. This has now given way to a world-confederacy, consisting of four kings. From the vicinity of the places in which they reigned it is evident that they were petty princes of domains varying from a town and its suburbs to a comparatively extensive territory. The first, Amraphel, is king of Shinar. He is therefore the successor of Nimrod, and the sovereign of the most ancient kingdoms, and on these grounds occupies the first place in the list. But this kingdom is no longer the sole or even the supreme power. Amraphel is probably the descendant of Nimrod, and a Kushite. The second, Ariok, is king of Ellasar. If this town be the same as Larsa, lying between the Frat and the Shat el-Hie, the land of Shinar has been divided between two sovereigns, and no longer belongs entirely to the successor of Nimrod. Lower Shinar includes also Ur of the Kasdim; and hence, Ariok probably represents that race.
The third, Kedorlaomer, is king of Elam, or Elymais, a country east of the lower Tigris, and separated by it from Shinar. He is probably a Shemite, as the country over which he ruled received its name from a son of Shem Gen 10:22. He is the lord paramount of the others, and commander-in-chief of the united forces. Hence, the Hamite seems to have already succumbed to the Shemite. The fourth, Tidel, is designated “king of Goim.” Goim means nations; and it is doubtful whether it denotes here a special nation or a congeries of tribes. The Gentiles, especially so called, seem to have been Japhethites Gen 10:5. It is obvious that four nationalities are here leagued together, corresponding probably to the Kiprat arbat, four nations or tongues mentioned by Rawlinson (Anc. Mon. I. p. 69). But Kedorlaomer, king of Elam, is clearly not a Kushite. The only question seems to be whether he is a Shemite or a Japhethite, or Arian, in which race the Shemite was ultimately absorbed. If the former alternative be adopted, we may have two Shemite languages among the four. If the latter be accepted, Kedorlaomer is an Arian; Tidal, a Turanian; Amraphel, a Hamite; and Ariok, a Shemite. In either case the Kushite has become subordinate, and a Japhethite or a Shemite has attained the predominance.
Gen 14:2-3
They made war. - Shinar was the central region from which the different branches of the human family dispersed after the confusion of tongues. It is possible that the mother country claimed some supremacy over the colonies. Shinar was also a great center of commerce, and the cities of the dale of Siddim formed another, of secondary importance. Intercourse between the two countries was therefore frequent. Abram himself had come from Ur Kasdim. The spirit of despotism had descended from Nimrod to the present potentates of the East, and prompted them to aim at universal empire. The five kings are the petty sovereigns, each of a single town and its neighborhood. The area in which these towns lay was very circumscribed. With the exception of the territory of Bela it was afterward submerged and formed part of the basin of the Salt Sea. Hence, Siddim is said to be the Salt Sea. The dale is the deep valley or glen in which these kings dwelt on the banks of the Jordan, or the salt lake into which it flowed. Of the five cities, Sodom was the chief in power, luxury, and wickedness; whence it is mentioned first. Bela is also called Zoar, “the little,” and, hence, is placed last; even the name of its king is not given. “All these joined together.” They formed a league in self-defense, and marched out to meet the enemy in the dale of Siddim.
Gen 14:4-7
The narrative here reverts to the previous circumstances which gave occasion to the present raid. “Twelve years had they served Kedorlaomer.” These years date probably from the commencement of his reign. They may have been previously dependent on the dominant power in Shinar, and connected with it by national descent. If Kedorlaomer had wrested the supremacy from the king of Shinar, and so was regarded as an alien by the princes of Siddim, their coolness might gradually ripen into disaffection. In the thirteenth year they rebelled, and in the fourteenth Kedorlaomer came to quell the revolt. This military expedition embraced far loftier objects than the mere subjugation of the Pentapolis in the dale of Siddim. In passing from Shinar the invaders must have marched in a northwesterly direction along the Frat, touching upon Tadmor and Damascus. We are not informed whether they held any sway or made any conquest in these intervening regions. But they overran the country that stretches along the whole cast side of the Jordan, and the parts south and west of the Salt Sea.
The Rephaim lay in Peraea. Some of them also were once found on the west side of the Jordan Gen 15:20, where they gave name to the valley of Rephaim (Wady el-Werd), southwest of Jerusalem, on the way to Bethlehem Jos 15:8, occupied part of Mount Ephraim Jos 17:15, and lingered for a long time among the Philistines (2Sa 21:16, ff.). They were a tall or gigantic race. They were not Kenaanites, but seem to have entered the country before them. They were conquered in Peraea by the Amorites, a branch of the Kenaanite family; and by the descendants of Lot, the Ammonites and Moabites. A remnant of them only lingered in the country when the Israelites arrived Deu 2:20; Deu 3:11, Deu 3:13. They may have been Shemites or Japhethites. The site of Ashteroth Carnaim has not been ascertained. Ritter finds it in Tell Ash’areh. Porter suggests ‘Afineh, eight miles from Busrah, as the Samaritan version has ‘Aphinit for ‘Ashtaroth.
The Zuzim dwelt between the Jabbok and the Arnon. They are supposed to be the same as the Zamzummin, who were dispossessed by the Ammonites. If so, they were a branch of the Rephaim Deu 2:20. Their town, Ham, is of unknown site.
The Emim were also accounted Rephaim. They lay on the east of the Salt Sea, and were afterward conquered by the Moabites, who gave them this name Deu 2:10-11. Of Shaveh Kiriathaim, the plain of the two cities, the name probably remains in el-Kureiyat, a site near Jebel Attarus in Moab.
The Horites were perhaps a Shemite tribe, the aboriginal inhabitants of Mount Seir, where they dwelt in caves; such as are still to be seen in Petra and other places around. They were afterward absorbed into the Edomites. Mount Seir stretches between the Salt Sea and the Elanitic Gulf. El-Paran, terebinth of Paran, is perhaps the same as Elath, at the head of the gulf of Aelana or Akaba. Paran lay west of Mount Seir and south of Palestine, and stretched into the peninsula of Sinai, where the name may yet be preserved in Wady Feiran. El-Paran would thus be by the wilderness of that name, now et-Tih.
Gen 14:7
This was the extreme point of their march southward. They now turned back by another route. Enmishpat, which is Kadesh, lay between Mount Hor and the Salt Sea, at a site now called Ain el-Welbch. “The field of the Amalekite” was some part of the country lying between Palestine and Egypt, which was afterward occupied by the Amalekites. Instead of “field,” the Septuagint has ἄρχοντας archontas, “rulers” of Amalek; but this reading is not supported. The tribe is descended from Amalek, thc son of Eliphaz and grandson of Esau Gen 36:12. Traces of them are found as far north as Ephraim Jdg 5:14; Jdg 12:15. Balaam calls Amalek the beginning of the nations Num 24:20; but this cannot be understood absolutely, as the name does not even occur in the table of nations. It is therefore well explained to mean that Amalek was the first that attacked Israel on coming out of Egypt. The invading host advance still further, to Hazazon-tamar, cutting of the palm, which is En-gedi (well of the kid, 2Ch 20:2), situated on the western shore of the Salt Sea, and now called Ain Jidy. This was a settlement of the Amorites.
Gen 14:8-12
We have now arrived again at the point we had reached in Gen 14:3. The five kings came out and joined battle with the four in the dale of Siddim. This dale abounded in pits of mineral pitch, or asphalt. The kings of Sodom and Amorah fled toward these pits, and seem to have fallen into them and perished. The others betook themselves to the mountain - probably the heights on the cast of the dale.
Gen 14:11
The provisions and other movable property of the vanquished are carried away from Sodom and Amorah. For רפשׁ rekush, “goods,” the Septuagint has here and in the 21st verse τὴν ἵππσν tēn hippon, “the cavalry.” This implies the reading רכב rekeb, which is not supported by other authorities, nor suitable to the context. Among the prisoners is Lot, the son of Abram’s brother. This designation prepares us for what is to follow. It is added that he was “dwelling in Sodom,” to explain why he was among the captives. “They went away.” The invaders were now laden with booty. Their first concern was to transfer this to their native country, and deposit it in a place of safety. It was not prudent to delay while they were encumbered with so much valuable property. The terms on which the conquered tribes were to “serve” them could be settled by negotiation. If these terms were not accepted, they would be quite ready for another predatory incursion.
This great foray is only incidentally introduced into our narrative, on account of the capture of Lot. It was not the first visit probably of these marauders to the same lands. It is interesting to the historian, as a sample of the mode in which conquest was made. It opens up to the view one of the ancient scenes of human activity. It teaches us that the wave of war often flowed over the lands of the ancient world, and left more or less lasting marks of its disturbing power. Tribes were not unfrequently moved from place to place, intermingled with one another, and enslaved by other tribes. The actual state of things in the land of Abram’s pilgrimage is suddenly presented to us under a new light. The Rephaim, including the Zuzim and the Emim, occupy the east of the Jordan, and had once a place on the west. The Perizzites also dwell side by side with the Kenaanites in the western district. The Horites are found in Mount Seir. As none of these were Kenaan’s descendants, we have the undeniable traces of a Shemitic population before and along with the Kenaanites. The language of Heber, therefore, was in the country before the latter arrived.
Gen 14:13-16
Abram rescues Lot. הפליט hapālı̂yṭ “the fugitive” party, as “the Kenaanite” for the whole nation. The escaped party inform Abram when one of their number does so. “The Hebrew.” This designation is given to Abram plainly for the purpose of connecting him with Lot. The Septuagint translates the word by περα της peratees, one who passes. This has been explained by transfluvialis, one who has come across the river; namely, the Frat. This no doubt applies to Lot as well as Abram; but it also applies to every other tribe in the country, inasmuch as all had originally migrated across the Euphrates. Besides, the word is nowhere else used in this sense, but always as a patronymic. And, moreover, Abram is here distinguished as the Hebrew, just as his confederate Mamre is distinguished as the Amorite. The object of these designations is to mark, not only their relation to each other, but also their connection with those who were carried off as prisoners of war. The term “Hebrew” does not come into the narrative by hap-hazard. “The sons of Heber” are distinctly mentioned in the table of nations among the descendants of Shem. Its introduction here intimates that there were other descendants of Heber besides Abram already in the land. They could not but be a widespread race. One branch of them, the Joctanites, were the first stock of Arabia’s inhabitants, and the Palgites may have been the earliest settlers in the adjacent Palestine. How many of the non-Kenaanites belong to them we cannot tell; but we learn from the statement now before us that the Hebrew was at this time a known patronymic. The way between Mesopotamia and Palestine has been often trodden.
Abram was dwelling by the oaks of Mamre, near Hebron, therefore not far from the scene of war. He was also in league with Mamre and his brothers Eshkol and Aner. This league was, it is evident from the result, for mutual defense.
Gen 14:14
His brother. - This is a customary extension of the term, whether we regard Lot as his brother’s son, or at the same time his brother-in-law. “His trained men.” Abram had now a company of three hundred and eighteen trained men, born in his own house; which implies a following of more than one thousand men, women, and children. His flocks and herds must have corresponded in extent to such an establishment. “Unto Dan.” This name is found in the Hebrew, Samaritan, Septuagint, and Onkelos. It might naturally be supposed that the sacred reviser of the text had inserted it here, had we not grounds for a contrary supposition. The custom of the reviser was to add the other name without altering the original; of which we have several examples in this very chapter Gen 14:2-3, Gen 14:7-8, Gen 14:17. We are, therefore, led to regard Dan as in use at the time of Abram. Held at that remote period perhaps by some Hebrew, it fell at length into the hands of the Sidonians Judg. 18, who named it Laish (lion) and Leshem (ligure).
Names of places in that eastern land vary, from a slight resemblance in sound (paronomasia), a resemblance in sense (synonyms), a change of masters, or some other cause. Laish and Leshem are significant names, partly alike in sound, and applied to the same town. They took the place of Dan when the town changed masters. The recollection of its ancient name and story may have attracted the Danites to the place, who burned Laish and built a new city which they again called Dan. This town was situated at the source of the lesser Jordan, with which some have connected its name. Its site is now occupied by Tell el-Kady, the hill of “the judge.” This is a case of resemblance in sense between varying names. Others, however, distinguish the present Dan from the Laish Dan, and identify it with Danjaan or jaar, “Dan in the wood” 2Sa 24:6. The former is not on the road to Damascus, while the latter was north of Gilead, and may have been near the route either by the south of the sea of Kinnereth, or of the waters of Merom. This is possible, and deserves consideration. But there may have been a third way to Damascus, passing Tell el-Kady; this place itself is on the east side of the main stream of the Jordan, and the expression רען דנה dānâh ya'an is confessedly obscure.
Gen 14:15-16
Abram and his confederates found the enemy secure and at their ease, not expecting pursuit. They attack them on two quarters; Abram, probably, on the one, and his allies on the other; by night, defeat and pursue them unto Hobah. “On the left hand of Damascus.” Hobah was on the north of Damascus. An Eastern, in fixing the points of the heavens, faces the rising sun, in which position the east is before him, the west behind, the south at the right hand, and the north at the left. Hobah is referred by the Jews to Jobar, a place northeast of Damascus. J. L. Porter suggests a place due north, called Burzeh, where there is a Muslim wely or saint’s tomb, called Makam Ibrahim, the sanctuary of Abraham (Handbook, p. 492). This route, by the north of Damascus, illustrates the necessity of advancing far north to get round the desert intervening between Shinar and the cities of the plain.
Damascus, Dimishk, esh-Sham, is a very ancient city of Aram. The choice of the site was probably determined by the Abana (Barada) and Pharpar (Awaj), flowing, the one from Anti-Libanus, and the other from Mount Hermon, and fertilizing a circuit of thirty miles. Within this area arose a city which, amidst all the changes of dynasty that have come over it, has maintained its prosperity to the present day, when it has one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. It was originally occupied by the descendants of Aram, and may have been built, as Josephus informs us, by Uz his son.
Abram, with his allies, succeeded in defeating the enemy and recovering the property, with the prisoners, male and female, that had been carried away, and, among the rest, Lot, the object of his generous and gallant adventure.
Verse 7-24
Abram’s reception on his return. “The king of Sodom.” This is either Bera, if he survived the defeat, or, if not, his successor. “The dale of Shaveh, which is the King’s dale.” The word עמק ‛ēmeq is rendered here uniformly by the familiar term “dale.” The dale of Shaveh is here explained by the “King’s dale.” This phrase occurs at a period long subsequent as the name of the valley in which Absalom reared his pillar 2Sa 18:18. There is nothing to hinder the identity of the place, which must, according to the latter passage, have been not far from Jerusalem. Josephus makes the distance two stadia, which accords with the situation of Absalom’s tomb, though the building now so-called, in the valley of Jehoshaphat, seems to be of later origin. The identity of the King’s dale with the valley cast of Jerusalem, through which the Kedron flows, corresponds very well with the present passage.
Gen 14:18-20
An incident of the deepest interest here takes us by surprise. The connecting link in the narrative is obviously the place where the king of Sodom meets with Abram. The King’s dale is plainly adjacent to the royal residence of Melkizedec, who therefore comes forth to greet and entertain the returning victor. This prince is the king of Shalem. This is apparently an ancient name of Jerusalem, which is so designated in Psa 76:8. The other Shalem, which lay in the vicinity of Shekem (Gen 33:18, if this be a proper name) is far away from the King’s dale and the town of Sodom. Jerusalem is convenient to these localities, and contains the element Shalem in its composition, as the name signifies the foundation of peace (Shalom).
The king of Shalem, by name king of righteousness, and by office king of peace, “brought forth bread and wine.” These are the standing elements of a simple repast for the refreshment of the body. In after times they were by divine appointment placed on the table of the presence in the tabernacle Exo 25:29-30. They were the accompaniments of the Paschal lamb Mat 26:26-27, and they were adopted by the Messiah as the sacred symbols of that heavenly fare, of which, if a man partake, he shall live forever Joh 6:48-58. The Author of revelation has made all nature intrinsically good and pure. He has realized therein a harmony of the laws of intelligence and design; everything meets and matches all that comes into contact with it; and all together form a cosmos, a system of things, a unity of types and antitypes. His word cannot but correspond to His work. Bread and wine are common things, familiar to the eye, the touch, and the taste of men. The Great Teacher takes them up out of the hands of man as emblems of grace, mercy, and peace, through an accepted ransom, of the lowliest as well as the loftiest boon of an everlasting salvation, and they have never lost their significance or appropriateness.
And he was priest to the most high God. - From this we are assured that the bread and wine refreshed not only the body, but the soul of Abram. In close connection with the preceding sentence, it seems to intimate that the bringing forth of bread and wine was a priestly act, and, accordingly, the crowning part of a sacred feast. The כהן kohen, or priest, who is here mentioned for the first time in Scripture, was one who acted in sacred things on the part of others. He was a mediator between God and man, representing God holding out the hand of mercy, and man reaching forth the hand of faith. The necessity of such an orifice grew out of the distance between God and man produced by sin. The business of the priest was to offer sacrifice and to intercede; in the former making amends to the law, in the latter appealing to the mercy of God. We do not learn by express statement what was the mode of intervention on the part of Melkizedec. But we know that sacrifice was as early as Habel, and that calling on the name of the Lord was commenced in the time of Enosh. These were early forms of approach to God. The offices of king and priest were combined in Melkizedec - a condition of things often exemplified in after times.
The most high God. - Here we meet with a new name of God, El, the Lasting, the Mighty, cognate with Elohim, and previously occurring in the compound proper names Mebujael, Mahalalel, and Bethel. We have also an epithet of God, “Elion the most high,” now appearing for the first time. Hence, we perceive that the unity, the omnipotence, and the absolute pre-eminence of God were still living in the memory and conscience of a section at least of the inhabitants of this land. Still more, the worship of God was not a mere domestic custom, in which the father or head of the family officiated, but a public ordinance conducted by a stated functionary. And, lastly, the mode of worship was of such a nature as to represent the doctrine and acknowledge the necessity of an atonement, since it was performed by means of a priest.
Gen 14:18
And he blessed him. - Here it comes out clearly that Melkizedec acts not only in a civil but in a sacred capacity. He blesses Abram. In the form of benediction employed we have two parts: the former of which is strictly a blessing or asking of good things for the person in question. “Blessed be Abram.” It is the part of the father to bless the child, of the patriarch or superior to bless the subject or inferior, and of the priest to bless the people Heb 7:7. Here, accordingly, Melkizedec assumes and Abram concedes to him the superiority. The Most High God is here further designated as the Founder of heaven and earth, the great Architect or Builder, and, therefore, Possessor of all things. There is here no indistinct allusion to the creation of “heaven and earth,” mentioned in the opening of the Book of God. This is a manifest identification of the God of Melkizedec with the one Creator and Upholder of all things. We have here no mere local or national deity, with limited power and province, but the sole and supreme God of the universe and of man.
Gen 14:20
The second part of this benedictory prayer is a thanksgiving to the common God of Melkizedec and Abram for the victory which had been vouchsafed to the latter. “Thy foes.” Here Abram is personally addressed. Melkizedec as a priest first appeals to God on behalf of Abram, and then addresses Abram on behalf of God. Thus, he performs the part of a mediator.
And he gave him a tithe of all. - This is a very significant act. In presenting the tenth of all the spoils of victory, Abram makes a practical acknowledgment of the absolute and exclusive supremacy of the God whom Melkizedec worshipped, and of the authority and validity of the priesthood which he exercised. We have here all the indications of a stated order of sacred rites, in which a costly service, with a fixed official, is maintained at the public expense, according to a definite rate of contribution. The gift in the present case is the tenth of the spoils of war. This act of Abram, though recorded last, may have taken place at the commencement of the interview. At all events, it renders it extremely probable that a sacrifice had been offered to God, through the intervention of Melkizedec, before he brought forth the bread and wine of the accepted feast.
It is obvious that here we stand on broader ground than the special promise made to Abram. Melkizedec was not a partner in the call of Abram, and yet the latter acknowledges him as a priest of the Most High God. Hence, we must fall back on the covenant made with Noah - the representative of the whole race after the deluge - as the broad basis of authority on which Melkizedec acted. That covenant, then, was not a dead letter. It still lived in the heart and will of a part of the nations. Its hallowing and exalting truths had produced at least one center of pure and spiritual worship on the earth. Even Abram, the called of God, acknowledges its constituted head. And the Most High God, Founder and Upholder of heaven and earth, thereby guarantees its validity for all who in every place call on his name in sincerity and truth. And his special call to Abram is given with a view to the final removal of all obstacles to the acceptance and application of this his everlasting covenant. We are thankful for this glimpse into the comprehensive grandeur of the divine purpose concerning man, which is for some time forward cast into the shade, until it begins to break forth again in the anticipations of the prophets, and at length shines forth with imperishable splendor in the revelations of the New Testament.
The genealogy of Melkizedec seems designedly veiled in impenetrable obscurity. To lift this veil entirely is therefore hopeless. Yet we may venture to hint the possibility that here we have another Shemite chieftain in the land of Kenaan. The indefinite statement of Josephus, that he was a potentate of the Kenaanites, is no proof to the contrary, even if it were of much value. The address of Ezekiel to Jerusalem: “Thy origin and thy birth are of the land of Kenaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite” Eze 16:3, may refer to the period immediately before the entrance of Israel into the land. At and after that time the Amorite and the Jebusite seem to have been in possession of the city Jos 10:5; Jdg 1:21. But in the time of Abram, more than four hundred years before, it may have been different. We have discovered other tribes in this land that were not of the race of Kenaan. It is not likely that Kenaan would furnish a priest of the most high God. It is evident that Melkizedec was not in the confederacy of the Pentapolis with the king of Sodom. He comes out separately and suddenly to meet Abram, who was one of “the children of Heber,” of whom Shem was the father.
And he is the acknowledged head of the worshippers of the most high God, who is “the Lord, the God of Shem.” But be this as it may, it is only a secondary question here. The matter of primary importance, as has been already noted, is the existence of a community of pure worshippers of the true God in the land of Kenaan, antecedent to Abram. If this community be descendants of Kenaan, it only renders the discovery the more striking and impressive. The knowledge of the true God, the confession of the one everlasting supreme Creator of heaven and earth, the existence of a stated form of worship by means of a priest and a ritual attested by Abram the elect of God, in a community belonging to the Gentiles, form at once a remarkable vindication of the justice and mercy of God in having made known to all mankind the mode of acceptable approach to himself, and a singular evidence that such a revelation had been made to Noah, from whom alone it could have descended to the whole race, and consequently to this particular branch of it.
We have reason to believe that this was not the sole line in which this precious tradition was still preserved in comparative purity and power. Job and his companions belong to one other known line in which the knowledge of the one God was still vital. The fundamental principles of divine truth planted in the human breast by this and antecedent revelations were never afterward wholly eradicated; and from the hereditary germs of a primitive theology, cherished by contact with the Sidonians and other Phoenicians, were Homer, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and other sages of the East and West, enabled to rise to the exalted conceptions which they occasionally formed of the unity, purity, spirituality, and supremacy of the Divine Being. The idea of God, conveyed into a soul of any power and freedom, is wonderfully prolific. It bursts the bonds of the animal nature, and expands and elevates the rational to some shadowy semblance of its primeval glory. Where it has become altogether extinct, the human has sunk down under the debasing bondage of the brutal. During the four centuries that elapsed from the arrival of Abram to the conquest of the country by his descendants, this interesting relic of a pure Gentile worship seems to have disappeared. But the traces of such a purifying and elevating knowledge of God were not even then effaced from the memories, the customs, and the phrases of the people.
Gen 14:21-24
The king of Sodom concedes to Abram, according to custom, the spoils of conquest as his right, and claims for himself only his subjects who had been rescued from the foe. Abram however declines any personal advantage from the enterprise, or material recompense for his services. To this he was led partly by the present disposition of his mind, in which the spiritual prevailed over the carnal, and partly by the character of the one with whom he had to deal; since the Sodomites were notorious for their wickedness. On other occasions he accepted unmerited gifts Gen 12:16; Gen 20:14, Gen 20:16. On the present occasion, he, no doubt, felt himself amply rewarded by the recovery of his own kinsman, and the blessing of Melkizedec. Disinterestedness has had another victory in Abram. And, accordingly, the minister of God meets him on the field of a common humanity, and pronounces on him a blessing. The unselfish, unsectarian heart of the heir of special promise, bows in acknowledgment of the representative of the universal and anterior covenant of God with Noah.
Gen 14:22
I have lifted up my hand. - This is a serious matter with Abram. Either before, or then and there, he made an oath or solemn asseveration before God, with uplifted hand, that he would not touch the property of Sodom. He must have felt that there was danger of moral contamination in coming into any political relationship with the cities of the vale. “The Lord, the Most High God, the Founder of heaven and earth.” In this conjunction of names Abram solemnly and expressly identifies the God of himself and of Melkizedec in the presence of the king of Sodom. The Most High God of Melkizedec is the God of the first chapter of Genesis, and the Yahweh of Adam, Noah, and Abram.
Gen 14:24
While Abram refrains from accepting any part of the spoils beyond what had been consumed in supplying the necessities of his followers in the expedition, he expressly excepts the portion to which his confederates, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre, became entitled by their share in the recovery of the property. This is sufficient to prove that the transaction regarding the spoil was not an offer of generosity on the part of the king of Sodom, but an act of disinterestedness on the part of Abram.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 13, 14 Sennaar, or Babylon. --- Pontus, Hebrew: Ellasar, perhaps Thalassar,…
Sennaar, or Babylon. --- Pontus, Hebrew: Ellasar, perhaps Thalassar, as Jonathan writes, not far from Eden. --- Elamites, or Persians. --- Nations in Galilee, east of the Jordan, whither the conquered kings directed their course. Josue xii. 23, mentions the king of the nations (foreigners) at Galgal. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 Abram and his War with the Heathen robber-bands for…
THIRD SECTION
Abram and his War with the Heathen robber-bands for the rescue of Lot. The victorious Champion of Faith and his greeting to Melchizedec, the prince of peace. His conduct towards the King of Sodom, and his associates in the War
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Gen_14:1-24
1And it came to pass in the days1 of Amraphel [Gesenius: it seems to be Sanscrit Amrapâla, keeper of the gods; Maurer: perhaps, robbers; Fürst: = Arphaxad] king of Shinar [region of Babylon], Arioch2 [Gesenius, after Bohlen, Sanscrit Arjaka, venerated; Fürst: the Arian, embracing Persian, Median, and Assyrian] king of Ellasar,3 [Symmachus and Vulgate: Pontus; Gesenius: probably the region between Babylon and Elymais], Chedorlaomer4 [Maurer: band of the sheaf; Fürst: probably from the ancient Persian] king of Elam [Elymais], and Tidal [Gesenius: fear, veneration] king of nations [Clericus: Galilean heathen]; 2That these made war with Bera [Gesenius = בֶּן־רַע] king of Sodom, and with Birsha [Gesenius = בֶּן־רֶשַׁע] king of Gomorrah, Shinab [Gesenius: father’s tooth] king of Admah [Fürst: fruit region, city in the district of Sodom, farm-city], and Shemeber [Gesenius: soaring aloft; glory of the eagle?] king of Zeboiim [Gesenius: place of hyenas] and the king of Bela [devoured, destroyed], which is Zoar [the small]. 3All these were joined together in the vale of Siddim [Aquila? valley of fields; Gesenius: depressed land, Wady; Fürst: plain], which is [now] the salt sea 4[sea of asphalt, Dead sea]. Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer [as vassals], and in the thirteenth year they rebelled. 5And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims [giants; Ewald: long-drawn, tall] in Ashteroth Karnaim [horned Astarte; from Astarte-worship, city in Batanæa, Deu_1:4; Jos_13:12], and the Zuzims [Susäer; Gesenius: from the fertility of the country; Septuagint and others: ἔθνη ἴσχυρά] in Ham [treasures; probably an Ammonite region], and the Emims [terrors; Emäer, originally in the land of Moab] in Shaveh [plain] Kiriathaim [twin cities in the tribe of Reuben, Num_32:37; later in Moab, Jer_48:1]. 6And the Horites [dwellers in caves] in their Mount Seir [rugged; Gesenius: wooded; Fürst: hairy], unto El-[oak, terebinth] Paran [probably, cave-region], which is by the wilderness. 7And they returned, and came to En-mishpat [well of Judgment], which is Kadesh [sanctuary], and smote all the country [fields] of the Amalekites [between Palestine, Idumea, and Egypt], and also the Amorites [mountaineers?] that dwelt in Hazezon-tamar [palm-pruning, a city in the wilderness of Judea; later, Engedi, fountain of the kid]. 8And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar;) and they joined battle with them in the vale of Siddim; 9With Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; [which] four kings with five. 10And the vale of Siddim was full of slime-pits [pits upon pits]; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there [the warriors]; and they that remained fled to the 11mountain. And they [the victors] took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way. 12And they took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, who [for he] dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.
13And there came one that had escaped [fugitives], and told Abram the Hebrew [immigrant]; for he [who] dwelt in the plain [oak-grove] of Mamre [richness, strength] the Amorite, brother of Eschol [vine-branch], and brother of Aner [i.e. נַעַר, ἀνήρ?]: and these were confederate with Abram. 14And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed [led out to war] his trained servants [initiated, tried], born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan. 15And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah [hiding-place], which is on the left hand [northerly] of Damascus [restless activity]. 16And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people.
17And the king of Sodom went out to meet him (after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him [confederates]), at the valley of 18Shaveh [the plain northward of Jerusalem, 2Sa_18:18], which is the king’s dale. And [But] Melchizedec [king of righteousness] king of Salem [schalem = שָׁלוֹם] brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God [of El-Eljon]. 19And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: 20And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he [septuagint: ’Αβράμ; compare Heb_7:4] gave him tithes of all. 21And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons [souls], and take [retain] the goods to thyself. 22And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted up my hand unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, That I [the form of an oath: if I] will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet [the least], and 23that I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich: 24Save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me, Aner, Eschol, and Mamre: let them take their portion.
GENERAL REMARKS
1. The Modern Criticism.—Knobel (p. 143) assigns the Section (with Genesis 15) to the Jehovistic enlargement, since the Elohistic author narrates the founding of the theocratic covenant elsewhere (Genesis 17). We must carefully distinguish, in a theological point of view, between the permanent covenant of faith (Genesis 15) and the special and temporary covenant of circumcision5 (Genesis 17), which rests upon it (see Romans 4). The idea that the character of Abram and the narrative of Melchizedec are drawn traditionally from interested motives of the Hebrews, is without foundation.6
2. For special literature upon Genesis 14 see Knobel, p. 134.
3. The War-making Powers.—According to Knobel, who here agrees with Joseph., Antiq. i. 9, the Assyrian must be viewed as the ruling power, which leads all the individual attacking kings, as subject princes or monarchs; for there is no trace of evidence in history, that the elsewhere unimportant Elymais (Susiane) has ever exercised a sort of world-dominion. Josephus calls the Assyrian the leading power, Syncellus the Syrian, which in this case is just equivalent; but according to Ktesias and others, the Assyrians were the first to establish a world-dominion (see p. 142, ff.). Keil, on the other hand, holds that the kingdom of Amraphel of Shinar which Nimrod founded, had now sunken to a mere dominion over Shinar, and that Elam now exercised the hegemony in inner Asia. The beginning of the Assyrian power falls in a later period, and Berosus speaks of an earlier Median dominion in Babylon, which reached down to the times of the patriarchs. (He refers to Niebuhr’s “History of Assyria,” p. 271). There is clearly a middle view. At the date, Gen_14:1, Amraphel, king of Shinar, stands at the head of the alliance of Eastern princes; but the war was waged especially in the interest of Chedorlaomer of Elam. Amraphel appears as the nominal leader; Chedorlaomer the victorious champion of an Eastern kingdom, involved to some extent in decay. The Palestinian kings, or kings of Siddim, opposed to them, are described as previously vassals of Chedorlaomer, because the narrative here treats of the history of Siddim, pre-eminently of the history of Sodom and Lot; but this does not exclude the supposition, that the princes or tribes named in Gen_14:5-6, were also at least partly dependents of Chedorlaomer. For in order to subject the lower Jordan valley, he must have somewhere forced a passage for himself into the land. Keil: “It seems significant that at that time the Asiatic world-power had advanced to Canaan, and brought the valley of the Jordan into subjection, with the purpose, doubtless, to hold, with the valley of the Jordan, the way to Egypt. We have, in this history, an example of the later pressure of the world-power against the kingdom of God established in Canaan; and the significance of these events with reference to the historical salvation, lies in the fact, that the kings of the Jordan valley and surrounding region are subject to the world-power. Abram, on the contrary, with his home-born servants, slays the victor and takes away his spoil—a prophetic sign, that in its contests with the world-power, the seed of Abram shall not only not be brought into subjection, but be able to rescue those seeking its help.
4. Ancient Damascus, also, first appears here in the dim distance.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. The Kings at War.—(Gen_14:1-3). “The kings named here never appear again.” Keil.7—Shinar and Elam (see Genesis 10). Ellasar, probably Artemita, which is called also Chalasar, lying in Southern Assyria. (Goiim8) Nations is here of special significance (see translation of the text, also upon Gen_14:2; compare Jos_10:3; Jos_10:5; Jos_10:23).—All these; namely, the last-named five kings.—In the vale of Siddim9 (see the text). “The five named cities described (Wis_10:6) as a πεντάπολις, appear to have formed a confederacy. The four first (connected together; also Gen_10:19) perished afterwards (Deu_29:22; comp. Hos_11:8). On the contrary, Bela, i.e., Zoar, was not overtaken in the ruin. The most important are Sodom and Gomorrah, which are elsewhere exclusively named, even here, Gen_14:10-11.” Knobel. There is no ground for his conjecture that they were not Canaanites, drawn from a misunderstanding of Gen_12:12, that this region did not belong to the land of Canaan. Keil: “That there were five kings of the five cities, is in accordance with the custom of the Canaanites, among whom, still later, every city had its king.”10
2. The War (Gen_14:4-12). a. Its cause(Gen_14:4). b. The course of the Eastern Kings in their March.—“They came, doubtless, in the usual way, through the region of the Euphrates to Syria (Strabo, xvi.); from here, as they afterwards directed their return march to this region, advancing southwards, they attacked those who had revolted; at first, namely, the Rephaim in Bashan, i.e. the northerly part of the country, east of the Jordan (Num_32:39), then the Zuzims, dwelling farther to the south, and afterwards the still more southern Emims.” Knobel.—The Rephaim.—“A tribe of giants of great stature, spread throughout Peræa; also found westward from Jerusalem, upon Mount Ephraim, and in Philistia. They were gradually exterminated through the Amorites, Ammonites, Moabites, and Israelites.” Keil holds that they were of Semitic origin (p. 140). Ashteroth Karnaim, or simply Ashteroth, a chief city of Bashan, the residence of Og, the king (Deu_1:4). The details may be found in Keil and Knobel.11—Zuzims (an Ammonitish province), probably the same with Zamsummims (Deu_2:20.)—Ham. Identified (Deu_3:11) with Rabbah of the Ammonites (ruins of Ammon).—Emims, terrors. The older inhabitants of the country of Moab, like the Zuzims, included with the Rephaim.—Kirjathaim. Incorrectly located by Eusebius and Jerome; the ruins el Teym, or el Tueme.—The Horites. The original inhabitants of the country of the Edomites. They drove the Horites to Elath, upon the east side of the wilderness of Paran. The mount Seir between the Red and Dead seas.12
Gen_14:8. They now turned from the south to the north (see Keil, p. 141). The victory of the Amalekites was gained in what was later the southern territory of the Hebrews. Keil and Hengstenberg hold that it is not the Amalekites themselves, but the inhabitants of the land which later belonged to the Amalekites. It says, indeed, the country of the Amalekites,13 and (Gen_36:12; Gen_36:16) Amalek descended from Esau. But then we should expect some account of that original people. And the Amalekitish descendants of Esau may have mingled with the earlier constituent portions of the people, as the Ishmaelites with the earlier inhabitants of Arabia. Lastly, even the Amorites, upon the west side of the Dead Sea, were involved in the slaughter. Knobel denies that Hazezon-tamar can be identified with Engedi, for which, however, 2Ch_20:2, bears its testimony. A rapid march made it possible that these tribes should be attacked and overcome one by one. It is not said that they had all been tributary. Meanwhile, however, the five kings in the vale of Siddim had time to arm themselves. c. The Battle in the vale of Siddim. The five feeble kings of the pentapolis could not resist the four mightier kings.—And they fell there. The valley, we are told, was full of pits of bitumen, or asphalt. This account is confirmed by the mass of asphalt in the Dead Sea. For these masses of asphalt, see the condensed notices in Knobel, p. 136.14 This remark, however, does not explain why the five kings were defeated, but why they found the flight through that region so destructive. They fell here, partly hindered by the pits, partly plunging into them; only a few escaped into the mountains of Moab. The obvious sense appears to be, that the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were themselves slain. Knobel thinks the troops or forces are intended, and holds it as certain that the king of Sodom escaped (Gen_14:17). But it may be his successor in the government who is here mentioned. Whatever of spoil, in goods or men; was found by the conquerors in the city, was taken away; and, what is the main thing in the narrative, Lot with them. It is most significant: for he dwelt in Sodom.15
3. Abram’s March and Victory (Gen_14:13-16).—One that had escaped. The article marks the race or lineage. A fugitive who sought Abram in Hebron, must doubtless have stood in close relations with Lot.—Abram the Hebrew, the immigrant.16 Abram, as Lot also, was viewed by the escaped, who was born in the land, as an immigrant, and because Lot the Hebrew was a captive, he sought Abram the Hebrew. The Amorite Mamre, and his two brothers, were named as confederates with Abram, because they assisted him now in the war (Gen_14:24). Their confederation shows his overwhelming influence.—Abram heard that his brother was a captive. The expression is significant. Instantly he arms his trained,17 i.e., his hired servants, and practised in the use of arms; especially those born in his own house. “That the patriarchs carried weapons is clear from chs. Gen_34:25; Gen_49:5.” Knobel.—Unto Dan. Keil shows that the Dan alluded to cannot be the (Laish) Dan (Jdg_18:29) situated in the midst of the sources of the Jordan, since it does not lie upon either of the ways leading from the valley of the Jordan to Damascus; but Dan in Gilead (Deu_34:1; 2Sa_24:6). In Dan, Abram divides his little army into bands, and falls upon the enemy from different quarters by night, and pursues him unto Hobah, “probably preserved in the village Hoba, which Troilo found a quarter of a mile northerly from Damascus.” Keil. The Hebrews defined the quarters of the heavens with their faces to the East; hence the left hand is northward. Victorious, he brought back the whole spoil of the enemy, both in men and goods.—And also Lot his brother.
4. Abram’s Triumphant Return (Gen_14:17-24). The kings who welcome him.—At the valley of Shaveh, i.e. the (later) king’s dale. The valley probably takes its name from this event. Absalom erected his pillar here, 2Sa_18:18 (afterwards remodelled in the Greek style). According to Josephus, Antiq. vii. 10, 3, it lay about two stadia from Jerusalem. Melchizedec went northwards to meet him, thus in the upper valley of the Kidron (see Dictionaries). Melchizedec appears to have anticipated the king of Sodom; at all events he has the precedence. Under his royal city, Salem, we must understand Jerusalem (Psa_76:3), and not the distant Salim in whose vicinity John baptized (Joh_3:23). Comp. Keil, p. 143. In favor of Jerusalem (יְרוּי = יְרוּ, founding, or יְרוּשׁ, possession; the name יְרוּשָׁלֵם is either the founding or the possession of peace; the first is preferable,) are Josephus: Antiq. i. 10, 2; the Targums, Aben Ezra, Kimchi, etc., Knobel, Delitzsch, and Keil; Krahmer, Ewald: “History of Israel, ii. p. 410,” are in favor of the Salim of Jerome. That at the time of Jerome, the palace of Melchizedec was usually pointed out in the ruins of Salumias, lying about eight Roman miles from Scythopolis, of which Robinson and Smith found no trace, proves nothing. Salumias lay too far to the north, for the statement in the narrative. Melchizedec (king of righteousness—the language of the Canaanites was Hebraic) is described as a priest of El Eljon. According to Sanchûniaton (Eusebius: Prœp. i. 10), the Phœnicians called God ’Ελιοῦν, and Hanno the Carthaginian, in Plautus Pœnulus, names the gods and goddesses Elonim or Elonoth; but the term here used is different, and its signification is monotheistic, “not God as the highest among many, but in a monotheistic sense, the one most high God.” (Delitzsch). He brings from his city bread and wine to refresh Abram and his followers. “The papists explain it with reference to the sacrifice of the mass, but the reference is fatal to their own case, since Melchizedec gave the wine also. He brought forth, not he brought before God.” Schröder. Melchizedec’s prayer for prosperity and blessing is translated by Delitzsch rhythmically as a double blessing.18 The term קֹנֵה denotes the ruler, but may also be used to denote the creator and possessor.—And he gave him tithes. As Melchizedec was a priest of the true God, the gift of the tithe of the spoil was a sanctification of the war and victory, as in the later history of Israel the tithe belonged to the priest (Lev_27:30), and the payment of the gift of consecration, out of the spoils of war, to the priestly tribe, was secured by law (Num_31:28 ff.; 2Sa_8:11; 1Ch_26:27). Compare Heb_7:4.—The king of Sodom does not speak in a formal, solemn way, but with obvious prudence, encouraged by the generosity of Abram, to whom, by the laws of war, the captives belonged as slaves.—Give me the persons (souls). Then follows the noble declaration of Abram, which is both a recognition of the God of Melchizedec, or of the community of faith, between Abram and Melchizedec, since it joins together the names Jehovah and El Eljon, and at the same time a noble expression of his unselfishness. He would not retain anything from a thread to a shoe-latchet, i.e., not the least thing, so that the king of Sodom could never say, I have made Abram rich. As he declares his intimate communion with Melchizedec, and introduces it into the very forms of expression of his religion, so he utterly refuses any community of goods with theking of Sodom. He reserves only what his servants had already consumed in the necessities of war, and that part of the spoil which fell to his three confederates, Aner, Eschol, and Mamre (Num_31:26; 1Sa_30:26).
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The first well-defined appearance of war in its different aspects. A war of the world against the world—the kings—the alliances—the conquests—the rulers and their revolted vassals—the prominent leader (Chedorlaomer)—the attack—the victory and defeat—the plunder, and service of captives—of the hard destiny of those who dwelt quietly in the land (Lot)—of the wide-spread terror, and the rebuke of that terror, before the true heroism with which the true hero of faith opposes a defensive and necessary war, to the attacks of the confident and haughty prince. The children of God find themselves unexpectedly involved in the wars of the world, as the history of Abram, Lot, and Melchizedec proves. The destructive nature of war, so far as it is the fruit of human passions, and the providential overruling of it unto salvation.
2. The fearful overthrow of the Sodomite pentapolis in the vale of Siddim, and the wonderful rescue by Abram the man of faith, wrought no repentance in the people of that valley, although they were already weakened and enervated by their luxury, nor even any gratitude towards Lot, for whose sake they were rescued (Gen_19:9). Hence the lost battle, and the terrors of war in the vale of Siddim, became a portent and sign of their later overthrow.
3. In the misfortunes which came upon him, Lot must suffer the retribution for his misdeeds towards Abram. But Abram rewards his ingratitude with self-sacrificing magnanimity.
4. The terrors of war in its desolating and paralyzing power. How it may be interrupted, and is usually checked and brought to an end, through the heroic faith and courage of some single hero, or it may be, band of heroes.
5. Abram, the man of peace of the previous chapter, the yielding child of peace, is instantly changed into a lion when the report comes to him, that Lot, his brother, is a captive. One citizen of the kingdom of God is of so great importance in his esteem, that he will attack a whole victorious army with his little band, and venture his own life, and the lives of his servants upon the issue. Thus enter in opposition to the gloomy heroism of the earth in Chedorlaomer and his followers, the light and cheerful heroism of heaven, to the war for oppression and bondage in its dark form, the light form and aspect of the war of salvation and liberty, to the power of godlessness, inhumanity, and desperation, in union with demoniac powers, the power of faith, and love, and hope, in covenant with Jehovah.
6. It did not enter the thought of Abram, that the princes against whom he went out to war were for the most part descendants of Shem, and indeed the people of his former home, and that those whom he rescued, and with whom he connects himself, are the descendants of Ham. The motive for the war was to save Lot,19 and the alliance for the right, against the alliance for wrong, was decisive for him. The love to his brother, the Hebrew, has special power. Brotherly love. Every Hebrew, in the best and highest sense, must help others as his brethren. But in “the Hebrew” here the important thing is, that he “comes from across the river,” not as Delitzsch holds, that he is descended from Heber.
7. Abram has not only, in his faith, a heroism and self-sacrifice which overcomes the world, he has also the heroic strength and spirit. His servants are men trained to arms. He knew that, in an evil world, one needs defence and weapons, and must be armed. In his war with the world, he does not despise an honorable alliance with those who, in a religious point of view, may have different ways of thinking from himself. Indeed, he acts throughout in the true hero-spirit. The rapid, instantaneous onset, the well-ordered and irresistible charge, the outmarching and flanking of the enemy, the falling upon him by night, the fierce pursuit to the very utmost, to the completed result, these are the original, fundamental laws of all intelligent warfare. And it does not admit of question, that Cromwell learned these fundamental principles of warfare from Abram and other Old Testament heroes, and it is probable that Napoleon, in these, as in many other points, was an imitator of Cromwell; as it is certain that Gneisenau and Blücher have learned from the method of Napoleon. In the spirit of prayer Cromwell, the invincible, was greatly in advance of him (Napoleon); the heroes of the times when freedom triumphs place victoriously the joyful longing for deliverance of the people over against the demoniac lust of conquest of the murderers of the people.
8. Abram is assured of the good-will and help of Jehovah through the Spirit of God inspiring him with believing and sacrificing courage; and therefore joins his might, in the feeling of his individual weakness, with omnipotence, and makes himself and his forces, to whom he communicates his own spirit, invincible against the hosts of the enemy, whose power, as demoniac and magical, cannot stand before the terrors of God, but passes at once from haughty confidence to trembling and despair. The germ-like oriental world-power surges and breaks itself upon the heroic heart of the father of the faithful, as all the succeeding forms of the world-power, must break into pieces upon the believing power of the kingdom of God; and for this reason, because, in the very centre of the world’s history, all the powers of the world and of hell broke and went to pieces against the divine stability of the heart of Christ.
9. In warfare, as in all the forms of civilization and life, in political government, in poetry, the Hebrew principle is dynamic, living, while the principle of the world, especially of the Greek and Romish civilization, is lifeless, formal, or technical. Here the living fountain of original, direct divine inspiration is prominent, while the ordinary cosmical forming principles are throughout kept in the back ground. But the dynamic principle is also the principle of regeneration for the technical and artistic system—even for science itself. Thus, in our history also, the technical is sufficiently apparent.20 “It is remarkable, moreover, that corresponding to this original mode of warfare, the almost exclusive order of battle in later times, is the division of the army into three parts, that the enemy may be attacked in the centre and upon both flanks at the same time (Jdg_7:16; 1Sa_11:11; 1Ma_5:33)” Schröder.
10. Melchizedec as priest and king in one person, without genealogy in his priesthood, which he executed for his people by virtue of a sovereign individual call, is a type of the Messiah, and is represented as such, Psa_110:4, but especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Gen_5:6; Gen_7:17). From the circumstance that Melchizedec was not a worshipper of the Canaanitish Baal, but was a monotheist, or as Knobel thinks, a worshipper of the Semitic principal deity, El, Knobel concludes that he belonged to the Semitic tribe, Lud, to which also the tribes at war belonged. The supposition of a Semitic chief deity is in an erroneous manner transferred from the relations of a later time, to the times of the primitive religion. It is the characteristic of the primitive religion, that in it throughout Heathenism and Monotheism cleave together and go asunder. Melchizedec might, therefore, well belong to the Hamitic race.21 He is not a Christ of the heavenly world, as perhaps the Gnostics would make him, nor Shem, nor Enoch, as the Rabbins and the Church fathers have thought; he is a type of Christ, because he is king and priest at the same time, because his priesthood rests upon his individual personality (ἀπάτωρ), etc., Heb_7:3), and because Abram, the ancestor of the Levitical priesthood, gave tithes to him. He is not “perhaps the last witness and confessor of the primitive revelation out of the night of heathenism,” for that is the splendor of an evening sky which reaches through all time; but he is the last representative of the period of the primitive religion, and therefore he blesses Abram in a similar sense to that in which the Baptist must baptize Christ the Lord, in Jordan. He, in his way, stands as the last of the first world-period; Abram is one who belongs to the future,22 and therefore he blesses Abram, and Abram does him homage. That he is Melchizedec, is in the first place significant (“it may be concluded from Jos_10:1; Jos_10:3, where a later king of Jerusalem, Adoni-Zedek, i.e., lord of righteousness, is mentioned, that this was a standing name of the old kings of Salem.” Keil); then, the name of his residence, Salem; further, that he is priest and king at the same time (“in the old Phœnician custom.” Delitzsch); finally, that he represents no legal and genealogical priesthood, but shines singly and alone as a clear, bright star, in the night of Canaan: all these constitute him a mysterious, renowned type of Christ (see Delitzsch, p. 363; Keil, p. 144; Auberlen upon “Melchizedec,” in the Studien und Kritiken, 1857, p. 153).23 As he is the priest of El Eljon, that can only mean, that he intercedes for his people before the most high God with prayer and sacrifice, that he sought either to lead back the Jebusites at Salem to a living monotheism, or to preserve them in it.
11. It is in the highest degree significant that Abram honors Melchizedec with the tithes,24 and that he introduces El Eljon, in the oath, or the religious expression of it, while he will not take from the king of Sodom anything from a thread to a shoelatchet. (Knobel: “Abraham is perhaps sensitive,” etc.) This is the position of the religion of faith to the world both in its godly and ungodly aspects, the whole connection and concern of faith in the forms of its higher culture, the entire strength of its repelling attitude and tendency towards its ungodly nature.
12. “If it is certain that the repetition by Melchizedec of the familiar title of God which he uses was intended, then the name Jehovah, which Abram adds to this title, and which, indeed, he places in the greatest prominence, is not without a purpose. It must serve the purpose to announce that Abram, in the common foundation on which they stand, has still more than Melchizedec. Melchizedec, in the most high God, recognizes the Lord of heaven and earth, but not Jehovah.” Hengstenberg. This agrees with the idea that Jehovah is the God of the covenant. In the measure of this faith, a new period of religion begins with Abram. God, as the Most High,25 does not designate the Highest in distinction from lower gods, but in his exaltation above all the symbols of his being, which the heathen began to reverence as gods; thus it stands in opposition to polytheism, and also to pantheism and dualism, the true expression of the primitive religion. Hofmann finds here again an intimation of the ascension of God from the earth before the flood. We have alluded to this in the previous part of this work.
13. The oath of Abram is the first example of an oath with the uplifted hand, in solemn appeal to God. But Abram swears in his own method, and at the same time in the devout, customary mode of Melchizedec. For other examples, see chaps. Gen_21:23; Gen_26:28, etc.
14. In the elevated character of Abram, it is worthy of particular notice and praise, that with his entire renunciation of any advantage to himself, he preserves the rights of his confederates, Mamre, etc., according to both usage and equity.
15. It is remarkable, that this one chapter shows us how the father of believers enters into these varied forms of life, of war, of union with those who differed from himself in their modes of thought, of tithes, and of the oath, as his intercourse with the world demanded. He uses the oath with the king of Sodom, a man of the world, who appears to have doubted his unselfishness and magnanimity.
16. We have here, also, the first stratagem, the first celebration of victory, and the first priest.
17. The first conflict of the hosts of faith with the first appearance of the world-power. The historical example of the Maccabees, Waldenses, etc.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
See the Doctrinal and Ethical portions.—Texts for sermons on war, victory, deliverances, public calls, and demands to duty, and upon the oath, etc. War in a threefold form: 1. War of violence; 2. war of a faint-hearted defence; 3. the rescuing war of divine inspiration.—Alliances in a threefold form: 1. Alliance for robbery; 2. the faint-hearted alliance for defence; 3. alliance for life and death.—Abram as a warlike prince.—Love of our brother as a motive in war.—Abram’s war and victory.—Celebration of Abram’s victory.—Melchizedec as a type of Christ.—Christ also does not enter into worldly wars, but he refreshes pious heroes with bread and wine.—Bread and wine the refreshment of the king of peace, for those who contend for God.—To every one his own, particularly to faithful confederates.
Starke: This the first war which the Scripture commemorates, and its cause was the lust of dominion. (Let it be granted that Chedorlaomer had subjugated the cities mentioned in Gen_14:2, in an unrighteous way, still they were in the wrong, since they began to rebel, and in this way would regain their freedom,26 etc.—How can Abram help these rebels?)—God used the four kings as rods to punish others. Wurtemb. Bible: War and rebellion are evils above all other evils; indeed, a condensed epitome, as it were, of all calamities and sorrows.—Osiander: If the saints dwell with the godless, they must often be brought down and punished with them.—(Query: Whether Abram, with a good conscience, could enter into a covenant with the Canaanites? He might make different excuses; e.g., it is not proven that they were heathen; finally, he could say correctly, one must discern and distinguish the times.—Citation of Jewish fables: “In Abram’s contest, all the dust (every staff?) became swords, and every straw an arrow.”) Gen_14:15. An instance of stratagem, Jos_8:2; Jdg_20:29; 1Sa_15:5.—Cramer: God remembers even the poor captive.—Covenants, even with persons not of our religion and faith, if made in a correct way, and with a right purpose, are not wrong; still, we must not rely upon them (Deu_20:1).—Legitimate war.—Against rash undertakings.—Osiander: No external power, but faith in God, gives the victory.
Gen_14:18. Here, for the first time, a priest is spoken of.—Cramer: Honor is the reward of virtue.—The tithes of Abram.—Osiander: A Christian must even make his possessions of service to the officers of the Church.—Kings and princes, if God grants them victory over their enemies, must not only give him public thanks, but present to him of the spoil they have taken.—Teachers and princes must proffer assistance to each other, and exchange temporal goods for spiritual (1Co_9:11.—Finally, upon the legitimate oath; renunciation of his own rights, the competency, the equitable wages or rewards of war.
Lisco: Abram’s magnanimity overlooks all the unbecoming deportment of Lot towards him; he ventures his life for him.—The central point in this narrative is the grace of God towards his chosen, through which he places him in a condition to wage victorious war with kings, and after the assured victory, the same grace brings kings to meet him, the one in a thoughtful recognition, the other fawns in subjection and begs.—Abram’s freedom from selfishness.—Calwer, Handbuch: The humble man of faith, a victorious warrior and hero.—The strength of the Lord is mighty in the weak.—Schröder: No greeting of blessing, no word of God falls from the lips of this king of Sodom; he is only thinking of the earthly.—(Calvin): It is worthy of praise, that he is thankful to men if he is not ungrateful to God. It is possible, of course, that this poor man, stript of his goods, through a servile, hypocritical pretence of modesty, might obtain from Abram, at least, the captives and the free city for himself. (Calvin saw, correctly, that Abram, as possessor of the people of Sodom, and the conqueror of the rulers of Sodom, won for himself essentially a legitimate dominion over Sodom, over which the king of Sodom would pass as lightly as possible).—Abram bows himself before Melchizedec, but before the king of Sodom he lifts his hand.—Thus Abram recognizes and acknowledges Melchizedec, while he penetrates to its depth the nature of the king of Sodom. As he is clearly conscious of his own high position, he condescends to the lower standpoint of the Sodomites (out of which condescension the oath which he swears proceeds), in order thereby to recognize and own the higher religious standpoint of Melchizedec. The oath an act of worship. He testifies, thereby, that he had not undertaken the war from any lust of gain, and cuts off the roots of all the solicitation to covetousness (even all suspicion of the same) through the name of God.—Passavant: Psalms 91; Rom_8:31.—Covenants for mutual defence against such expeditions for plunder and life were necessary, and God permitted his servants among the Canaanites, to use such means of help and defence.—There is something greater than bread and wine, mightier than victory and the power of the victor, stronger than death, and it overcomes, indeed, it inherits the world. What is it? Every child of Abram can tell.—Taube: We see in Abram’s victory and blessing, the victory and blessing of every one who is a soldier for God.—The sacred history transplants us at once into the midst of the turmoil of worldly affairs; from the quiet, peaceful tents of Abram, we are transferred to the tumults of war of heathen nations.—Heuser: The meeting of Melchizedec, the royal priest, with Abram: a. The historical event itself; b. the typical elements in it; c. their realization; d. the importance of these truths.
[This history must be placed in its New Testament light (Hebrews 7) if we would see its meaning and importance.—A. G.]
Footnotes:
[1][Gen_14:1.—Lange renders this first clause as independent. “And it came to pass after days, or, in the lapse of days.”—A. G.]
[2][Gen_14:1.—Wordsworth and Murphy, lionine, or lion-like.—A. G.]
[3][Gen_14:1.—“Some identify it with Telassar; others more probably regard it as Larsa, now Simkarah, about fifteen miles southeast of Warka. Rawlinson. Wordsworth, p. 69.—A. G.]
[4][Gen_14:1—“Rawlinson compares it with Kudur-Mapula, or Maluk, whose name is found on the bricks of Chaldea, and whose title is Apda Martu, Ravager of the West.”—Murphy, p. 278.—A. G.]
[5][Temporary, however, only as to its external form, and the sign or seal of the covenant. The covenant itself Is one and permanent.—A. G.]
[6][The connection of this chapter with what precedes and follows is close and natural. It shows that Lot’s choice, while apparently wise, was attended with bitter fruits; it lays the ground, in Abram’s conduct, for the promise and transactions of the 15th chapter. There would be a serious break in the history were this wanting.—A. G.]
[7][Chedorlaomer. Upon the bricks recently found in Chaldea there occurs the name of a king—Kudurmapula—which Rawlinson thinks may be the same, especially since he is further distinguished as the Ravager of the West. Jacobus, p. 247.—A. G.]
[8][Delitzsch suggests perhaps an earlier name for “Galilee of the Gentiles.” Comp. Jos_12:23; Jdg_4:2; and Isa_8:23.—A. G.]
[9][Which is the Salt sea, i.e., into which this valley was changed in the overthrow of the cities (Gen_19:24). Keil, p. 139.—A. G.]
[10][The five kings belonged probably to the family of Ham, which had pushed its way northward, but had been here checked and held under the sway of the Shemitic king for twelve years, but had now revolted. Wordsworth, p. 69.—A. G.]
[11][Ritter finds it in the Tell Ashareh. J. G. Wetstein identifies it with Bosra, for which he urges the central position of this city in Peræa, and the similarity of the names Bostra and בִּעֶשְׁתְּרָה. “Porter suggests ’Afineh, eight miles from Bosra, as the Samaritan version, has ’Aphinet for ’Ashtaroth.”—A. G.]
[12][El Param, terebinth, or rather wood of Paran, is without doubt the later Elath, at the head of the Ailanitic gulf; the present Akaba. Keil, p. 141.—A. G.]
[13][Kadesh, probably at Ain-el Waibeh; though Keil and Wordsworth favor the location at Ain Kades, in the east of the highest part of Jebel Halal, about five hours E.S.E. from Morlâkhi.—A. G.]
[14][Also Robinson’s “Researches,” vol. ii. pp. 228–230.—A. G.]
[15][The passage is so constructed in the Hebrew as to bring out this significance. And they took Lot, and his goods, Abram’s brother’s son, and departed; and (for) he was dwelling in Sodom.—A. G.]
[16][The one from the other side, who has come across the river. But Murphy urges in favor of taking Hebrew as a patronymic; “that every other tribe in the country had originally migrated across the Euphrates, and that the word here distinguishes Abram as the Hebrew, just as his confederate, Mamre, is distinguished as the Amorite.”—A. G.]
[17][These tried, proved, thus trained servants, were born in his house, Pro_22:6. “Abram had trained them in spiritual things in the service of God, as well as in fidelity to himself; see chap. Gen_18:19, and Gen_24:12-49.” Wordsworth, p. 71.—A. G.]
[18]
“Gebenedeit sei Abram Gott, dem Allerhabenen,
Dem Erschaffer Himmels und der Erde
Und gebenedeit sei Gott, der Allerhabene
Der geliefert deine Dränger in deine Hand.”
[Keil also refers to the poetical forms צָרֶיךָ and מִגֵּן.—A. G.]
[19] [“But his march and victory have another and a higher reference in the object of the history. Even here it is not to glorify Abram, but rather the wonderful providence of God over his chosen, through which all here enters in immediate connection with the divine plan. Abram is the designated possessor of the land; it is his concern, therefore, to guard the land from all assaults, and to avenge its injuries; it is the part of God, who has designated him to this end, to give him the victory.” Kurtz: “History of the Old Covenant,” p. 171.—A. G.]
[His title to the land involves him in the war. He must defend that which has been given to him. “He is no sooner confirmed in his title, than the land is invaded by a confederacy of hostile kings. Thus the kingdom of God is no sooner set up anywhere, than there is a rallying of the world kingdoms against it.” Jacobus, p. 247.—A. G.]
[20][“The things of chief importance here are Abram’s faith and the help of God; but we should not overlook, that his force may have reached a thousand men, including his confederates, and further, the effect of the security of the hostile forces, the sudden terror, the darkness of the night, their confusion among themselves, and the strategic skill of Abram.” Kurtz, p. 170.—A. G.]
[21][The name, however, is Semitic. It is probable that he was a Semitic chieftain, having his royal seat at Jerusalem. The locality, as everything else in connection with this person, so briefly referred to here, and then dismissed, is important. This is clear from the use which is made of this history in the Epistle to the Hebrews. He was a personal type of Christ: 1. As he was both priest and king; 2. as king of righteousness and peace; 3. as he was constructively, so far as the history goes, without father and without mother; 4. as he held his priesthood probably by a special divine warrant. He acts as a priest: 1. In bringing the bread and wine, here probably connected with a sacrifice and sacramental, refreshing this wearied warrior of the faith, and welcoming him to the communion of saints; 2. in blessing Abram—which is here the solemn, priestly benediction; 3. in receiving tithes from Abram—through which Abram recognizes his typical superiority—and in which the whole Levitical priesthood, yet in the loins of Abram, recognizes the superiority of that Priesthood of which he was the type. It thus becomes evident, as the Apostle shows, that the Levitical priesthood, and the whole Mosaic institution, were intermediate and temporary, and pointed to the higher Priest to come—who is both Priest and King, and who holds his priesthood not by descent, but by the express appointment and oath of God.—A. G.]
[22]German, Ein Werdender.
[23] [See also Kurtz: “History of the Old Covenant,” pp. 173–176, whose remarks here are very suggestive, and Jacobus: “Notes,” pp. 256–260.—A. G.]
[“Melchizedec brought forth bread and wine as the priest of the most high God. There seems to be an intimation that this was a priestly act, and accordingly the crowning part of a sacred feast. It was probably connected with the offering of a sacrifice. This view of his acts is confirmed by the blessing which he pronounces as the priest of the most high God.” Murphy, p. 288, 289.—A. G.]
[Melchizedec stands as the personal type of Christ, and at the same time in his acts and relations here, seems to typify what Christ, as our Priest, is ever doing for his people.—A. G.]
[24] “The bringing of the tithes was an actual recognition of the priestly dignity of Melchizedec. For, in general usage, the tenth is the sacred portion, which belongs to God, and to his representatives.” Baumgarten, p. 182; Bahr: Symbolik i. p. 179.—A. G.
[“Abram, the blessed of Jehovah, and the mediator of blessings for all the people, allows himself to be blessed by this royal priest, who stands beyond the line and circle of the promise. Abram, the ancestor of Israel, of Aaron, and Levi, of the people and the priesthood of the law, allows himself to be blessed by this royal priest, who shows no title through descent or the law. And not only so; Abram, in whom was the priestly race which should receive the tithes, gave to this royal priest the tithes of all the spoil. There is, therefore, an extra-legal, royal priesthood, and priestly kingdom, which this history typically prophesies, to whom even Abram and his seed should bow, to whom even the Levitical priesthood should render homage; for, just where Abram stands in incomparably the most striking typical character, there Melchizedec enters and towers above him. Melchizedec is the setting sun of the primitive revelation, which sheds its last rays upon the patriarchs, from whom the true light of the world is to arise. The sun sets, that when the preparatory time of the patriarchs, the preparatory time of Israel, have passed away, it may rise again in Jesus Christ, the antitype.” Delitzsch.—A. G.]
[25][“There is here no indistinct allusion to the creation of ‘heaven and earth’ mentioned in the opening of the book of God. This is a manifest identification of the God of Melchizedec with the one creator and upholder of all things.” Murphy, p. 289.—A. G.]
[26][It is not said in the narrative that they were wrong; and it is by no means clear that they were. Rebellion may be right. It is so, if the government is unjust and oppressive, and there is good reason to believe that success will attend their efforts to shake off the yoke of bondage.—A. G.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv12–15 they took Lot . . . and his goods,…
they took Lot . . . and his goods, and departed--How would the conscience of that young man now upbraid him for his selfish folly and ingratitude in withdrawing from his kind and pious relative! Whenever we go out of the path of duty, we put ourselves away from God's protection, and cannot expect that the choice we make will be for our lasting good.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 Considered merely as an historical document, the following chapter…
INVASION OF THE EASTERN KINGS, 1-12.
Considered merely as an historical document, the following chapter is invaluable. Its antiquity is greater than that of any of the records of the past as yet deciphered, and the internal marks of its genuineness are beyond dispute. This is acknowledged by many of the ablest rationalistic critics, who regard this part of the narrative as a most ancient historic document, inserted here by the compiler of the Book of Genesis.
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Here we find the earliest record of those hostile invasions from the East which in later times so repeatedly troubled the nations of western Asia, Egypt, and Greece. The narrative here serves a twofold purpose, namely, 1) to show the mistaken policy of Lot’s choice, in selecting for residence the cities of the plain, and 2) to exhibit Abram’s generous heart and military sagacity and prowess. In this first conflict between the world-powers and the chosen seed we also note the arbitrary and rapacious spirit of the former and the righteous principle and honour of the latter. The heir of the Land of Promise appears as the protector and defender of his own. God honours him, and he maintains righteousness and honours God.
1. Amraphel king of Shinar — Successor of Nimrod, and perhaps mentioned first because of his location in this most ancient seat of empire. Comp. Gen_10:10. The derivation of the name is uncertain, though some have sought to trace it in the Sanscrit Amarapala, “guardian of the immortals.” No other record of this king is known besides what is contained in this chapter. The same is the case with Arioch king of Ellasar. The modern town Senkerah, between Ur and Ereck, is supposed by many to be the site of the ancient Ellasar here mentioned. It was known to the Greeks as Larissa, and appears from the inscriptions to have been one of the primitive capitals of this region. Chedorlaomer, though mentioned third in order here, appears from Gen_14:4-5; Gen_14:17 to have been the chief king, and the leader of the expedition. Elam, the province which he ruled, is doubtless the same as the vast district known as Elymais, east of the lower Tigris, and first settled by the children of Shem. Gen_10:22. The name Kadur Mapula has been found on Chaldean bricks, and he is called “Ravager of the West.”
Tidal — Sept., Thargal. This name, according to Rawlinson, is found in the early Hamitic dialect of the lower Tigris and Euphrates country, and means “the Great Chief.” The title king of nations may denote that Tidal was chief of a number of nomadic tribes, without settled dominion. Some render גוים, nations, as a proper name, Goyim. But we have no knowledge of any nation or district of that name.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 Khammurabi (? Amraphel), King of Babylon, receiving laws from…
Khammurabi (? Amraphel), King of Babylon, receiving laws from Shamash, the Sun-god.
1–12. The Campaign
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1. And it came to pass in the days of] The opening formula of a new Hebrew section. Cf. Rth_1:1; 2Sa_21:1; Est_1:1; Isa_7:1.
Amraphel] King of Shinar, very generally accepted as the Hebrew reproduction of the name Hammurabi, king of Babylonia about 2150 b.c. (?). On the assumption of this identification it has been conjectured that the last syllable of the name should be “-i” instead of “-el,” i.e. Amraphi. For Shinar, see note on Gen_10:10 and Gen_11:2.
Hammurabi is famous as the king who finally freed his kingdom from the yoke of the Elamites, who united northern and southern Babylonia under one rule, and extended his conquests as far west as Palestine. Many cuneiform documents, belonging to his reign and referring to his government, have been discovered and deciphered, most remarkable and important of all being his Code of Laws1[15].
[15] Discovered in Dec. 1901 and Jan. 1902 by M. Le Morgan at Susa. See Driver’s Exodus, Appendix III.
Arioch king of Ellasar] Possibly the same as Rim-sin who is said to be referred to in an ancient Sumerian record as Eri-Aku, son of Kudur-Mabug, king of Larsa, and a contemporary of Hammurabi. Ellasar is clearly the Babylonian town Larsa, which is identified with the ruins of the modern Senkereh on the E. bank of the Euphrates in S. Babylonia.
We meet with the name of Arioch in a Babylonian court-official (Dan_2:15); and as a “king of the Elymaeans,” a vassal of Nebuchadnezzar (Jdt_1:6).
Chedorlaomer] King of Elam. The name has not hitherto been identified in the history of Western Asia. In its formation, however, it is genuinely Elamite, i.e. Kudur = “servant,” and Lagamar = an Elamite deity. The supremacy of Elam over all that region of Western Asia about the time of Hammurabi is attested by the ancient documents. For Elam, see note on Gen_10:22. It is the country called in the Assyrian Elamtu, and in the Greek Elymais, north of the Persian Gulf and east of the Lower Tigris. Its capital was Susa, which appears in the classical form of Susiana. On the overthrow of Elam by the Persians, see Jer_49:34-39.
Tidal king of Goiim] The attempts which have been made to identify Tidal have not yet been successful. But there is no reason to suppose that it is a fictitious name; and future research may bring his name to light. Goiim is the regular Hebrew word for “nations,” and therefore seems to be very improbable as the name of a country or city. It may have been substituted by a Hebrew copyist for some unfamiliar proper name resembling it in pronunciation, or in shape of letters. Thus Sir Henry Rawlinson’s conjecture of Gutim has very generally found favour. The Guti were a people often mentioned in the inscriptions, living in the region of Kurdistan. Sayce suggests that Goiim may be correct as the Hebrew translation of the Assyrian Ummanmanda, the peoples, or nomad hordes, that constantly swept through those regions.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 15 (1) It came to pass.—Connected with the settlement of…
XIV.
INVASION OF THE JORDAN VALLEY BY CHEDOR-LAOMER, KING OF ELAM.
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(1) It came to pass.—Connected with the settlement of Lot in the Jordan valley is one of the most remarkable episodes in the whole of the Bible, derived either from Canaanite records, or, as Mr. Sayce thinks (Chald. Genesis, p. 72), from those of Babylon. The latter view is made the more probable by the fact that Amraphel, though but a subject king, is placed first; and the way in which the patriarch is described in it, as “Abram the Hebrew,” seems certainly to suggest that we have to do here with a narrative of foreign origin.
Its incorporation with the history admirably sets forth the consequences of Lot’s choice in the troubles, and even ruin, which overtook him, the bravery and power of Abram, and his generosity to the rescued kings. It is also most interesting, as showing Abram’s relation to the Amorites, among whom he lived, and the existence in Palestine of a Semitic population, who still worshipped “the most high God,” and over whom one of the noblest figures in the Old Testament was king. The narrative is Jehovistic, for Abram calls God Jehovah El Elton, but is, nevertheless, of such ancient date as to forbid the acceptance of the theory which regards the occurrence of the name Jehovah as a proof of later authorship. Upon Elam and the conquests and route of Chedorlaomer, see Excursus at end of this book.
Amraphel.—An Accadian name, which Lenormant has found on Babylonian cylinders, and which he explains as meaning “the circle of the year.”
Shinar.—See on Gen_10:10.
Arioch.—i.e., Eriaku, which in Accadian means “servant of the moon-god.” He was king of Ellasar, i.e., Al-Larsa, the city of Larsa, now called Senkereh. It is situated on the left bank of the Euphrates, in Lower Babylonia, and has contributed some very ancient tablets to the collection in the British Museum. The name occurs again in Dan_2:14.
Tidal.—More correctly in the LXX., Thargal, that is, Tur-gal. the great son (Sayce). In the Syriac he is called “Thargil, king of the Gelae,” the latter being a mistake, through reading Gelim for Goim. This word does not mean “nations,” but is a proper name, spelt Gutium in the inscriptions, “by which the Accadians designated the whole tract of country which extended from the Tigris to the eastern borders of Media, including the district afterwards known as Assyria” (Chald. Gen., p. 197).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. H. Mackintosh 1880 · Public Domain On v1 Genesis 14
Genesis 14
We are, here, presented with an historic record of the revolt of five kings from under the hand of Chederlaomer, and a battle consequent thereon. The Spirit of God can occupy himself with the movements of "kings and their armies," when such movements are in anywise connected with the people of God. In the present case, Abraham personally had nothing whatever to do with the revolt or its consequences. His "tent and altar" were not likely to furnish an occasion for the declaration of war, nor yet to be much affected by the outbreak or issue thereof. The proper portion of a heavenly man could never, by any possibility, tempt the cupidity nor excite the ambition of the kings and conquerors of this world.
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However, although Abraham was not affected by the battle of "four kings with five," yet Lot was. His position was such as to involve him in the whole affair. So long as we are enabled, through grace, to pursue the path of simple faith, we shall be thrown completely outside the range of this world’s circumstances; but if we abandon our high and holy position as those whose "citizenship" is in heaven," and seek a name, a place, and a portion in the earth, we must expect to participate in earth’s convulsions and vicissitudes. Lot had taken up his abode in the plains of Sodom, and was, therefore, deeply and sensibly affected by the wars of Sodom. It must ever be thus. It is a bitter and a painful thing for the child of God to mingle himself with the children of this world. He can never do so without serious damage to his own soul, as well as to the testimony with which he is entrusted. What testimony had Lot in Sodom? A very feeble one, indeed, if one at all. The very fact of his settling himself there was the death blow to his testimony. To have spoken a word against Sodom and its ways, would have been to condemn himself, for why was he there? But, in truth, it does not, by any means, appear that, to testify for God, formed any part of his object in "pitching his tent toward Sodom." Personal and family interests seem to have been the leading springs of action in his heart: and though, as Peter tells us, "his righteous soul was vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked, from day to day," yet had he but little power to act against it, even if inclined so to do.
It is important, in a practical point of view, to see that we cannot be governed by two objects at the same time. For example, I cannot have before my mind, as objects, my worldly interests and the interests of the gospel of Christ. If I go to a town for the purpose of setting up in business, then, clearly, business is my object, and not the gospel. I may, no doubt, propose to myself both to attend to business and to preach the gospel as well; but, all the while, either one or the other must be my object. It is not that a servant of Christ may not most blessedly and effectually preach the gospel and attend to business also; he assuredly may; but, in such a case, the gospel will be his object, and not business. Paul preached the gospel and made tents; but the gospel was his object, and not tent making. If I make business my object, the gospel preaching will speedily prove to be formal and unprofitable work; yea, it will be well if it be not made use of to sanctify my covetousness. The heart is very treacherous; and it is often truly astonishing to see how it deceives us when we desire to gain some special point. It will furnish, in abundance, the most plausible reasons; while the eyes of our understanding are so blinded by self-interest, or unjudged wilfulness, as to be incapable of detecting their plausibility. How frequently do we hear persons defending a continuance in a position which they admit to be wrong, on the plea that they thereby enjoy a wider sphere of usefulness. To all such reasoning, Samuel furnishes a pointed and powerful reply, "To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." Which was, Abraham or Lot, able to do the more good? Does not the history of those two men prove, beyond a question, that the most effectual way to serve the world is to be faithful to it, by separating from, and testifying against it?
But, be it remembered, that genuine separation from the world can only be the result of communion with God. I may seclude myself from the world, and constitute myself the centre of my being, like a monk or a cynic; but separation to God is a totally different thing. The one chills and contracts, the other warms and expands. That drives us in upon ourselves; this draws us out in love and interest for others. That makes self and its interests our centre; this makes God and His glory our centre. Thus, in Abraham’s case, we see that the very fact of his separation enabled him to render effectual service to one who had involved himself in trouble by his worldly ways. "When Abraham heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan..... and he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people." Lot was Abraham’s brother, after all; and brotherly love must act. "A brother is born for adversity;" and it often happened that a season of Adversity softens the heart, and renders it susceptible of kindness, even from one with whom we have had to part company; and it is remarkable that, while, in verse 12, we read, "they took Lot, Abraham’s brother’s son," yet, in verse 14, we read, "when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive." The claims of a brother’s trouble are answered by the affections of a brother’s heart. This is divine. Genuine faith, while it always renders us independent, never renders us indifferent. It will never wrap itself up in its fleece while a brother shivers in the cold. There are three things which faith does; it "purifies the heart;" it "works by love;" and it "overcomes the world;" and all these results of faith are beautifully exhibited in Abraham on this occasion. His heart was purified from Sodom’s pollutions; he manifested genuine love to Lot his brother; and, finally, he was completely victorious over the kings. Such are the precious fruits of faith, that heavenly, Christ honouring principle.
However, the man of faith is not exempt from the assaults of the enemy; and it frequently happens that immediately after a victory, one has to encounter a fresh temptation. Thus it was with Abraham. "The king of Sodom went out to meet him, after his return from the slaughter of Chederlaomer, and of the kings that were with him." There was, evidently, a very deep and insidious design of the enemy in this movement. "The king of Sodom" presents a very different thought, and exhibits a very different phase of the enemy’s power, from what we have in "Chederlaomer and the kings that were with him." In the former, we have rather the hiss of the serpent; in the latter, the roar of the lion; but whether it were the serpent or the lion, the Lord’s grace was amply sufficient; and most seasonably was this grace ministered to the Lord’s servant, at the exact moment of need. "And Melchisedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine, and he was the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand." we have, here, to remark, first, the peculiar point at which Melchisedek enters the scene; and, secondly, the double effect of his ministry. He did not come forth when Abraham was in pursuit of Chederlaomer, but when the king of Sodom was in pursuit of Abraham. This makes a great moral difference. A deeper character of communion was needed to meet the deeper character of conflict.
And, then, as to the ministry, the "bread and wine" refreshed Abraham’s spirit, after his conflict with Chederlaomer; while the benediction prepared his heart for his conflict with the king of Sodom. Abraham was a conqueror, and yet he was about to be a combatant, and the royal priest refreshed the conqueror’s spirit, and fortified the combatant’s heart.
It is peculiarly sweet to observe the manner in which Melchizedek introduces God to the thoughts of Abraham. He calls Him "the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth;" and, not only so, but pronounces Abraham "blessed" of that same God. This was effectually preparing him for the king of Sodom. A man who was "blessed" of God, did not need to take aught from the enemy; and if the possessor of heaven and earth" filled his vision, "the goods" of Sodom could have but little attraction. Hence, as might be expected, when the king of Sodom made his proposal, "give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself," Abraham replies, "I have lift up my hand unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take from a thread even to a shoe latchet, and that I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich." Abraham refuses to be enriched by the king of Sodom. How could he think of delivering Lot from the power of the world, if he himself were governed thereby? The only true way in which to deliver another is to be thoroughly delivered myself. So long as I am in the fire, it is quite impossible I can pluck another out of it. The path of separation is the path of power, as it is also the path of peace and blessedness.
The world, in all its various forms, is the great instrument of which Satan makes use, in order to weaken the hands, and alienate the affections, of the servants of Christ. But, blessed be God, when the heart is true to Him, He always comes in to cheer, to strengthen, and to fortify, at the right time. "The eyes of the Lord run to and fro, throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him." (2 Chr. 16: 9) This is an encouraging truth for our poor, timid, doubting, faltering hearts. Christ will be our strength and shield. He will" cover our heads in the day of battle;" He will "teach our hands to war, and our fingers to fight;" and finally, "He will bruise Satan under our feet shortly." ALL this is unspeakably comforting to a heart sincerely desirous of making way against "the world, the flesh, and the devil." May the Lord keep our hearts true to Himself, in the midst of the ensnaring scene around us.
C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 And it came to pass. After the separation of…
And it came to pass. After the separation of Abram and Lot, the latter of whom now appears as a citizen of Sodom, and not merely a settler in the Jordan circle; perhaps about the eighty-fourth year of Abram"s life (Hughes). The present chapter, "the oldest extant record respecting Abraham" (Ewald), but introduced into the Mosaic narrative by the Jehovistic editor (Knobel, Tuch, Bleek, Davidson), possesses traces of authenticity, of which not the least is the chronological definition with which it commences (Havernick). In the days of Amraphel. Sanscrit, Amrapala, keeper of the gods (Gesenius); Arphaxad (Furst); powerful people (Young, "Analytical Concordance"); root unknown (Murphy, Kalisch). King of Skinar. Babel (Onkelos); Bagdad (Arabic version of Erpenius); Pontus (Jonathan); the successor of Nimrod (vide. (Gen_10:10) Arioch. Sanscrit, Arjaka, venerated (Bohlen, Gesenius, Furst); probably from the root yria) a lion, hence leonine (Gesenius, Murphy). The name, which re. appears in Dan_2:14, has been compared, though doubtfully, with the Urukh of the inscriptions (vide "Records of the Past," vol. 3. p. 9). King of Ellasar. Pontus (Symmachus, Vulgate); the region between Babylon and Elymais (Gesenius); identified with Larsa or Laranka, the Larissa or laracwn of the Greeks, now Senkereh, a town of Lower Babylonia, between Mugheir (Ur) and Wrarka (Erech), on the left bank of the Euphrates (Rawlinson). Chedorlaomer. A "handful of sheaves," if the word be Phoenicio-Shemitie, though probably its true etymology should be sought in ancient Persian (Gesenius, Furst). The name has been detected by archaeologists in Kudur-mapula, the Ravager of the West, whom monumental evidence declares to have reigned over Babylon in the twentieth century B.C.; and Kudurnanhundi the Elamite, the worship of the great gods who did not fear," and the conqueror of Chaldaea, B.C. 2280; but in both instances the identifications are problematical. The name Chedorlaomer in Babylonian would be Kudurlagamer ; but as yet this name has not been found on the inscriptions (vide "Records of the Past," vol. 3 pp. 7, 19). King of Elam. East of Babylonia, on the north of the Persian Gulf (cf. Gen_10:22) And Tidal. "Fear, veneration" (Gesenius); terror (Murphy); "splendor, renown" (Furst); though the name may not be Shemitic. King of nations. The Scythians (Symmachus); the Galilean heathen (Clericus, Rosenm Delitzsch), which are inappropriate in this connection nomadic races (Rawlinson); probably some smaller tribes so gradually subjugated by Tidal as to render it "impossible to describe him briefly with any degree of accuracy" (Kalisch).
HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD 1Co_1:27-31)
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V THE HOMAGE PAID TO ABRAM as the conqueror both by the heathen king of Sodom and the priest-king of Salem is typical of the superior position of the covenant people. Abram gave tithes to Melchizedek (cf. Heb_7:1-7) as an acknowledgment of the superiority of the position of Melchizedek, but Melchizedek blessed Abram as the possessor of the promise. The idea is that Melchizedek was the priest of a departing dispensation, Abram the recipient of the old and the beginning of the new.
VI ABRAM"S STRICT SEPARATION from the worldly power, which he rested on an oath of faithfulness to God, shows that he is decidedly advancing in spiritual character. The contrast is very striking between his conduct and that of Lot. He at the same time does not attempt to enforce his own high principle upon others. The Church of God has suffered much from its attempts to apply its own high rules to the world instead of leaving the world to find out for itself their superiority and adopt them. R.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 13 These made war
Gen_14:1-12
These made war
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The first war on record
I.
AS TO ITS MOTIVES.
1. Ambition.
2. Plunder.
3. The desire to recover lost sovereignty.
II. AS TO THE CONDITIONS OF ITS SUCCESS. From the failure of human foresight, and the endless complications of events, it may happen that the battle is not always to the strong; still there are general conditions of success. Some of these may be seen in the instance before us.
1. By depriving the enemy of all friendly help.
2. By favourable physical conditions.
3. By moral causes.
III. AS TO ITS RESULTS.
1. That men often suffer who take no part in the quarrel.
2. That the vanquished do not always benefit by the discipline of adversity. (T. H. Leale.)
Hints for teaching
I. See here an example and contrast of UNLAWFUL AND LAWFUL WAR. Chedorlaomer and Abram both went to war: but the former did so from pride, covetousness, and hatred to his neighbours; the latter from love to his neighbour, pity for the innocent captives, affection for his kindred, and zeal for right. The outward act was the same, but the motives as different as light and darkness. But could not God have delivered Lot and the other captives without Abrams interference? Certainly; but God commonly works by means, not by miracle; and this was the means He chose, to humble the pride of the oppressor, to deliver the injured, to exercise the faith and courage and energy of Abram and his servants, and to put honour on Abram. War is always a dreadful thing; it must also be a most wicked thing, except only when the great law of love to our neighbour requires it 1Ki_8:44; Jdg_6:12; Jdg_6:14; Jdg_6:16; Rom_13:4).
II. MELCHIZEDEK is one of the most remarkable OLD TESTAMENT TYPES OF CHRIST (see Psa_110:4; Zec_6:11-13; Heb_6:20; Heb_7:1-3). By this I understand, not that Melchizedek personally, during his lifetime, was a type of Christ to Abram or his contemporaries; but that the history of Melchizedeks interview with Abram is so recorded, by Divine inspiration, as to supply an image of Christ. The type lies not in the man, but in the Scripture record. St. Paul expresses this by saying he was made like unto the Son of God, i.e., made in the history a figure of Him. In his names and title, King of righteousness and King of peace (Isa_9:6; Isa_11:4; Isa_32:1; Isa_32:17). (The Congregational Pulpit.)
War
I. THE MARAUDING CHIEFTAINS.
1. Their names suggestive of character. Heads of savage and wandering tribes; having their headquarters in the plain of Shinar and neighbourhood.
2. Cause of this recorded war not given. Probably to be referred exclusively to the cause stated (Jam_4:1). Doubtless plunder and tribute the chief objects sought.
3. Falling upon the kings of the plain, most probably by surprise, they were victorious. Levied tribute and returned.
4. Tribute paid during twelve years; declined in the thirteenth year. By this time the kings of the plain thought they were strong enough to resist; had probably organized resistance.
5. Chedorlaomer and his confederates march to enforce payment, taking and plundering various cities on their way (Gen_14:5-7).
6. Battle of the Vale of Siddim. The kings of the plain hemmed in and destroyed. The nature of the ground facilitating their overthrow.
II. THE CAPTURE OF LOT.
1. He was in Sodom when it was taken (Gen_14:11-12). He now suffers the penalty of his folly. He that soweth to the wind shall reap the whirlwind.
2. Perils arising from worldly choice and ungodly companions. Young people often suffer through their companions. Lot lost the property for the increase of which he was so anxious. He trusted more to the strong walls and untried friends in Sodom than in the living God. This their way is their folly.
3. A hopeless captivity and poverty are now before him. From what quarter could he expect deliverance?
III. THE BRAVERY OF ABRAM.
1. He hears the news.
2. Summons his confederates. This an alliance for mutual protection and defence.
3. Collects and arms his trained servants. These, with the retainers of his friends, make a numerous band.
4. Marches in pursuit of Chedorlaomer. Might have abandoned Lot to his fate. Hurries through the country and overtakes the spoilers and their captives at Daniel
5. The night attack. Surprise of Lot. Abram to the rescue. The forces divide, that the enemies camp may be attacked from various sides at once. Consternation and rout of the confederate kings of the east, and the rescue of Lot.
6. The kings not only routed, but pursued and slain. A guarantee of freedom in the future from molestation. LEARN--
I. Evils of war; desolation carried through a great country and into many cities and homes. The innocent perish with the guilty.
II. Results of thoughtless choice of home and friends.
III. Friend in need is a friend indeed. Abram prosperous does not abandon Lot in adversity.
IV. Jesus, the great conqueror, delivers our captive souls. (J. C. Gray.)
The battle of the kings Melchizedek
I. IN ITS LITERAL ASPECTS, WE SHALL CONSIDER THE OCCASION OF ABRAHAMS CONFLICT; HIS SPIRIT AND CONDUCT IN IT; AND HIS BEHAVIOUR AFTER IT.
1. The occasion. It was necessary that depredators should be kept in check, and the plan adopted by Abraham was the only one possible in that age. Abraham was not actuated by love of conquest or desire of gain, still less by a spirit of revenge. He merely sought to deliver those who had unjustly been made captives, and to recover stolen property. His functions, as warrior, were essentially those of our modem police. It seems impossible to find fault with his conduct in entering on such an expedition; and thus far it would be easy to show the allowability and even the duty of engaging in defensive war. You will also see how piety and faith do not unfit a man for the active duties of life; or even for bold and heroic enterprises, when these come in the way of duty. Religion does not unman us. It does not make us effeminate, or cowards. Rather, it ennobles and strengthens our whole nature.
2. Abrahams conduct in the fight. It was distinguished by generosity, valour, prudence, righteousness, and faith. It is not hard to account for his victory.
3. His behaviour after it. We see this in his conduct toward Melchizedek; and in his conduct toward the king of Sodom. He presented to God a tithe of all the spoils, which at once displayed his piety, and rebuked the idolatry of the inhabitants of the cities of the plain. From motives of piety, we may explain his conduct to the king of Sodom. He refused any reward for ills services. This he did, in order to evince the purity of his motives; also in order to avoid undue fellowship with idolaters. This behaviour was the more necessary because of the false position in which Lot had placed himself. And here we see the folly of mingling closely with the ungodly. Lot could not rebuke the Sodomites, for why had he come to live among them? Neither did he gain anything, but lost much, by preferring their country on account of its wealth and fertility.
II. APPLY IT TO OUR SPIRITUAL HISTORY.
1. The believer is called to fight against many foes. This is not a fiction, but a reality; nor is this a despicable, but a most important species of conflict. Our enemies are spiritual spoliators.
2. Let us consider the spiritual Melchizedek, and our relation to him.
3. See in this history how far God notices the wars and commotions of the world. Only so far as they stand connected with the history and welfare of His people. We should do well to cultivate the same spirit; and judge of all events by the light of the Word of God. And then we shall be better able to comprehend the real importance of mundane changes and events; while we learn to be patient and hopeful under all adverse circumstances, for we know that God will take care of us; and the path of duty will be the path of safety. (The Congregational Pulpit.)
War
Prince Eugene, speaking of war, said, The thirst of renown sometimes insinuates itself into our councils, under the garb of national honour. It dwells on imaginary insults; it suggests harsh and abusive language; the people go on from one thing to another, till they put an end to the lives of half a million of men. A military man becomes so sick of bloody scenes in war, that in peace he is averse to recommence them. I wish that the first minister, who is called to decide on peace and war, had only seen actual service. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The Salt Sea
The Dead Sea a special memento of the doom that awaits the wicked
Near the southeast corner of Palestine is a body of water more remarkable in some respects than any other on the earth. Though the Jordan is annually pouring a vast quantity of fresh water into this remarkable lake, its own water is intensely salt, exceeding in saltness that of the ocean; and so great is its specific gravity that one floats easily on its surface, as if reclining on a couch. He who bathes in it can, as Mr. Stephens affirms, lie on the water and read or even sleep; but when he comes out, his body will smart and burn, and he will find himself partially incrusted with salt. This mysterious lake has no visible outlet, and yet, strange to say, it never overflows. By means of evaporation it preserves nearly the same level throughout the year. No vessels are seen on its bosom, no fish are found darting through its saline waters, and neither grass nor flowers nor green trees are found in its immediate vicinity. A silence like that of the tomb broods over it, and its entire aspect is dreary, dismal, and desolate in the extreme. In view of these facts, it is not strange that what in our text Moses calls the Salt Sea should in modern times be denominated the Dead Sea; for, perhaps, no better emblem of death and desolation could be found on the face of the globe. But has this mysterious sea always existed? Has the gloom and desolation that now marks the spot always reigned there? Ah, no! The spot now occupied by the Salt Sea was once a part of the fertile valley of the Jordan; and the tramp of armed men was once heard where now an almost unbroken silence prevails. What has produced this marvellous change? What throe of nature, what mighty power, has transformed the Vale of Siddim into a salt, sluggish, unnavigated lake, having naught but its history to render it attractive? The answer is found in Gen_19:24-25. So filthy and unutterably loathsome had the doings of the Sodomites and their neighbours become, that God saw fit not only to put an end to their vile career, but to make the very spot they occupied, the very cities they dwelt in, a visible and abiding monument of His abhorrence of sin, and of what all who persist in sin have to expect. He saw fit to convert a fertile and populous valley into a scene of desolation and ruin; to bury beneath the waters of the Dead Sea a tract of earth which its inhabitants had so awfully defiled. Gods object in all this was, to make them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly. And to render the lesson more effectual, He chose to set up, on the spot once occupied by those cities, a striking remembrance of their wickedness, and of the vengeance that overtook them. As a tombstone reminds us of our mortality, or as a rainbow reminds us of a deluged world, so should the Dead Sea, whether actually seen or only thought of, prove an impressive memento of the wrath to come. Hear its warning voice, ye worldlings and sensualists, and become wise! else a desolation will soon overtake you that is far gloomier and more terrible than that which now broods over the buried cities of the plain. (T. Williston.)
They rebelled
Lessons
1. Ambition delays no time: when it hath power to revenge any affronts against it. Prom the time considered with the assailants.
2. Usually unjust rebellions are followed with severe destructions, and that speedily.
3. Ambition labours to get confederates and engage them with itself for its own ends.
4. Usurping ambition when it is powerful is very cruel, smiting, killing.
5. Ambitious oppressors spare not nations in their power. They destroy nations not a few. Such is the rant of the Assyrian (Isa_37:1-38).
6. Usurping tyrants pursue after blood when they have once tasted it.
7. Gods overruling providence maketh wicked men execute vengeance upon each other for their wickedness.
8. Ambitious usurpers destroy all that is in their way to their unjust ends (Gen_14:5-7). (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Kiriathaim
Kiriathaim
We have here some of the most ancient houses of which the world can boast. As Porter remarks, they are just such dwellings as a race of giants would build. The walls and roofs, but especially the ponderous gates, doors, and bars, are in every way characteristic of a period when architecture was in its infancy, when giants were masons, and when strength and security were the grand requisites. The heavy stone slabs of the roofs resting on the massive walls make the structure as firm as if built of solid masonry, and the black basalt used is almost as hard as iron. There can scarcely be a doubt that these are the cities erected and inhabited by the Pephaim--that on these masses of masonry, which Ritter remarks now stand as constant witnesses of the conquest of Bashan by Jehovah, Abram gazed--and that amid these secure strongholds Chedorlaomer and his Elamite warriors roamed ere they attacked the kings in the Vale of Siddim. Yet how dreary now! (W. Adamson.)
Horites
Horites
1. These received their name from dwelling in caves. Strabo says that the life of these cave dwellers was nomadic. They are governed by tyrants, wear skins, and carry spears and shields which are covered with raw hides. They anoint their bodies with a mixture of blood and milk, drink an infusion of buckthorn, and travel and tend their flocks by night.
2. It is interesting to know that the excavated dwellings of the Horites are still found in hundreds in the sandstone cliffs and mountains of Edom, and especially in Petra. Some of them, Wilson says, have windows as well as doors. In front of others are receptacles for water. They are all approachable by a common way. The region is now a habitation of dragons--literally, as Irby says, swarming with lizards and scorpions, etc.
3. Mount Hor, upon which Aaron died, is a striking summit. Mangles remarks that an artist who would study rock scenery in all its wildest and most extravagant forms, and in colours, which, to no one who has not seen them, would scarcely appear to be in nature, would find himself rewarded should he resort to Mount Her for that purpose. (W. Adamson.)
Mountain flight
1. When the South African chief, Sekukuni, who had ravaged the borders of the white mans land, was assailed by the English soldiers, he and his followers fled to a mountain, and hid themselves in the caves and recesses.
2. History relates how it was usual for the Vaudois, when attacked by the Papal troops, to remove their families and goods for security to the Alpine heights and caverns, where they could make a firm stand against their merciless foes.
3. The Archbishop of Tyre relates that when Baldwin IV, one of the Crusade kings of Jerusalem, ravaged the fruitful valley of Bacar, the inhabitants fled to the mountains, whither his troops could not easily follow them.
4. DArvieux says that in his time, when the Arabs attacked the rebel peasants of the Holy Land in the plain of Gonin, they fled towards the hills, and there, hiding themselves, were secure from attack or pursuit.
5. This explains the statement here that the defeated Sodomites, who escaped from the field of battle, betook themselves to a mountain. And it is supposed that among the fugitives thus secure from the Elamite attack was the king of Sodom.
6. It is worthy of notice that in the solemn woe on Mount Olives the Lord employs this figure in connection with the Roman armies: Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains (Luk_21:21). See also Rev_6:15. (W. Adamson.)
Lessons
1. Sinners advantages may prove contrary, to be disadvantages to them.
2. Pits may take those who intend them for others (Psa_9:1-20).
3. God makes sinners fly and die, and be dispersed by sinners.
4. Pits and mountains are chosen to perish in by flesh, rather than the sword of their enemies.
5. Ambitious wars make havoc and lay waste, by killing, plundering, and starving all that be in their way (Gen_14:11).
6. Wars in the world sometimes prove very prejudicial to the innocent Church of God.
7. Ambitious conquerors spare neither good nor bad. All they have is spoiled.
8. It is bad sitting down for the saints among the tents of the wicked. He that chooseth their pleasures, shall feel their pains. (G. Hughes, B. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Genesis 14
ABRAMS RESCUE OF LOT
Genesis 14
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THIS chapter evidently incorporates a contemporary account of the events recorded. So antique a document was it even when it found its place in this book, that the editor had to modernise some of its expressions that it might be intelligible. The places mentioned were no longer known by the names here preserved-Bela. the vale of Siddim. En-mishpat, the valley of Shaveh, all these names were unknown even to the persons who dwelt in the places once so designated. It can scarcely have been Abram who wrote down the narrative, for he himself is spoken of as Abram the Hebrew, the man born beyond the Euphrates, which is a way of speaking of himself no one would naturally adopt. From the clear outline given of the. route followed by the expedition of Chedorlaomer, it might be supposed that some old staff-secretary had reported on the campaign. However that may be, the discoveries of the last two or three years have shed light on the outlandish names that have stood for four thousand years in this document, and on the relations subsisting between Elam and Palestine.
On the bricks now preserved in our own British Museum the very names we read in this chapter can be traced, in the slightly altered form which is always given to a name when pronounced by different races. Chedorlaomer is the Hebrew transliteration of Kudur Lagamar; Lagamar was the name of one of the Chaldean deities, and the whole name means Lagamars son, evidently a name of dignity adopted by the king of Elam. Elam comprehended the broad and rich plains to the east of the lower course of the Tigris, together with the mountain range (8,000 to 10,000 feet high) that bounds them. Elam was always able to maintain its own against Assyria and Babylonia, and at this time it evidently exercised some kind of supremacy not only over these neighbouring powers, but as far west as the valley of the Jordan. The importance of keeping open the valley of the Jordan is obvious to every one who has interest enough in the subject to look at a map. That valley was the main route for trading caravans and for military expeditions between the Euphrates and Egypt. Whoever held that valley might prove a most formidable annoyance and indeed an absolute interruption to commercial or political relations between Egypt and Elam, or the Eastern powers. Sometimes it might serve the purpose of East and West to have a neutral power between them, as became afterwards clear in the history of Israel, but oftener it was the ambition of either Egypt or of the East to hold Canaan in subjection. A rebellion therefore of these chiefs occupying the vale of Siddim was sufficiently important to bring the king of Elam from his distant capital, attaching to his army as he came his tributaries Am-raphel king of Shinar or northern Chaldea, Arioch king of a district on the east of the Euphrates, and finally Tidal, or rather Tur-gal, i.e., the great chief, who ruled over the nations or tribes to the north of Babylonia.
Susa, the capital of Elam, lies almost on the same parallel as the vale of Siddim, but between them lie many hundred miles of impracticable desert. Chedorlaomer and his army followed therefore much the same route as Terah in his emigration, first going northwest up the Euphrates and then crossing it probably at Carchemish, or above it, and coming southward towards Canaan. But the country to the east of the Jordan and the Dead Sea was occupied by warlike and marauding tribes who would have liked nothing better than to swoop down on a rich booty-laden Eastern army. With the sagacity of an old soldier therefore, Chedorlaomer makes it his first business to sweep this rough ground, and so cripple the tribes in his passage southwards, that when he swept round the lower end of the Dead Sea and up the Jordan valley he should have nothing to fear at least on his right flank. The tribe that first felt his sword was that of the Rephaim, or giants. Their stronghold was Ashteroth Karnaim, or Ashteroth of the two horns, a town dedicated to the goddess Astarte, whose symbol was the crescent or two-horned moon. The Zuzims and the Emims, "a people great and many and tall," as we read in Deuteronomy, next fell before the invading host. The Horites, i.e., cave-dwellers or troglodytes, would scarcely hold Chedorlaomer long, though from their hilly fastnesses they might do him some damage. Passing through their mountains he came upon the great road between the Dead Sea and the Elanitic Gulf-but he crossed this road and still held westward till he reached the edge of what is roughly known as the Desert of Sinai. Here, says the narrative (Gen_14:7), they returned, that is, this was their furthest point south and west, and here they turned and made for the vale of Siddim, smiting the Amalekites and the Amorites on their route.
This is the only part of the armys route that is at all obscure. The last place they are spoken of as touching before reaching the vale of Siddim is Hazezon-Tamar, or as it was afterwards and is still called, Engedi. Now Engedi lies on the western shore of the Dead Sea about half-way up from south to north. It lies on a very steep, indeed artificially made, pass and is a place of much greater importance on that account than its size would make it. The road between Moab and Palestine runs by the western margin of the Dead Sea up to this point, but beyond this point the shore is impracticable, and the only road is through the Engedi pass on to the higher ground above. If the army chose this route then they were compelled to force this pass; if on the other hand they preferred during their whole march from Kadesh to keep away west of the Dead Sea on the higher ground, then they would only detail a company to pounce upon Engedi, as the main army passed behind and above. In either case the main body must have been if not actually within sight of, yet only a few miles from, the encampment of Abram.
At length, as they dropped down through the practicable passes into the vale of Siddim, their grand object became apparent, and the kings of the five allied towns, probably warned by the hill-tribes weeks before, drew out to meet them. But it is not easy to check an army in full career, and the wells of bitumen, which those who knew the ground might have turned to good purpose against the foreigners, actually hindered the home troops and became a trap to them. The rout was complete. No second stand or rally was attempted. The towns were sacked, the fields swept, and so swift were the movements of the invaders that although Abram was barely twenty miles off, and no doubt started for the rescue of Lot the hour he got the news, he did not overtake the army, laden as it was with spoil and retarded by prisoners and wounded, until they had reached the sources of Jordan.
But well-conceived and brilliantly executed as this campaign had been, the experienced warrior had failed to take account of the most formidable opponent he would have to reckon with. Those that escaped from the slaughter at Sodom took to the hills, and either knowing they would find shelter with Abram or more probably blindly running on, found themselves at nightfall within sight of the encampment at Hebron. There is no delay on Abrams part; he hastily calls out his men, each snatching his bow, his sword, and his spear, and slinging over his shoulders a few days provision. The neighbouring Amorite chiefs Aner, Mamre, and Eschol join them, probably with a troop each, and before many hours are lost they are down the passes and in hot pursuit. Not however till they had traversed a hundred and twenty miles or more do they overtake the Eastern army. But at Dan, at the very springs of the Jordan, they find them, and making a night attack throw them into utter confusion and pursue them as far as Hobah, a village near Damascus, that retains to this day the same name.
One is naturally curious to see how Abram will conduct himself in circumstances so unaccustomed. From leading a quiet pastoral life he suddenly becomes the most important man in the country, a man who can make himself felt from the Nile to the Tigris. From a herd he becomes a hero. But, notoriously, power tries a man, and, as one has often seen persons make very glaring mistakes in such altered circumstances and alter their characters and beliefs to suit and take advantage of the new material and opportunities presented to them, we are interested in seeing how a man whose one rule of action has hitherto been faith in a promise given him by God, will pass through such a trial. Can a spiritual quality like faith be of much service in rough campaigning and when the man of faith is mixed up with persons of doubtful character and unscrupulous conduct, and brought into contact with considerable political powers? Can we trace to Abrams faith any part of his action at this time? No sooner is the question put than we see that his faith in Gods promise was precisely that which gave him balance and dignity, courage and generosity in dealing with the three prominent persons in the narrative. He could afford to be forgiving and generous to his grand competitor Lot, precisely because he felt sure God would deal generously with himself. He could afford to acknowledge Melchizedek and any other authority that might appear, as his superior, and he would not take advantage, even when at the head of his men eager for more fighting, of the peaceful king who came out to propitiate him, because he knew that God would give him his land without wronging other people. And he scorned the wages of the king of Sodom, holding himself to be no mercenary captain, nor indebted to any one but God. In a word, you see faith producing all that is of importance in his conduct at this time.
Lot is the person who of all others might have been expected to be forward in his expressions of gratitude to Abram-not a word of his is recorded. Ashamed he cannot but have been, for if Abram said not a word of reproach, there would be plenty of Lots old friends among Abrams men who could not lose so good an opportunity of twitting him about the good choice he had made. And considering how humiliating it would have been for him to go back with Abram and abandon the district of his adoption, we can scarcely wonder that he should have gone quietly back to Sodom, well as he must by this time have known the nature of the risks he ran there. For, after all, this warning was not very loud. The same thing, or a similar thing, might have happened had he remained with Abram. The warning was unobtrusive, as the warnings in life mostly are; audible to the ear that has been accustomed to listen to the still small voice of conscience, inaudible to the ear that is trained to hear quite other voices. God does not set angels and flaming swords in every mans path. The little whisper that no one hears but ourselves only, and that says quite quietly that we are continuing in a wrong course, is as certain an indication that we are in danger, as if God were to proclaim our case from heaven with thunder or the voice of an archangel. And when a man has persistently refused to listen to conscience it ceases to speak, and he loses the power to discern between good and evil and is left wholly without a guide. He may be running straight to destruction and he does not know it. You cannot live under two principles of action, regard to worldly interest and regard to conscience. You can train yourself to great acuteness in perceiving and following out what is for your worldly advantage, or you can train yourself to great acuteness of conscience; but you must make your choice, for in proportion as you gain sensitiveness in the one direction you lose it in the other. If your eye is single your whole body is full of light; but if the light that is in thee be darkness, how great. is that darkness!
Melchizedek is generally recognised as the most mysterious and unaccountable of historical personages; appearing here in the Kings Vale no one knows whence, and disappearing no one knows whither, but coming with his hands full of substantial gifts for the wearied household of Abram, and the captive women that were with him. Of each of the patriarchs we can tell the paternity; the date of his birth, and the date of his death; but this man stands with none to claim him, he forms no part of any series of links by which the oldest and the present times are connected. Though possessed of the knowledge of the Most High God, his name is not found in any of those genealogies which show us how that knowledge passed from father to son. Of all the other great men whose history is recorded a careful genealogy is given; but here the writer breaks his rule, and breaks it where, had there not been substantial reason, he would most certainly have adhered to it. For here is the greatest man of the time, a man before whom Abram the father of the faithful, the honoured of all nations, bowed and paid tithes; and yet he appears and passes away likest to a vision of the night. Perhaps even in his own time there was none that could point to the chamber where first he was cradled, nor show the tent round which first he played in his boyhood, nor hoard up a single relic of the early years of the man that had risen to be the first man upon earth in those days. So that the Apostle streaks of him as a very type of all that is mysterious and abrupt in appearance and disappearance, "without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life," and as he significantly adds, "made like unto the Son of God." For as Melchizedek stands thus on the page of history, so our Lord in reality-as the one has no recorded pedigree, and holds an office beginning and ending in his own person. so our Lord, though born of a woman, stands separate from sinners and quite out of the ordinary line of generations, and exercises an office which he received hereditarily from none, and which he could commit to no successor. As the one stands apparently disconnected from all before and after him, so the Other in point of fact did thus suddenly emerge from eternity, a problem to all who saw Him; owning the authority of earthly parents, yet claiming an antiquity greater than Abrams; appearing suddenly to the captivity led captive, with His hands full of gifts, and His lips dropping words of blessing.
Melchizedek is the one personage on earth whom Abram recognises as his spiritual superior. Abram accepts his blessing and pays him tithes; apparently as priest of the Most High God; so that in paying to him, Abram is giving the tenth of his spoils to God. This is not any mere courtesy of private persons. It was done in presence of various parties of jealously watchful retainers. Men of rank and office and position consider how they should act to one another and who should take precedence. And Abram did deliberately, and with a perfect perception of what he was doing, whatever he now did. Manifestly therefore Gods revelation of Himself was not as yet confined to the one line running from Abram to Christ. Here was a man of whom we really do not know whether he was a Canaanite, a son of Ham or a son of Shem; yet Abram recognises him as having knowledge of the true God, and even bows to him as his spiritual superior in office, if not in experience. This shows us how little jealousy Abram had of others being favoured by God, how little he thought his connection with God would be less secure if other men enjoyed a similar connection, and how heartily he welcomed those who with different rites and different prospects yet worshipped the living God. It shows us also how apt we are to limit Gods ways of working; and how little we understand of the connections He has with those who are not situated as we ourselves are. Here while all our attention is concentrated on Abram as carrying the whole spiritual hope of the world, there emerges from an obscure Canaanite valley a man nearer to God than Abram is. From how many unthought-of places such men may at any time come out upon us, we really can never tell.
Again Melchizedek is evidently a title, not a name-the word means King of Righteousness, or Righteous King. It may have been a title adopted by a line of kings, or it may have been peculiar to this one man. But these old Canaanites, if Canaanites they were, had got hold of a great principle when they gave this title to the king of their city of Salem or Peace. They perceived that it was the righteousness, the justice, of their king that could best uphold their peaceful city. They saw that the right king for them was a man not grinding his neighbours by war and taxes, not overriding the rights of others and seeking always enlargement of his own dominion; nor a merely merciful man, inclined to treat sin lightly and leaning always to laxity; but the man they would choose to give them peace was the righteous man who might sometimes seem overscrupulous, sometimes over-stern, who would sometimes be called romantic and sometimes fanatical, but through all whose dealings it would be obvious that justice to all parties was the aim in view. Some of them might not be good enough to love a ruler who made no more of their special interest than he did of others, but all would possibly have wit enough to see that only by justice could they have peace. It is the reflex of Gods government in which righteousness is the foundation of peace, a righteousness unflinching and invariable, promulgating holy laws and exacting punishment from all who break them. It is this that gives us hope of eternal peace, that we know God has not left out of account facts that must yet be reckoned with, nor merely lulled the unquiet forebodings of conscience, but has let every righteous law and principle find full scope, has done righteously in offering us pardon so that nothing can ever turn up to deprive us of our peace. And it is quite in vain that any individual holds before his mind the prospect of peace, i.e., of permanent satisfaction, so long as he is not seeking it by righteousness. In so far as he is keeping his conscience from interfering, in so far is he making it impossible to himself to enter into the condition for the sake of which he is keeping conscience from regulating his conduct.
Lastly, Abrams refusal of the king of Sodoms offers is significant. Naturally enough, and probably in accordance with well-established usage, the king proposes that Abram should receive the rescued goods and the spoil of the invading army. But Abram knew men, and knew that although now Sodom was eager to show that he felt himself indebted to Abram, the time would come when he would point to this occasion as laying the foundation of Abrams fortune. When a man rises in the world every one will tell you of the share he had in raising him, and will convey the impression that but for assistance rendered by the speaker he would not have been what he now is. Abram knows that he is destined to rise, and knows also by Whose help he is to rise. He intends to receive all from God; and therefore not a thread from Sodom. He puts his refusal in the form adopted by the man whose mind is made up beyond revisal. He has "vowed" it. He had anticipated such offers and had considered their bearing on his relations to God and man; and taking advantage of the unembarrassed season in which the offer was as yet only a possibility he had resolved that when it was actually made he would refuse it, no matter what advantages it seemed to offer. So should we in our better seasons and when we know we are viewing things healthily, conscientiously, and righteously, determine what our conduct is to be, and if possible so commit ourselves to it that when the right frame is passed we cannot draw back from the right conduct. Abram had done so, and however tempting the spoils of the Eastern kings were, they did not move him. His vow had been made to the Possessor of heaven and earth, in Whose hand were riches beyond the gifts of Sodom.
Here again it is the man of faith that appears. He shows a noble jealousy of Gods prerogative to bless him. He will not give men occasion to say that any earthly monarch has enriched him. It shall be made plain that it is on God he is depending. In all men of faith there will be something of this spirit. They cannot fail so to frame their life as to let it come clearly out that for happiness, for success, for comfort, for joy, they are in the main depending on God. That this cannot be done in the complex life of modern society, no one will venture to say in presence of this incident. Could we more easily have shown our reliance upon God in the hurry of a sudden foray, in the turmoil and intense action of a midnight attack and hand-to-hand conflict, in the excitement and elation of a triumphal progress, the kings of the country vying with one another to do us honour and the rescued captives lauding our valour and generosity? No one fails to see what it was that balanced Abram in this intoxicating march. No one asks what enabled him, while leading his armed followers flushed with success through a land weakened by recent dismay and disaster, to restrain them and himself from claiming the whole land as his. No one asks what gave him moral perception to see that the opportunity given him of winning the land by the sword was a temptation, not a guiding providence. To every reader it is obvious that his dependence on God was his safeguard and his light. God would bring him by fair and honourable means to his own. There was no need of violence, no need of receiving help from doubtful allies. This is true nobility; and this, faith always produces. But it must be a faith like Abrams; not a quick and superficial growth, but a deeply-rooted principle. For against all temptations this only is our sure defence, that already our hearts are so filled with Gods promise that other offers find no craving in us, no empty, dissatisfied spot on which they can settle. To such faith God responds by the elevating and strengthening assurance, "I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 13 Gen_14:1. Arioch.] Probably signifies lion-like. The name re-appears in…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Gen_14:1. Arioch.] Probably signifies lion-like. The name re-appears in the time of Daniel, as applied to the captain of the king’s guard (Dan_2:14).—Chedorlaomer.] “Upon the bricks recently found in Chaldea there occurs the name of a king—Kudurmapula—which Rawlinson thinks may be the same, and especially as he is further distinguished by the title of ‘Ravager of the West.’ The latter part of the name—laomer—presents the difficulty; but this may be the Semitic translation of the original Hamite term Mapula” (Jacobus).—Tidal king of nations.] Probably chief of a number of nomadic tribes to whom no special territory could be assigned, since they changed their place according to the seasons of the year. Some regard the word nations as of special significance, as bringing to mind the expression “Galilee of the nations” (Mat_4:15; Isa_9:1).—
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Gen_14:2. That these made war.] After the confusion of tongues, Shinar was the central region from which the different branches of the human family spread; and it would naturally claim supremacy over the other colonies. It was the great commercial centre, being on the highway to the riches of the Nile.—
Gen_14:3. Vale of Siddim, which is the Salt Sea.] The vale was afterwards submerged by the Salt Sea when the Lord destroyed the Cities of the Plain. The words were probably added to the ancient document by way of explanation.—
Gen_14:5. Rephaims.] (Sept. the giants). “These were in Ashteroth Kamaim—the principal town, dedicated to the horned Ashteroth, as the term imports. This is a trace of the idolatry prevalent east of the Jordan. The original Astarte (goddess) was figured with the head of a cow, having a globe between the horns” (Jacobus). Their country is identified with that of Bashan, whose last king was Og, so famous for his stature.—
Gen_14:9. The names are repeated, and attention is drawn to the fact that there were four kings in battle with five.—
Gen_14:10. Full of slime-pits.] The word “pits” is doubled in the Heb. to convey the idea of a great number. The vale was full of places from which bitumen oozed out of the ground, and would therefore be inconvenient and dangerous for the purposes of warfare. Many of the fugitives, in the hurry of their flight, would fall into these pits and perish.—Fled to the mountain.] Probably the mountain heights on the east of the dale.—
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Gen_14:1-12
THE FIRST WAR ON RECORD
From the character of some of the nations into which the earth was divided after the flood, we may reasonably suppose that there were wars before the time to which we are introduced by this chapter. But this is the first war of which we have any record, and it will be found in its chief features to be much like all other wars. The worst passions of mankind break out in the same disastrous manner from age to age. This first war of history may be compared with all the rest which have followed, at least in its chief characteristics.
I. As to its motives. Human conduct is determined by motives, and to such an extent that some have been led to question whether man’s will is really free. It is said that his life is moulded by the moral circumstances in which he is placed. And it must be admitted that such is the power of evil in the world that most men yield themselves helplessly to its influence. They seem to lack that self-determining power which would set them free to do good and secure the fruits of righteousness. In the constant recurrence of some of the chief evils which afflict society we see the operation of a kind of fate or necessity. Such is the moral condition of human nature, and the strength of temptation, and the conflict of interests, that wars and fightings must needs be. This war against the invaders of the land was prompted by the same motives which have since that early age given rise to many wars.
1. Ambition. There is reason to believe that it was that sin which broke the peace of heaven. St. Paul warns his son Timothy against placing a novice in the office of a bishop, “lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil” (1Ti_3:6). The sin of Lucifer was the sin of ambition: “Thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.… I will be like the Most High” (Isa_14:13-14). This sin has been one of the most fruitful sources of wars amongst mankind. Destruction and misery are in its ways. Here we have Chedarlaomer, who was probably one of the early kings of the Persian dynasty, allying himself with the most powerful monarchs of his time. He had already obtained an ascendancy over the most powerful peoples of the east, and his ambition still urges him to extensive conquest. He inspires the same purpose in the breasts of other rulers, making them but his instruments to promote himself to universal dominion. This lust of conquest has produced the most terrible wars that have ever afflicted mankind. The history of the world has but repeated the battle of the “four kings with five” (Gen_14:9). Another motive is—
2. Plunder. This is a baser motive than the former, for it appeals to the worst elements of human nature. Ambition is a choice temptation, and the man who possesses it, if his feeling takes a right direction, is capable of great and noble deeds. But the impulse of plunder is a meaner thing. This has been almost the sole object of many wars, chiefly those between the lowest nations. The “Cities of the Plain” rose in the midst of beautiful scenery, in lands well-watered and of remarkable fertility. The inhabitants grew rich under the favours of nature. Such prosperity would be a temptation to the rapacity of the surrounding nations. There were spoils to be had. War, as it often breaks the sixth, so it often breaks the eighth commandment on a large scale. Men who are severe on individual acts of sin are indulgent to the sins of nations. The morality of war has too often been defended upon the principle, be monstrous, and you are acceptable. Like the Cities of the Plain, the lavish gifts of nature upon many nations have only invited the plunderers. And so it must be until the covetousness of human nature is overcome by the universal diffusion of the religion of the Prince of Peace. Another motive often leading to war is—
3. The desire to recover lost sovereignty. Chedarlaomer held undisputed sway, for the space of twelve years, over the petty princes who ruled the nations occupying the fruitful plain of Jordan. In the thirteenth year they rebelled; and as in that rude age it was difficult for a conqueror to keep in subjection the remote provinces of his empire, they succeeded in gaining their independence. (Gen_14:4). But it was necessary to avenge the revolt, and therefore this warlike expedition into Canaan was organised. The restless ambition of kings cannot long bear the loss of a sovereignty which they had won by the power of arms. Brute force can never bring about a brotherhood of men. What the sword has won, the sword must keep. War can never bring about a state of permanent peace. Revenge for wrongs inflicted fills the breasts of the vanquished, and only waits the opportunity to break out in rebellion. Hence conquerors have to subdue the same people again and again. One war renders another necessary, and thus this terrible scourge of mankind is perpetuated. Again, this first war recorded in history may be compared with the rest—
II. As to the conditions of its success. In all wars men have made use of similar arts and strategy. They have aimed to take advantage of every circumstance which seemed favourable. From the failure of human foresight, and the endless complications of events, it may happen that the battle is not always to the strong; still there are general conditions of success. Some of these may be seen in the instance before us. Means were used which had a tendency to secure the desired end.
1. By depriving the enemy of all friendly help. When Chedorlaomer started on his expedition into Canaan he swept along the verge of the wilderness, in order to cut off the supplies of the five kings, and to bring into subjection the surrounding people to whom the rebels might have looked for help (Gen_14:5-7). Thus the Cities of the Plain, deprived of the aid of surrounding tribes, would fall an easy prey. Conquerors have often used this stratagem. War tramples ruthlessly upon all the rights of man, and regards every device as lawful that will secure success.
2. By favourable physical conditions. The country was “full of slime pits,” dug for the supply of mortar for building (Gen_14:10). These were filled with a pitchy substance, forming a trap for the retreating foe. The kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fell there with many of their people, and only a few escaped to the mountains. Thus the conqueror was favoured by the external features of the land. War presses every circumstance into its service. Nature is quite indifferent as to the side on which the cause of justice lies.
3. By moral causes. The inhabitants of the Cities of the Plain were corrupted by those vices which often accompany prosperity. They grew luxurious and effeminate—the victims of self-indulgence. Such men would be lacking in the higher qualities of manly courage and patriotism, and would fall an easy prey to the enemy. Luxury robbed them of all spirit and energy. The fall of ancient Rome was not due alone to the strength of her enemies, but to that luxury which enervated her citizens. Moral causes often contribute to the victories of war, and the conqueror becomes the rod of God punishing nations for a long course of sin. This war may also be compared with others—
III. As to its results. Like many other wars, the consequences of this were most disastrous to the interests of mankind. The usual train of evils followed, but there are two which are specially to be observed in this instance.
1. That men often suffer who take no part in the quarrel. It does not appear that Lot mixed himself up with the political and military affairs of Sodom. He probably avoided coming into too close relations with that depraved community. The narrative seems to imply that he was not personally implicated in the quarrel. But he had to take his share in the sad issues of the battle. The enemy made no distinctions. No favour was shown to the man of God. He who was righteous in his generation had to share the evil fortunes of the rest. In all wars many must suffer who have contributed nothing towards them, and who have even studied the things that make for peace. A man must accept the conditions of society, however he may lament or strive to improve them. In this, as in many other human evils, “one event happeneth unto all.”
2. That the vanquished do not always benefit by the discipline of adversity. The men of Sodom and Gomorrah did not learn wisdom by this calamity, but continued in their wickedness until by a severer judgment they were doomed to destruction. Many nations have failed to learn the lessons of God’s judgments in the scourge of war.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Gen_14:1. As the countries about the Euphrates and Tigris were that part of the world where the sons of Noah began to settle after leaving the ark, it was there that population and power would first naturally accumulate, and lead to the establishment of despotic governments. The families and tribes emigrating from these regions would be considered in the light of colonies which ought to be subject to the parent state. Such, it appears probable, were the ideas of the four eastern kings here mentioned, and we may suppose that it was with a view of enforcing this subjection, which, after having been twelve years acknowledged, was at length thrown off, that the present invasion was planned. In what relation the four kings had previously stood to each other is uncertain; but they now combined as allies, and marched with their forces, which we have no reason to think were very large, to the land of Canaan.—(Bush.)
The ambition of kings has often disturbed the peace of the Church.
How often has the history of kings been a sad record of thrones won and maintained by violence, oppression, and cruel deeds of blood!
Gen_14:2. One of the terrible results of the Fall is that men waste most of their talent and energy in neutralizing each other. Such a wretched waste of power is a folly which only the complete setting up of the kingdom of God can banish from the world.
This is the first war expressly recorded in the annals of the human race, and it is evident that it sprung from the same cause that has given rise to the thousands of wars which from that day to this have wasted the family of man, and drenched the earth in blood—vain-glorious pride and grasping ambition. Nor can we hope for a cessation of the barbarous practice till the general prevalence of Christianity, in the power of its peaceful spirit, shall have extinguished the flames of these unhallowed passions, and taught them to regard each other as brethren who cannot, if they conceived aright of their mutual interests, have any conflicting object that should drive them to deeds of violence.—(Bush.)
The people of the Cities of the Plain were visited by the rod of God in this terrible scourge of war. Had they humbled themselves in repentance towards God, they might have escaped the second and severer judgment.
The first invasion of calamity is a signal for us to examine ourselves and to turn to God while we have time, lest a worse evil come upon us.
Gen_14:3. Self-defence—the only justifiable ground for engaging in war. How few wars can be justified on this plea!
A common calamity has power to unite men. If they were wise they would learn the secret of a deeper and more permanent union.
No principle of selfishness can ever bring about a real and abiding brotherhood amongst mankind. A nation of brothers in the participation of one spiritual life is the only strong nation.
Gen_14:4. The assertion of authority and rule by means of force can never hold men long together. Thus one war necessitates another.
Unjust and oppressive governments provoke rebellion. Human endurance has its breaking strain when it can hold out no longer, but becomes desperate.
It is not said in the narrative that they were wrong; and it is by no means clear that they were. Rebellion may be right. It is so if the government be unjust and oppressive, and there is good reason to believe that success will attend their efforts to shake off the yoke of bondage.—(Dr. Gorman, in Lange’s Genesis.)
Gen_14:5-6. The Rephaim lay in Peraea. Some of them also were once found on the west side of the Jordan (Gen_15:20), where they gave name to the valley of Rephaim. They were a tall or gigantic race. The Zuzim dwelt between the Jabbok and the Arnon. The Emim were also accounted Rephaim. They lay on the east of the Salt Sea, and were afterwards conquered by the Moabites, who gave them this name (Deu_2:10-11). Of Shaveh Kiriathaim, the plain of the two cities, the name probably remains in El-Kurciyât, a site near Jebel Attarus in Moab. (Murphy).
Gen_14:7. They turned about after smiting the people above mentioned, and, taking a northerly direction, entered the valley of the Jordan, and attacked the inhabitants of the plain. En-mishpat, i.e., fountain of judgment, is so called by anticipation. This name was conferred in consequence of the circumstance recorded Num_20:10, where God gave judgment or sentence against Moses and Aaron for their offence thus committed. All the country of the Amalekites—Heb. “All the field of the Amalekite.” This also by anticipation, as Amalek was not yet born (Gen_36:10-11). Underderstand it of the country afterwards occupied by the Amalekites. The sacred writer speaks of places by the names most familiar in his own times.—(Bush).
The invaders pressed on to Hazezon-tamer, cutting of the palms—which is Engedi (2Ch_20:2), on or near the western shore of the Dead Sea, a settlement of the Amorites, who were the most powerful tribe of Canaan. This was always an important point, because behind it was the celebrated pass to Jerusalem, called Ziz (2Ch_20:16).—(Jacobus).
War spreads destruction all along its course. Ambition disregards the laws of natural justice.
Gen_14:8. We have now arrived at the point we had reached in Gen_14:3. The five kings came out, and joined battle with the four in the vale of Siddim.—(Murphy.)
Many places of little importance in themselves are regarded with surpassing interest, because they have been the scenes of great battles.
How true it is that man marks the earth with ruin! The earth bears traces of the destructive power of evil.
In the place of battle God is often forgotten; justice is outraged, the worst passions of mankind are let loose, and men assume the character of fiends.
By this time Abram’s neighbours, the kings of Sodom, Admah, Zeboim, and Bela, must have been not a little alarmed. They and their people, however, determine to fight, and fight they did.—(Fuller.)
Gen_14:9-10.—The fate of war is not always decided by the justice of the cause. Where brute force rules, the triumph of the right can be only an accident.
The natural features of a country are often made to serve the interests of men bent upon designs of wholesale slaughter. Thus, Nature’s gifts are bestowed upon all, without respect to moral character.
They that remained fled to the mountains eastward, which run through the territory of the Moabites. Thus the five kings were utterly routed. The disaster which befel the two most powerful of them—falling into the pits—produced a panic, as would seem, among the remainder, resulting in their flight. The invaders advanced now from the westward flank, and thus cut off their escape from the mountains of Judah.—(Jacobus.)
It is still a common practice in the East for the inhabitants of towns and villages to hasten for safety to the mountains in times of alarm and danger, or, at least, to send their valuable property away. The moveables of the Asiatics, in camps, villages, and towns, are astonishingly few compared with those which the refinements of European life render necessary. A few carpets, kettles, and dishes of tinned copper, compose the bulk of their property, which can speedily be packed up, and sent away on the backs of camels or mules, with the women and children mounted on the baggage. In this way a large village or town is in a few hours completely gutted, and the inhabitants, with every stick and rag belonging to them, can place themselves in safety in the mountains.—(Pict. Bib.)
Gen_14:11. “Fulness of bread” was part of their sin (Eze_16:49); and now “cleanness of teeth” is made a part of their punishment.—(Trapp).
Those things by which men have sinned are often the marks at which God’s judgments are aimed.
Temporal prosperity excites the covetousness of mankind, and has thus been the occasion of many sins.
Every kind of iniquity follows in the train of war. All the rights of man are violated.
Gen_14:12. Here we have a graver evil than the taking of spoils—the robbery of the persons of men. This is the sin which has led to all the horrors of slavery.
Lot, the man of God, would have his portion with the wicked in their prosperity, and now he must share in their calamities.
The worldly choice which Lot made was calculated to teach him solemn lessons.
1. The corrupting influence of evil associations.
2. That even a righteous man who chooses to live among a depraved community is liable to suffer from the evils which fall upon them, and even though his own conduct has not contributed to those evils.
3. That men are often brought under obligation to those whose interests they have selfishly disregarded. Lot had not behaved rightly to the generous spirit of Abraham, and now he becomes a candidate for his pity and help. The fortunes of life are too uncertain to render it safe for a man to treat his friend ungenerously.
The conquerors take all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all the victuals; and what few people are left they take for slaves. Among these was Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, his friend, and the companion of his travels, with all their family, and all his goods. And this notwithstanding he was only a sojourner but lately come amongst them, and seems to have taken no part in the war. O Lot, these are the fruits of taking up thy residence in Sodom; or rather the first-fruits of it: the harvest is yet to come!—(Fuller).
Even they who are altogether worldly themselves, however blind and indulgent they may be to their own worldly sins, are quick enough to discover, and keen enough to condemn, the sins of the worldly who are opposed to them; and however inoffensive you may really be, if they find you dwelling in Sodom they will not deal with you as in great mercy the Lord at a subsequent crisis dealt with Lot. They will rather do as the four kings did; they will take you where they find you, and deal with you accordingly. They will indiscriminately confound you with those among whom they see you taking refuge, and will not spare you from the obloquy and injury which they pour upon your companions. How careful, therefore, should Christ’s people be in shunning all alliance or connection with any section or party of the ungodly world! Whatever may be the explanation, and whatever the object of such an alliance, the truth cannot fail to suffer from its contact with any one of the world’s false and wicked ways; and it will be strange indeed, should there be anyone interested in running down the confederacy, if the truth thus entangled in worldly fellowship does not come in for nearly all the blame and loss which the world itself ought to sustain.—(Candlish).
That wealth which was the cause of his former quarrels is made a prey to merciless heathens; that place which his eye covetously chose, betrays his life and goods. How many Christians whilst they have looked at gain have lost themselves!—(Bp. Hall)
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY THE
REV. WM. ADAMSON
Battle and Blessing! Gen_14:1-24.
(1) Numerous as are the mountains of Switzerland, one stands out singular and unique. It belongs to Switzerland, and bears signs of resemblance to the other hills and valleys of the country; yet it has its own peculiar individuality. Who does not recognise the special prominence of Mont Blanc?
(2) The rocky mountains of the far West are a magnificent range, evidencing their continuous and successive resemblance one with the other. Yet there is a spur, so singular and unique in its formation and contour, that for a moment the traveller almost fancies it is out of place.
(3) This chapter has the air and aspect of an episode in history. It stands out singular and unique. As Candlish says, “The warlike character which Abram assumes is a solitary exception to the usual tenor of his life; while his subsequent interview with the royal priest is altogether peculiar.
(4) A plant grows in Eastern jungles which sheds a clear light when all beside is dark. To midnight travellers amid Himalayan hills it seems as if it were a lamp to guide them on their wanderings. And the appearance of Melchizedek is just such a plant-lamp, pointing to Him who is a Priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek.
“On the truth thus dimly shadowed
Later days a lustre shed,
When the Great High Priest eternal
Offers us both wine and bread.”
Four Kings! Gen_14:1-16. Lincoln says that we have here a scene representing millenial glory. It is to be received prophetically and practically.
(1) Prophetically, we have here the four kingdoms of Daniel, Tidal standing for the fourth of these, viz., Rome. For the Roman empire will yet again be headed up under ten kings, who, Lincoln conceives, are to sweep away corrupt, unclean Christianity after the removal of the Church to heaven. And thus Abram is the Jews, who, after the overthrow of Rome in the plain of Armageddon, are to be blessed by the appearance of their Messiah.
(2) Practically, we have here three battles, the second of which represents the man of faith, relying solely on faith, as he goes forth to attack the confederated hosts, and to deliver Lot. The second is, however, preliminary to the third; and in Abram’s case the most important of all. It was the struggle with Sodom against receiving any gift. It was the struggle of the moral against the material—of the spiritual against the sinful. No doubt the timely interposition of Melchizedek with refreshment and benediction nerved the patriarch’s soul for victory.
“Here is My grace—the mighty power victorious,
Which rights so strong for thy poor feeble strength;
Which nerves thy faith, the faith all-glorious,
Which fights and wins, and enters heaven at length.”
Chedorlaomer, etc.! Gen_14:1, etc.
(1) Four hundred years ago, Spain held the reins of power, and swayed her sceptre over Europe, Africa, and the Americas. By and by that supremacy passed over to England, who now occupies many of the Spanish conquests. Centuries before, the Persians were a great power in the East, and acquired ascendancy over surrounding powers; but in course of time this position was occupied by the Greeks, who, under Alexander the Great, became successful invaders of distant countries. Centuries before, the Chaldeans under Nebuchadnezzar attained immense superiority over surrounding principalities, which in turn was wrested from them by the fierce wide sweep of Cyrus the Great.
(2). In the same way it seems that the supremacy of the Babylonians under Nimrod passed into the hands of the Elamites, who, as Rawlinson says, exercised a suzerainty over the lower Mesopotamian country. These Elamites felt themselves strong enough to make warlike expeditions into the distant land of Palestine. Chedorlaomer, with his vassal princes, had thus twelve years previously forced the kings in the Vale of Siddim to become his tributaries. Apparently, these subject monarchs sought to gain their independence, and thus brought upon themselves a second visit from the Elamite Chedorlaomer.
“Lord God of Peace, awake!
Thou Prince of Peace give ear!
The strength of battle break,
Both shield and sword and spear,
Bid wars and battles now to cease,
And o’er the tumult whisper ‘Peace.’ ”
Rephaims, etc.! Gen_14:5. Porter says that the modern Kenath was no doubt the Abrahamic “Karnaim.” He thinks that the Rephaims were the aboriginal inhabitants of Bashan, and probably of the greater part of Canaan. Corbeaux, however, identifies them with the shepherd race which once held dominions in Egypt. On visiting Kenath, Professor Porter found the ruins beautiful and interesting. In no other city had he seen so many statues. Unfortunately, these were all mutilated; but some of them were recognisable. Before a little temple lay a colossal head of Ashtaroth, which, now sadly broken, had evidently been a chief idol. It had the two horns (Carnaim) on its head, and was thus a visible illustration of an incidental allusion in Gen_14:5. May Kenath not be the capital of the Rephaims?
“Dark fell the night of Carnaim’s woe,
Deep was the sleep of men,
While downward swept proud Elam’s foe,
On Rephaim’s watchmen then.”
Emim, etc.! Gen_14:5.
(1). Job’s friend said, “Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee.” And this is commendable in more senses than one. Geologists explore the strata of the earth, and discover, thereby, its successive epoch-convulsions and upheavals. Antiquarians and travellers also explore the ruins of cities, and thus ascertain the changes which cities have undergone. They can read the past history of a nation in the ruin-strata of its cities, just as the geologist can read the past geological periods of our earth as shown in the strata of the earth’s crust.
(2) Porter remarks the truth of this in regard to ancient Bozrah, built and inhabited by the gigantic Emim long before Abram migrated to Canaan. He describes a visit to the ruins, some of which record the changes in its history. In one spot, deep down beneath the accumulated remains of Greek and Roman sculpture, were simple, massive, primitive buildings—homes of the ancient aborigines. Having one of the finest climates in the world, yet the old home of the giant Emim is utterly deserted; without man, without inhabitant, and without beast (Isa_33:10).
“’Tis all desolate now—a ruin wild
O’erspreads both hill and plain,
And the frolicsome mirth of Bozrah’s child
Is heard no more again;
And the ruin of homesteads is ruinous more
Than the wrecks that are strewed on the earth’s sea shore.”
Kiriathaim! Gen_14:5. We have here some of the most ancient houses of which the world can boast. As Porter remarks, they are just such dwellings as a race of giants would build. The walls and roofs, but especially the ponderous gates, doors, and bars, are in every way characteristic of a period when architecture was in its infancy, when giants were masons, and when strength and security were the grand requisites. The heavy stone slabs of the roofs resting on the massive walls make the structure as firm as if built of solid masonry, and the black basalt used is almost as hard as iron. There can scarcely be a doubt that these are the cities erected and inhabited by the Rephaim—that on these masses of masonry, which Ritter remarks now stand as constant witnesses of the conquest of Bashan by Jehovah, Abram gazed—and that amid these secure strongholds Chedorlaomer and his Elamite warriors roamed ere they attacked the kings in the Vale of Siddim. Yet how dreary now!
“Cold, chill, mysterious, full of awe and dread,
Is this strange home of living and of dead.”
Kirioth-Kiriathaim! Gen_14:5.
(1) Travellers tell us that the Druses of Kerioth are all armed, and always carry their arms. With their goats on the hill-side, with their yokes of oxen in the field, with their asses or camels on the road, at all hours, in all places, their rifles are slung, their swords by their side, and their pistols in their belts. Their daring chief, too, goes forth on his expeditions equipped in a helmet of steel, and a coat of linked mail.
(2) The ruins are of great extent. No large public building now exists entire; but there are traces of many. Graham remarks that in the streets and lanes are numerous fragments of columns and other vestiges of ancient grandeur. Its position amongst widespread rockfields made it a formidable task, no doubt, to the Elamite invader to subdue; while the giant race which tenanted its massive homes would increase the difficulty
“Of a charge by his legions in battle array,
Now defying the foeman, now blent in the fray.”
Horites! Gen_14:6.
(1) These received their name from dwelling in caves. Strabo says that the life of these cave-dwellers was nomadic. They are governed by tyrants, wear skins, and carry spears and shields which are covered with raw hides. They anoint their bodies with a mixture of blood and milk, drink an infusion of buckthorn, and travel and tend their flocks by night.
(2) It is interesting to know that the excavated dwellings of the Horites are still found in hundreds in the sandstone cliffs and mountains of Edom, and especially in Petra. Some of them, Wilson says, have windows as well as doors. In front of others are receptacles for water. They are all approachable by a common way. The region is now a habitation of dragons—literally, as Irby says, swarming with lizards and scorpions, etc.
(3) Mount Hor, upon which Aaron died, is a striking summit. Mangles remarks that an artist who would study rock scenery in all its wildest and most extravagant forms, and in colours, which, to no one who has not seen them, would scarcely appear to be in nature, would find himself rewarded should he resort to Mount Hor for that purpose.
“Gay lizards glittering on the walls
Of ruin’d shrines, busy and bright,
As they were all alive with light;
And yet more splendid, numerous flocks
Of pigeons settling on the rocks,
With their rich, restless wings.”—Moore.
Hazezon-Tamar! Gen_14:7.
(1) Rounding the southern end of the Dead Sea and conquering the Amalekites, Chedorlaomer came up on the west side of the Dead Sea to a place known as “The Pruning of the Palm.” Here, midway up the shore of the Dead Sea, is a little plain, shut in by the rugged, rocky hills of Engedi. A sweet fountain bursts from the rock high up on the western side, four hundred feet up, and comes down shaking its spray over the green bushes and plants which grow by its side—acacias, mimozas, and lotus. Thus far the Elamite conqueror came on his military expedition of 2,000 miles.
(2) It was a roundabout route, either because (a) he wanted a convenient pass by which to conduct his army; or, because (b) he wished to leave no enemy in his rear. Here it was that the Kings of the Vale of Siddon marched out to be defeated.
“See how the hosts uprise;
Confused noise, and then
The march of Death, the cries
Of wounded dying men!
Behold the red and gory flood;
And, lo, the garments rolled in blood.”—Maguire.
Slime-Pits! Gen_14:10.
(1) In the far north of Palestine are famous bitumen wells. This mineral exudes slowly in a semi-liquid state as petroleum, which hardens into bitumen. The Arabs on the shore of the Dead Sea say that the bitumen there is formed in the same way. They say that it forms on the rocks in the depths of the sea, and by earthquakes, or other submarine concussions, is broken up in large masses, and rises to the surface.
(2) Thomson points out that no doubt the Sodomites were in the habit of digging bitumen wells. It was doubtless an article of merchandise, as petroleum is from the American oil-springs now. Apparently, the Egyptians employed it largely in embalming their dead. When cold it is as brittle as glass, but it melts readily. It must be mixed with tar while melting, and in that way forms a hard, glassy wax, impervious to water.
(3) As the Dead Sea now is it could not well have been in Lot’s time. No doubt the region was exceedingly beautiful, and the fresh, sparkling waters of the lake alive with boats and fish. All this was changed at the overthrow of the Cities of the Plain, when, in addition to the “heavenly fires,” there issued from these “bitumen-wells”—
“Streams of burning, fiery spirit,
Liquid lava hot as coal,
Pouring forth on every homestead,
Like as rivers onward roll.”
Mountain Flight! Gen_14:10.
(1) When the South African chief, Sekukuni, who had ravaged the borders of the white man’s land, was assailed by the English soldiers, he and his followers fled to a mountain, and hid themselves in the caves and recesses.
(2) History relates how it was usual for the Vaudois, when attacked by the Papal troops, to remove their families and goods for security to the Alpine heights and caverns, where they could make a firm stand against their merciless foes.
(3) The Archbishop of Tyre relates that when Baldwin IV., one of the Crusade kings of Jerusalem, ravaged the fruitful valley of Bacar, the inhabitants fled to the mountains, whither his troops could not easily follow them.
(4) D’Arvieux says that in his time, when the Arabs attacked the rebel peasants of the Holy Land in the plain of Gonin, they fled towards the hills, and there, hiding themselves, were secure from attack or pursuit.
(5) This explains the statement here that the defeated Sodomites, who escaped from the field of battle, betook themselves to a mountain. And it is supposed that among the fugitives thus secure from the Elamite attack was the king of Sodom.
(6) It is worthy of notice that in the solemn woe on Mount Olives the Lord employs this figure in connection with the Roman armies: “Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains” (Luk_21:21). See also Rev_6:15.
“Ah! what terror is impending
When the Judge is seen descending,
And each secret veil is rending.”—Celano.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Gen 14:18-20
Gen 14:18-20
Never, perhaps, was any warlike expedition conceived in such simplicity of intention, or carried out with such entire unselfishness, as when Abraham led his trained servants to recover Lot and his goods from the hands of the confederate kings. It was as he was returning from this enterprise of high affection that he received the mysterious visit from Melchizedek.
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I. Their interview began, as all our intercourse with God must begin, by an act first on the part of him who stood in the higher relationship. Melchizedek brought forth bread and wine and blessed Abraham. Then Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek. This was communion. Communion is something more than prayer. God speaks to us, and of that speaking prayer is our return.
II. Very bountiful was the board which Melchizedek set for his friend—bread and wine—Nature in her most nourishing and her most exhilarating form. And we, too, have, at the hands of the Second Melchizedek, bread and wine. But to us they are but figures: the reality is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
III. As Melchizedek gave the bread and wine, he blessed. The very essence of the priestly character was to bless. And, true to the shadows that went before, when Christ came He blessed the world.
IV. Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek. Under the Levitical code every man was required to pay three tithes of his property—one for the Levites, one for the use of the temple and the great feasts, and one for the relief of the poor. The tithe was a recognition that all belonged to God. We, like Abraham, give our offerings to the great High Priest, who claims them of us by His one sacrifice of Himself, which is all our peace and all our hope.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 2nd series, p. 22.
I. Consider the historical facts of this narrative. (1) Melchizedek makes his appearance at the close of the first war recorded in the annals of the human race. Abraham was on his journey home from the rescue of Lot, and had reached a place called the King’s Dale, when his meeting with the priest took place. (2) Who was Melchizedek? There is an old tradition of the Jews to the effect that he was Shem, the son of Noah, Shem being his personal name, Melchizedek his official designation. This, however, is improbable, since (a) it is unlikely that Moses, who has hitherto spoken of Shem by his proper name, should here veil his identity under a different one; (b) it seems unlikely that Abraham and Shem could have been co-residents in the same land without intercourse; (c) it is unlikely that a man whose pedigree was distinctly known should have been selected as a typical instance of a man whose pedigree was altogether unknown. We are therefore limited to the conclusion that he was a Canaanitish prince, who retained the uncorrupted faith of his forefathers. (3) What was the secret of his peculiar greatness? His names suggest an explanation. He must have been eminently righteous to have earned such titles as "King of Righteousness" and "King of Peace." He stood alone in his office, as priest of the most High God. He was known by undeniable tokens as the man whom God had consecrated to be His priest.
II. Consider the spiritual significance of this narrative of Melchizedek. (1) He was a symbol of the mystery connected with the Saviour’s person. (2) He shadowed forth important truths in relation to Christ as our Priest. His priesthood was distinguished for its antiquity, its catholicity, its independence. (3) Melchizedek was the prefiguration of Christ as the King of His people. (4) The story seems to be a typical picture of Christ exercising His ministry of benediction.
C. Stanford, Symbols of Christ, p. 3.
References: Gen 14.—R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. i., p. 209; Parker, vol. i., p. 204; Expositor, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 285. Gen 14:18-20.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. x., No. 589.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v13
Genesis
ABRAM THE HEBREW
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Gen 14:13.
This is a singular designation of Abram as ‘The Hebrew.’ Probably we have in its use here a trace of the customary epithet which he bore among the inhabitants of Canaan, and perhaps the presence of the name in this narrative may indicate the influence of some older account, traditional or written, which owed its authorship to some of them. At all events, this is the first appearance of the name in Scripture. As we all know, it has become that of the nation, but a Jew did not call himself a ‘Hebrew’ except in intercourse with foreigners. As in many other cases, the national name used by other nations was not that by which the people called themselves. Here, obviously, it is not a national name, for the very good reason that there was no nation then. It is a personal epithet, or, in plain English, a nickname, and it means, probably, as the ancient Greek translation of Genesis gives it, neither more nor less than ‘The man from the other side,’ the man that had come across the water. Just as a mediaeval prince bore the sobriquet Outremere-the ‘man from beyond the sea’-so Abram, to the aboriginal, or, at least, long-settled, inhabitants of the country, was known simply as the foreigner, the ‘man from the other side’ {of the Jordan, or more probably of the great river Euphrates}, the man from across the water.
Now that name may suggest, with a permissible, and, I hope, not misleading play of fancy, just two things, which I seek now to press upon our hearts and consciences. The one is as to how men become Christians, and the other is as to how they look to other people when they are.
1. Men become Christians by a great emigration.
‘Get thee out from thy father’s house, and from thy country, and from thy kindred,’ was the command to Abram. And he became the heir to God’s promises and the father of the faithful, because he did not hesitate a moment to make the plunge and to leave behind him all his past, his associations, his loves, much of his possessions, and, in a very profound sense, his old self, and put a great impassable gulf between him and them all.
Now I am not going to say anything so narrow or foolish as that the Christian life must always begin with a conscious and sudden change; but this I am quite sure of, that in the vast majority of cases of thoroughly and out-and-out religious men, there must be a conscious change, whether it has been diffused through months or years, or concentrated in one burning moment. There has been a beginning; whether it has been like the dawn, or whether it has been like the kindling of a candle, the beginning of the flashing of the divine light into the heart; and the men that are most really under the influence of religious truth can, as a rule, looking back upon their past experience, see that it divides itself into two halves, separated from each other by a profound gulf-the time on the other side, and that on this side, of the great river. We must take heed lest by insisting on any one way of entrance into the kingdom we seem to narrow God’s mercy, or sadden true hearts, or make the method of approach a test of the fact of entrance. God’s city has more than twelve gates; they open to all the thirty-two points of the compass, yet there is, in the religious experience of the truest saints, always something analogous to this change. And what I desire to press upon you is, that unless you are only religious people after the popular superficial fashion of the day, there will be something like it in your lives.
There will be a change in a man’s deepest self, so that he will be a ‘new creature,’ with new tastes, new motives stirring to action, new desires pressing for satisfaction, new loves sweetly filling his heart, new insight into the meanings and true good of life and time guiding his conduct, new aversions withdrawing him from old delights which have become hateful now, new hopes pluming their growing wings, and new powers bearing him along a new road. There will be a change in his relations to God and to God’s will. God in Christ will have become his centre, instead of self, which was so before. He lives in a new world, being himself a new man.
Our Lord uses this very illustration when He says, ‘He that heareth My Word, and believeth Him that sent Me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life.’ That is a great migration, is it not, from the condition of a corpse to that of a living man? Paul, too, gives the same idea with a somewhat different turn of the illustration, when he gives ‘thanks to the Father who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of,’-not, as we might expect to complete the antithesis, ‘the light,’ but-the ‘kingdom of the Son of His love,’ which is the same thing as the light. The illustration is probably drawn from the practice of the ancient conquering monarchs, who, when they subjugated a country, were wont to lead away captive long files of its inhabitants as compulsory colonists, and set them down in another land. Thus the conquering Christ comes, and those whom He conquers by His love, He shifts by a great emigration out of the dominion of that darkness which is at once tyranny and anarchy, and leads them into the happy kingdom of the light.
Thus, then, all Christian men become such, because they turn their backs upon their old selves, and crucify their affections and lusts; and paste down the leaf, as it were, on which their blotted past is writ, and turn over a new and a fairer one. And my question to you, dear brethren, is, Are you men from the other side, who were not born where you live now, and who have passed out of the native Chaldea into the foreign-and yet to the new self home-land of union with God?
2. This designation may be taken as teaching that a Christian should be known as a foreigner, a man from across the water.
Everybody in Canaan that knew Abram at all knew him as not one of themselves. The Hebrew was the name he went by, because his unlikeness to the others was the most conspicuous thing about him, even to the shallowest eye. Abram found himself, when he had migrated into Canaan, in no barbarous country, but plunged at once into the midst of an organised and compact civilisation, that walled its cities, and had the comforts and conveniences and regularities of a settled order; and in the midst of it all, what did he do? He elected to live in a tent. ‘He dwelt in tabernacles, as the Epistle to the Hebrews comments upon his history, ‘because he looked for a city.’ The more his expectations were fixed upon a permanent abode, the more transitory did he make his abode here. If there had been no other city to fill his eyes, he would have gone and lived in some of those that were in the land. If there had been no other order to which he felt himself to belong, he would have had no objection to cast in his lot with the order and the people with whom he lived on friendly terms. But although he bought and sold with them, and fought for them and by their sides, and acquired from them land in which to bury his dead, he was not one of them, but said, ‘No! I am not going into your city. I stay in my tent under this terebinth tree; for I am here as a stranger and a sojourner.’ No doubt there were differences of language, dress, and a hundred other little things which helped the impression made on the men of the land by this strange visitor who lived in amity but in separation, and they are all crystallised in the name which the popular voice gave him, ‘The man from the other side.’
That is the impression which Christian people ought to make in the world. They should be recognised, by even unobservant eyes who know nothing of the inner secret of their lives, as plainly belonging to another order. If we seek to keep fresh in our own minds the consciousness that we do so, it will make itself manifest in all our bearing and actions. So that exhortation to cultivate the continual sense that our true city-the mother city of our hearts and hopes-is in heaven is ever to be reiterated, and as constantly obeyed, as the necessary condition of a life worthy of our true affinities and of our glorious hopes.
Nor less needful is the other exhortation-live by the laws of your own land, not by those of the foreign country where you are for a time. If you do that thoroughly, you will not need to say, ‘I am from another country.’ Your conduct will say it for you. An English ship is a bit of England, in whatever latitude it may be, and however far beyond the three-mile limit of the King’s authority upon the seas it may float. And so, wherever there is a Christian man, there is a bit of God’s kingdom, and over that little speck in the midst of the ocean of the world the flag with the Cross on it should fly, and the laws of the Christ should be the only laws that have currency. If it could be said of us as Haman said to his king about the Jews, that we were a people with laws ‘diGen 13:1-13"> from those of all people,’ we should be doing more than, alas! most of us do, to honour Him whom we profess to serve. Follow Christ, and people will be quick enough to say of you ‘The man from the other side,’ ‘He does not belong to our city.’ There is no need for ostentation, nor for saying, ‘Come and see my zeal for the Lord,’ nor for blowing trumpets before us at street corners or elsewhere. The less of all that the better. The more we try to do the common things done by the folk round us, but from another motive, the more powerful will be our witness for our Master.
For instance, when John Knox was in the French galleys, he was fastened to the same oar with some criminal, perhaps a murderer. The two men sat on the same bench, did the same work, tugged at the same heavy sweep, were fed with the same food, suffered the same sorrows. Do you think there was any doubt as to the infinite gulf between them? We may be working side by side, at the very same tasks, and under similar circumstances, with men that have no share in our faith, and no sympathy with our hopes and aspirations, and yet, though doing the same thing, it will not be the same thing. And if we keep Christ before us, and follow His steps who has left us an example, depend upon it people will very soon find out that we are men ‘from across the water.’
Notice, further, how this dissimilarity and obvious aloofness from the order of things in which we dwell is still perfectly compatible with all sorts of helpful associations. The context shows us that. There had come a flood of invasion, under kings with strange and barbarous names, from the far East. They had swept down upon the fertile valley of Siddim, and there had inflicted devastation. Amongst the captives had been Lot, Abram’s relative, and all his goods had been taken. One fugitive, as it appears, had escaped, and the first thing he did was to go straight to ‘the man from the other side,’ and tell him about it, as if sure of sympathy and help. No doubt the relationship between Abram and Lot was the main reason why the panting survivor made his way to the hills where Abram’s tent was pitched, but there was also confidence in his willingness to help the Sodomites who had lost their goods. So it was not to the sons of Heth in Mamre that the fugitive turned in his extremity, but he ‘told Abram the Hebrew.’
I need not narrate over again the familiar story of how, for once in his peaceful life, the ‘friend of God’ girds on his sword and develops military instincts in his prompt and well-planned pursuit, which show that if he did not try to conquer some part of the land which he knew to be his by the will of God, it was not for want of ability, but because he ‘believed God,’ and could wait. We all know how he armed his slaves, and made a swift march to the northern extremity of the land, and then, by a nocturnal surprise, came down upon the marauders and scattered them like chaff, before his onset, and recovered Lot and all the spoil.
Let us learn that, if Christian men will live well apart from the world, they will be able to sympathise with and help the world; and that our religion should fit us for the prompt and heroic undertaking, as it certainly does for the successful accomplishment, of all deeds of brotherly kindness and sympathy, bringing help and solace to the weak and the wearied, liberty to the captives, and hope to the despairing.
I do not believe that Christian men have any business to draw swords now. Abram is in that respect the Old Testament type of a God-fearing hero, with the actual sword in his hands. The New Testament type of a Christian warrior without a sword is not one jot less, but more, heroic. The form of sympathy, help, and ‘public spirit’ which the ‘man from the other side’ displayed is worse than an anachronism now in the light of Christ’s law. It is a contradiction. But the spirit which breathed through Abram’s conduct should be ours. We are bound to ‘seek the peace of the city’ where we dwell as strangers and pilgrims, avoiding no duty of sympathy and help, but by prompt, heroic, self-forgetting service to all the needy, sorrowful, and oppressed, building up such characters for ourselves that fugitives and desperate men shall instinctively turn to men from the other side for that help which, they know full well, the men of the country are too selfish or cowardly to give.
May I venture to suggest yet another and very different application of this name? To the aboriginal inhabitants of heaven, the angels that kept their first estate, redeemed men are possessors of a unique experience; and are the ‘men from the other side.’ They who entered on their pilgrimage through the Red Sea of conversion, pass out of it through the Jordan of death. They who become Christ’s, by the great change of yielding their hearts to Him, and who live here as pilgrims and sojourners, pass dryshod through the stream into His presence. And there they who have always dwelt in the sunny highlands of the true Canaan, gather round them, and call them, not unenvying, perhaps, their experience, ‘The men that have crossed.’ The ‘Hebrews of the Hebrews’ in the heavens are those who have known what it is to be pilgrims and sojourners, and to whom the promise has been fulfilled in the last hour of their journey, ‘When thou passest through the river, I will be with thee.’ They teach the angels a new song who sing, ‘Thou hast led us through fire and through water, and brought us into a wealthy place.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Battle of the Kings, and the Capture and…
The Battle of the Kings, and the Capture and Rescue of Lot
Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, had subdued the Canaanites of the Jordan valley some years before the events narrated in this chapter. The latter had rebelled, and a campaign for their fresh subjugation was undertaken, which included a general punitive expedition from Syria to the Gulf of Akaba.
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Within the last few years Assyrian tablets of great antiquity have been found, throwing considerable, if indirect, light on this narrative, and helping to determine its date. The cuneiform inscriptions on them refer to a series of campaigns by the kings of Elam NE. of Chaldea, perhaps about 2150 b.c. Their conquests extended over the vast territories, which became later the Babylonian and Assyrian empires, and included Syria and Canaan. The names Amraphel, Arioch, and (perhaps) Chedorlaomer occur in these inscriptions, and help to give a historical Betting to the present narrative. The Tel el Amarna tablets discovered in Egypt testify to the dominion exercised by these northern nations over Syria and Canaan some centuries later, perhaps whilst Israel was still in Egypt; see on Num_13:17.
1. Amraphel] king of Shinar or Babylonia. He eventually expelled the Elamites who had invaded his territory. Amraphel has by many authorities been identified with Hammurabi of the inscriptions. A tablet of laws issued by this monarch was discovered at Susa in 1902, and has been translated: see art. 'Laws of Hammurabi.' Arioch] identified with Eriaku, king of Larsa (Ellasar), on the left bank of the Euphrates in S. Babylonia. He was a contemporary and rival of Amraphel, and of Elamitic family. Chedorlaomer] A name read by Prof. Sayce as Kudurlaghgamal was found on a tablet of Hammurabi in 1896. This reading is, however, questioned. The element Kudur (perhaps 'servant') is found in the names of other Elamite kings, e.g. Kudur-Nahundi, and 'bricks have been found at Mugheir (Ur) due to a king Kudur-Mabug who calls himself Adda-Martu, “ruler of the west country,” viz. Canaan' (D.). Tidal] identification uncertain. Of nations] RV 'Goiim'; perhaps the Heb. word is intended to describe the Guti, a powerful nation N. of Babylonia.
2. The five towns (Pentapolis) mentioned here lay round the Dead Sea. The kings were mere chieftains, tributaries of Chedorlaomer, who now threw off his yoke.
3. The vale of Siddim which is the Salt Sea] The words imply that what had been the fertile vale of Siddim was covered, in the author's time, by the Salt (Dead) Sea. It is a disputed question whether this vale in which were the 'cities of the plain,' was situated at its N. or S. end. 'For the N. end, it is argued that Abraham and Lot looked upon the cities from near Bethel (Gen_13:10), whence it would be impossible to see the S. end of the Dead Sea; that the name “Circle (or plain) of Jordan” is inapplicable to the S. end; and that the presence of five cities there is impossible. On the other hand, at the S. end of the Dead Sea there lay, through Roman and mediaeval times, a city called Zoara by the Greeks and Zughar by the Arabs, which was identified by all as the Zoar of Lot. Jebel Usdum, at the SE. end, is the uncontested representative of Sodom. The name Kikhar (“circle”) may surely have been extended to the S. of the Dead Sea; just as today, the Ghôr (lower Jordan valley) is continued a few miles to the S. of Jebel Usdum. Jewish and Arab traditions fix on the S. end; and finally the material conditions are more suitable there than on the N end to the description of the region both before and after the catastrophe, for there is still sufficient water and verdure on the E. side of the Ghôr to suggest the Garden of the Lord, while the shallow bay and long marsh at the S. end may, better than the ground at the N. end of the sea, hide the secret of the overwhelmed cities' (G. A. Smith). The Dead Sea, which is about 46 m. long by 9 m. wide, is now nearly divided in two parts towards the S. end by a tongue of land jutting from the E. shore. This tongue probably once joined the opposite shore, and formed the S. limit of the Sea: but it is conjectured that, by the action of an earthquake, a subsidence took place, and, as Prof. Smith hints, what had been the fertile vale of Siddim became a desolate lagoon. The saltness of the water (26 per cent, as compared with the 4 per cent, of the ocean) is due to the presence of a mountain of rock salt (Jebel Usdum) at the S. end of the sea. Fish cannot live in it, not so much owing to its saltness as to the excess of bromide of magnesium; and the extreme buoyancy of its waters is well known. The position of this salt mountain, taken in connexion with Gen_19:26 and the occurrence of bitumen pits at the S. end (see on Gen_14:10), supports the theory of the position of the cities just mentioned. The name 'the Dead Sea' occurs nowhere in the Bible, and has not been found earlier than the 2nd cent. a.d.
4. They] i.e. the Canaanite chieftains. They refused to pay tribute.
5f. The Campaign of Chedorlaomer. Passing Hamath in Syria, and Damascus, the invaders first attacked the Rephaim, a race of great stature, who lived in the Bashan district, E. of Jordan. Their chief city was Ashteroth Karnaim, meaning, perhaps, 'Ashtaroth of the two horns.' 'Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and associated commonly with Baal in worship (1Ki_11:5; 2Ki_23:13), was the female or productive principle in nature. She is identified with Ishtar (Assyria) and Astarte (Greece and Rome). Sometimes she is regarded as the Moon-goddess (Baal=Sun, cp. Gen_14:5), sometimes as Yenus, the goddess of love. Her image of wood, cp. Deu_16:21; 2Ki_23:15, was called an Asherah (AY “grove”)' ('Camb. Compn. Bible'). Zuzims] or Zamzummims, in the country between the rivers Arnon and Jabbok: cp. Deu_2:20. Ham] Perhaps Rabbath Ammon to S. of Bashan, or Hameitat, 6 m. S. of the Dead Sea. The Peshitto and the Yulgate render 'among them' for in Ham. Emims] They held what became the land of Moab: cp. Deu_2:10. Shaveh Kiriathaim] i.e. 'the plain of Karyathaim.' It is mentioned on the Moabite Stone, but the site is disputed: cp. Num_32:37.
6. Proceeding S. the invaders smote the Horites, cave-dwellers in the mountainous district of Seir, afterwards held by the Edomites, descendants of Esau. This district extends from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Akaba. The wonderful rock city Petra may have been hollowed out by them. Thence they proceeded to Elath, near the wilderness of Paran, the scene of the forty years' wandering, known as Et-Tih: see on Num_21:21. Turning to the north-west further victories were gained over the Amalekites at Kadesh Barnea, called also En-Mishpat ('well of judgment'), and over the Amorites at Hazezon-tamar, or Engedi, on the W. side of the Dead Sea.
8-10. The vale of Siddim was now reached, and was the scene of a fierce battle with the five Canaanite kings.
10. Slimepits] Wells of inflammable bitumen, a mineral pitch allied to naphtha. Masses of bitumen are still thrown up in the S. portion of the lake. The Canaanite armies seem to have been snared in the slimy substance. The king of Sodom.. fell there] This refers rather to his army, as we find him welcoming Abraham on his return (Gen_14:17).
12. Lot with his wealth would be a desirable prisoner.
13. The Hebrew] Abraham may have been so called from his ancestor Eber (Gen_11:14). As the Heb. ibrî, however, means 'of the country beyond,' the title may have been given to him by the Canaanites because he had come from across the Euphrates. LXX renders, 'Abraham the crosser.' In OT. the word generally occurs in the mouth of foreigners or in connexion with them: cp. Gen_40:15; Gen_43:32; 1 Samuel 13, 14, and some scholars consider it probable that the present narrative may come from a Canaanite source. The Jews called themselves 'Israel,' 'Israelites.' Plain of Manure] i.e. Hebron: see on 1Sa_13:18.
14. This number of able-bodied men in Abraham's household shows that he was now a chieftain of great importance. He also had allies in the venture: see Gen_14:24.
14. Dan] known in Abraham's day as Laish. It was near the sources of the Jordan, some 30 m. N. of the Sea of Galilee. In later days part of the tribe of Dan settled there (Jdg_18:27-29).
15. The Elamite army was doubtless much larger than Abraham's following, but the attack from different quarters in the darkness created a panic, similar to that caused by Gideon's men (Judges 7). Hobah] N. of Damascus.
17. The king of Sodom] see on Gen_14:10. The king's dale] unknown. Perhaps the place where Absalom set up a pillar: see 2Sa_18:18. Josephus says it was near Jerusalem.
18. Melchizedek] The word may mean 'Sidik' (a deity) 'is my king,' although in Hebrews 7 the Jewish writer in connexion with his argument explains it as 'King of righteousness.' In Jos_10:3, five hundred years later, we find another king of Jerusalem whose name has the same termination, viz. Adonizedec, i.e. 'Sidik is my lord.' Melchizedek was king of Salem, the chief town of the Jebusites, known to us as Jerusalem. The Amarna letters (1400 b.c., written in cuneiform characters on clay tablets) which passed between the rulers of Egypt and their officers in Canaan (at that time tributary to Egypt), show that its name was then Uru-Salim, 'the city of peace.' Among these tablets are letters from its king Ebed-tob to the Pharaoh of the time, in one of which he states that his office was not an hereditary one, but that he owed his position to the Egyptian king. Cp. Heb_7:3, 'without father or mother.'
Brought forthe bread and wine] to refresh Abraham and his party.
He was the priest of the most high God] This Canaanite chieftain was both king and priest, a combination not uncommon in those days: cp. Jethro (Exo_18:12). 'He (Melchizedek) is designated priest of El Elyon, the most high God, whom Abraham, as we see from Gen_14:22, could in a general way acknowledge as his god. This agrees very well with the findings of the history of religions. There is abundant evidence for the name El or Il as the oldest proper name of deity among the Babylonians, Assyrians, Phœnicians, and Sabeans,.. among foreign peoples he was early pushed into the background by younger gods who only expressed particular aspects of his being.. but Melchizedek in his worship still held fast to him as the old sovereign god, the ruler of the universe' (D.).
20. Abraham, recognising in Melchizedek a priest of the true God, receives his blessing, and gives him as God's representative a tithe (tenth part) of the spoils he has just taken as a thank offering. Other instances of the payment of tithes are Gen_28:22; Lev_27:30; Num_31:31.; 2Sa_8:11.
21. Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself] The victor used to keep the whole booty, including prisoners who became his slaves. The king of Sodom proposes that Abraham should restore the captives but keep the spoil.
22-24. Abraham nobly refuses to keep anything for himself, but claims their share of the spoils for his Amorite allies. Possibly the character of the Sodomites made any transaction with them odious to him.
22. I have lift up mine hand] a form of swearing: cp. Exo_6:8. The Lord, the most high God] Jehovah El Elyon. Note that Abraham prefixes Jehovah to the title used by Melchizedek, 'as if to claim for Him the exclusive right to supreme divinity.'
23. Shoelatchet] or 'sandal thong': i. e. a thing of the least value.
Note. Melchizedek is referred to again twice in the Bible (Psa_110:4; Hebrews 5-7), and each time as a type of the priesthood of Christ. 'The Melchizedek type of priesthood is, first, a royal priesthood (king of righteousness); second, a righteous priesthood (king of righteousness); third, a priesthood promotive of peace, or exercised in the country of peace (king of Salem=king of peace); fourth, a personal, not an inherited, dignity (without father, without mother, i.e. so far as the record is concerned); fifth, it is an eternal priesthood (without beginning of days or end of life—so far as the record is concerned) '(HDB. art. 'Hebrews'). See on Hebrews 5, 6, 7.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v14 when Abram
when Abram
It is Abram the separated man who has power to help. See Gen 19:29; 2Ti 2:20; 2Ti 2:21
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 CHAPTER 14 The First Recorded War and Lot’s Deliverance
CHAPTER 14 The First Recorded War and Lot’s Deliverance
1. The battle of the confederacy (Gen 14:1-10)
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2. Sodom and Gomorrah spoiled (Gen 14:11-13)
3. Abram’s rescue (Gen 14:14-16)
4. Sodom’s king to meet Abram (Gen 14:17)
5. Melchizedek (Gen 14:18-20)
6. The king’s offer and Abram’s answer (Gen 14:21-24)
The record of the first war is here foreshadowing the last great warfare still to come. Amraphel, King of Shinar, has been historically located by excavated tablets in 1901. The code of Amraphel (Khammurabi) was discovered in Susa. It dates back to 2139 B.C. Some 800 years the laws of Amraphel governed the people of Central Asia. The discovery of this code was a severe blow to higher criticism which claimed that writing before Moses was unknown. What interests us most is Melchizedek. He is mentioned as a type of Christ in Psalm 110 and Hebrews 7. This chapter in Hebrews must be read with Genesis 14.
Melchizedek was a human being. We do not believe that he was a supernatural being manifested in the form of man. He was king of peace and king of righteousness and priest as well, uniting the office of priest and king and prophet in himself. The way he is introduced in this first book, where genealogies abound, without descent, having in this sense neither beginning of days nor end of life (Heb 7:3), makes him a very strong type of Christ, the Son of God.
Like Melchizedek, Christ unites in His person kingship and priesthood. However, though Christ is a priest after the order of Melchizedek, He does not yet fully exercise His Melchizedek priesthood. As priest after the order of Melchizedek He must have His own throne, for which he is still waiting on the throne of His Father.
Therefore when He comes again He will be the Priest upon His throne and crowned with many crowns (Zec 6:12-14)
The sinister temptation of Sodom’s king was rejected by Abram because Melchizedek had made known the name of God in a new way, “The most high God.” Abram uses this new title and adds “Jehovah” to “the most high God.”
Dispensationally it shows the future events after the conflict, the time of wars by confederacies of nations, in which the seed of Abraham will be so much concerned, when the enemies of God and of Israel will be overcome, and the King of Peace, the King of Righteousness, the great Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, will appear to bless His earthly people. Then Israel will acknowledge Him as Abram did Melchizedek. “The Most High God,” is one of God’s millennial names.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 8, 13 The Rebellion of the Valley Kings
The Rebellion of the Valley Kings
v. 1. And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel, king of Shinar, Arioch, king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, and Tidal, king of nations,
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v. 2. that these made war with Bera, king of Sodom, and with Birsha, king of Gomorrah, Shinab, king of Admah, and Shemeber, king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar. Those were the days of the city-states, just before the rise of the great Eastern nations. According to contemporary documents, Amraphel of Shinar is to be identified with Ammu-rabi, or Khammurabi, king of Sumer, who shortly afterward founded the early Babylonian empire; Arioch of Ellasar was probably Eri-Aku, king of Larsa, a south Babylonian city-state; Chedorlaomer was Kudur-Lagamor, a near successor of Simti Shilkhak, mentioned in ancient records of Elam, or Elymais; and Tidal, king of Goiim, or nations, was Tudhkhulu, king of Gutium, in the southwestern part of what was afterward Amraphel’s territory. These four kings had formed a confederacy for the purpose of extending their power and to that end waged war with the five kings of the vale of Siddim, in the southeastern part of Canaan, where their city-states also formed a confederacy.
v. 3. All these were joined together in the vale of Siddim, which is the Salt Sea. At the time when this history was written, the vale of Siddim was no longer in existence, its former fruitful fields being covered by the waters of the Dead Sea. Cf Gen 19:24-25.
v. 4. Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled. Chedorlaomer at that time was the head of the northern confederacy, and therefore the rebellion of the southern kings and their refusal to pay tribute is represented as being directed against him.
v. 5. And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emims in Shaveh Kiriathaim,
v. 6. and the Horites in their Mount Seir, unto Elparan, which is by the wilderness.
v. 7. And they returned and came to Enmishpat, which is Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites, that dwelt in Hazezontamar. It was a campaign of revenge and conquest which the kings of the northern, or Babylonian, confederacy undertook under the leadership of Chedorlaomer. Coming down with their armies, they took their way over Damascus and then turned south through the country east of the Jordan. They first gained a decisive victory over the Rephaim, a tribe of giants then living in the highlands of Bashan, their capital being Ashteroth Karnaim, "the two horned Ashteroth. " They next conquered the Zuzim, also a race of giants, occupying the eastern tableland, south of Bashan and Gilead. Continuing southward, the Babylonian armies overthrew the armies of the Emim, "the terrible ones," whose capital was Shaveh Kiriathaim, "the dale of the two cities. " The last country to yield to the conquerors was that of the Horim, a race of cave-dwellers south of what was afterward the Dead Sea. Chedorlaomer now turned back toward the west and north, invaded the country afterward occupied by the Amalekites, with the capital Kadesh Barnea, and that of the Amorites, who lived just east of the Sea of the Plain, afterward the Dead Sea. Both nations were conquered by the armies of the northern confederacy. It was the first of a long series of campaigns of conquest that were conducted by the ancient empires of the Euphrates Valley.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 7, 10, 13, 15 General Information:
General Information:
The places in Genesis 14:1-2 are all independent cities. (See: How to Translate Names)
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It came about
This phrase is used here to mark the beginning of a new part of the story. If your language has a way for doing this, you could consider using it here.
in the days of
"in the time of"
they made war
"they went to war" or "they started a war" or "they prepared for war"
translationWords
king
Shinar
Sodom
Gomorrah
Zoar
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 5, 8, 13, 14, 15 14:1-16 In this skirmish typical of ancient politics, powerful…
14:1-16 In this skirmish typical of ancient politics, powerful kings formed a coalition to subjugate smaller vassal states.
14:1-2 Archaeology has not identified these kings, but similar names from antiquity corroborate the report’s accuracy. The Mesopotamian kings were confederates under a suzerain, apparently Amraphel, who is mentioned first.
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14:1 Tidal apparently ruled a number of city-states (Goiim, literally nations).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.