NOTES for Gen 14:1-24

The story of the war of the kings in Genesis is mysterious. Not because it describes a war of kings whom historians have still been unable to identify - there were many kings, or more precisely rulers of city-states, in Palestine in Abraham's time. And not because Abraham managed, by a sudden night attack, to recover the spoil and the captives. The city militias of the Palestinian towns were not very organized; they were not the Roman army with its carefully planned military camp and disciplined soldiers who knew what guard duty was. The most interesting figure here is Melchizedek, the mysterious "king of Salem," the "priest of God Most High."

He is the one to whom Abraham gives a tithe. He gives it to him and to his god. To a god who has nothing to do with the God of Abraham. "God Most High" is only an attempt to translate the name of Melchizedek's god; in Hebrew it sounds like El-Elyon. This El-Elyon is the god Melchizedek serves. The God of Abraham is nowhere and never called by this name. He has other names of His own, which He reveals to Abraham and later to Moses. The name El-Elyon is not among them. Melchizedek's god is worshiped in Shalem, or Salem in the Synodal translation, which is the old name for Jerusalem. There, in Jerusalem, a sanctuary existed even before Abraham appeared in Palestine, and it became Yahwistic only after David conquered Jerusalem, then still Shalem, much later than the events described in the story. Most of all, Melchizedek was a minister in this sanctuary. Only not a priest, of course. The corresponding Hebrew word denotes a Levitical priest, and such priests did not yet exist in Abraham's time. Its root is etymologically connected with the idea of prophecy, so that the word originally meant a prophet rather than a priest.

So Melchizedek, king of Shalem-Salem and prophet of the deity named El-Elyon, blesses Abraham, who in the story, by the way, is called a "Hebrew." The Hebrews never called themselves Hebrews in their own language; their self-designation was always different. In antiquity, only an outsider could call a Hebrew a Hebrew, someone for whom the Hebrews were nomads, newcomers, barbarians. The story was plainly composed by local inhabitants of pre-Hebrew Palestine who venerated El-Elyon and his prophet Melchizedek.

Melchizedek blesses Abraham, and Abraham accepts his blessing. He still knows too little about his own God to distinguish Him from El-Elyon, the local storm-god who, like all storm-gods, was "lord of heaven and earth," and sometimes, like another storm-god, Zeus, also "father of gods and men." The time will come when Abraham understands the difference between the storm-god and his own God. It will come, but not at once: there will be more encounters that will explain much to Abraham. The whole path still lies ahead, and so does acquaintance with the unknown God.