Genesis 14:18

14:18 Melchizedek king of Salem ¹  brought out bread and wine. (Now he was the priest of the Most High God.) ² 

Exodus 2:16

2:16 Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and began to draw ³  water ⁴  and fill ⁵  the troughs in order to water their father’s flock.

Exodus 2:2

2:2 The woman became pregnant ⁶  and gave birth to a son. When ⁷  she saw that ⁸  he was a healthy ⁹  child, she hid him for three months.

Exodus 8:18

8:18 When ¹⁰  the magicians attempted ¹¹  to bring forth gnats by their secret arts, they could not. So there were gnats on people and on animals.

Exodus 20:26

20:26 And you must not go up by steps to my altar, so that your nakedness is not exposed.’ ¹² 

¹ sn Salem is traditionally identified as the Jebusite stronghold of old Jerusalem. Accordingly, there has been much speculation about its king. Though some have identified him with the preincarnate Christ or with Noah’s son Shem, it is far more likely that Melchizedek was a Canaanite royal priest whom God used to renew the promise of the blessing to Abram, perhaps because Abram considered Melchizedek his spiritual superior. But Melchizedek remains an enigma. In a book filled with genealogical records he appears on the scene without a genealogy and then disappears from the narrative. In Psalm 110 the Lord declares that the Davidic king is a royal priest after the pattern of Melchizedek.

² tn The parenthetical disjunctive clause significantly identifies Melchizedek as a priest as well as a king.

³ tn The preterites describing their actions must be taken in an ingressive sense, since they did not actually complete the job. Shepherds drove them away, and Moses watered the flocks.

⁴ tn The object “water” is not in the Hebrew text, but is implied.

⁵ tn This also has the ingressive sense, “began to fill,” but for stylistic reasons is translated simply “fill” here.

⁶ tn Or “conceived” (KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).

⁷ tn A preterite form with the vav consecutive can be subordinated to a following clause. What she saw stands as a reason for what she did: “when she saw…she hid him three months.”

⁸ tn After verbs of perceiving or seeing there are frequently two objects, the formal accusative (“she saw him”) and then a noun clause that explains what it was about the child that she perceived (“that he was healthy”). See GKC 365 §117.h.

⁹ tn Or “fine” (טוֹב, tov). The construction is parallel to phrases in the creation narrative (“and God saw that it was good,” Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 17, 21, 25, 31). B. Jacob says, “She looked upon her child with a joy similar to that of God upon His creation (Gen 1.4ff.)” (Exodus, 25).

¹⁰ tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated to the main clause as a temporal clause.

¹¹ tn Heb “and the magicians did so.”

¹² tn Heb “uncovered” (so ASV, NAB).