Genesis 14:18-24

14:18 Melchizedek king of Salem ¹  brought out bread and wine. (Now he was the priest of the Most High God.) ²  14:19 He blessed Abram, saying,

“Blessed be Abram by ³  the Most High God,

Creator ⁴  of heaven and earth. ⁵ 

14:20 Worthy of praise is ⁶  the Most High God,

who delivered ⁷  your enemies into your hand.”

Abram gave Melchizedek ⁸  a tenth of everything.

14:21 Then the king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the people and take the possessions for yourself.” 14:22 But Abram replied to the king of Sodom, “I raise my hand ⁹  to the Lord, the Most High God, Creator of heaven and earth, and vow ¹⁰  14:23 that I will take nothing ¹¹  belonging to you, not even a thread or the strap of a sandal. That way you can never say, ‘It is I ¹²  who made Abram rich.’ 14:24 I will take nothing ¹³  except compensation for what the young men have eaten. ¹⁴  As for the share of the men who went with me – Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre – let them take their share.”

[14:18]  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.

[14:18]  ² tn The parenthetical disjunctive clause significantly identifies Melchizedek as a priest as well as a king.

[14:19]  ³ tn The preposition לְ (lamed) introduces the agent after the passive participle.

[14:19]  ⁴ tn Some translate “possessor of heaven and earth” (cf. NASB). But cognate evidence from Ugaritic indicates that there were two homonymic roots ָקנָה (qanah), one meaning “to create” (as in Gen 4:1) and the other “to obtain, to acquire, to possess.” While “possessor” would fit here, “creator” is the more likely due to the collocation with “heaven and earth.”

[14:19]  ⁵ tn The terms translated “heaven” and “earth” are both objective genitives after the participle in construct.

[14:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “blessed be.” For God to be “blessed” means that is praised. His reputation is enriched in the world as his name is praised.

[14:20]  ⁷ sn Who delivered. The Hebrew verb מִגֵּן (miggen, “delivered”) foreshadows the statement by God to Abram in Gen 15:1, “I am your shield” (מָגֵן, magen). Melchizedek provided a theological interpretation of Abram’s military victory.

[14:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “him”; the referent (Melchizedek) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[14:22]  ⁹ tn Abram takes an oath, raising his hand as a solemn gesture. The translation understands the perfect tense as having an instantaneous nuance: “Here and now I raise my hand.”

[14:22]  ¹⁰ tn The words “and vow” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[14:23]  ¹¹ tn The oath formula is elliptical, reading simply: “…if I take.” It is as if Abram says, “[May the Lord deal with me] if I take,” meaning, “I will surely not take.” The positive oath would add the negative adverb and be the reverse: “[God will deal with me] if I do not take,” meaning, “I certainly will.”

[14:23]  ¹² tn The Hebrew text adds the independent pronoun (“I”) to the verb form for emphasis.

[14:24]  ¹³ tn The words “I will take nothing” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[14:24]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “except only what the young men have eaten.”