Image by Mariusz Matuszewski from Pixabay
When you think of Abraham, do you think of a fierce warrior? I don't - - far from it!
In Genesis 14 we find a story not well-known. It concerns Abraham, Lot and a bunch of kings (sort of like those pictured above).
The last time we saw Abraham and Lot (end of Genesis 13), they had parted ways, because the land could not support two such large "families". Each of them had amassed hundreds of servants and animal herds. Graciously, Abraham had given Lot the choice of where to take his folks, and Abraham had said he'd take whatever land Lot did not want. Lot chose to go dwell in what would be known as southeast Israel today, near the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham settled further north and west, near what was called "the oaks of Mamre" and what is today called Hebron. The modern day city of Hebron is about 30 miles S/SW of Jerusalem.
Now, while Abraham was peacefully minding his own business, a kerfuffle arose where Lot lived, in Sodom. His city-state was part of a kingdom, ruled by a Mesopotamian king named Chedolaomer (which sounds like a type of cheese, but wasn't.) Chedolaomer lived far to the north in Mesopotamia. The kings who lived in Lot's area grew tired of paying tribute to an absentee ruler/landlord. The way they saw it, they were forking over all this dough, and getting little for it.
So, they rebelled and refused to pay. Chedolaomer was having none of that. He grabbed up three other Mesopotamian kings, with substantial land holdings up there (Mesopotamia was north of what we call Israel today) and came down a famous road known as The King's Highway to take his tribute out of their hides, so to speak.
The kings from the north met the renegade kings of the south in a valley area called Siddim. This land no longer exists today, because it is buried under the southern portion of the Dead Sea. As you might imagine, these minor rulers of the Jordan valley area got a good trouncing. Furthermore, the northern allied army took all the vanquished ones' food supplies, valuables and even some of the people as slaves. It was Lot's - - lot - - (sorry!) to be one of their captives, along with his family.
Abraham got wind of this and knew he had to go rescue Lot. So, he took 318 of his men and gave chase to the armies of the northern kings who, by now, had a good head start on him. He finally caught up with them, near what is today Damascus, Syria. By this time, the huge, cumbersome entourage was bone-tired from their journey. Furthermore, they were not expecting an attack from a bunch of crazed Hebrews. Abraham's forces pulled off a surprise attack at night, recovered all the booty, freed all the slaves which were stolen from the south and made a triumphant return.
Two kings from that southern area came out to greet him. The King of Sodom and the King of Salem (Melchizedek) both met him in the Valley of Kings (14:17). One blessed Abraham, and the other "wanted a piece of" Abraham. One represents God's benevolent love (Melchizedek's bread and wine were echoed at The Last Supper (Matthew 26:17-30) and are a type of the body and blood of Christ, while the other represents Satan's desire to "have us". Abraham chose well; that dude had discernment galore! He refused the offers of the King of Sodom, but accepted the blessings of the King of Salem (Melchizedek), going even beyond that to give Melchizedek 1/10 of everything in his possession. I wrote about Melchizedek extensively a couple of years ago, in my Hebrews study. If you are so inclined you can read that blog post here: https://resplendentdaughter.blogspot.com/2017/01/mystery-man.html What a fascinating Bible character! In that post, I explore more deeply who Melchizedek could have been.
Source:
https://www.torahclass.com/old-testament-studies-tc/34-old-testament-studies-genesis/89-lesson-14-genesis-14
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