Genesis 14:17-24--Abram Blessed by Melchizedek

​Genesis 14:17-24 English Standard Version (ESV)
LISTEN:  https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/mclean/esv/Gen.14.17-Gen.14.24

Abram Blessed by Melchizedek

17 After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King's Valley). 18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) 19 And he blessed him and said,

“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
    Possessor of heaven and earth;
20 and blessed be God Most High,
    who has delivered your enemies into your hand!”
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And Abram gave him a tenth of everything. 21 And the king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself.” 22 But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have lifted my hand to the Lord, God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth, 23 that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’ 24 I will take nothing but what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me. Let Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre take their share.”

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Today's passage is going to be short and very much connected to yesterday's passage.  If you recall, Lot moved in near the Canaanite towns and was captured along with the Canaanites when an invading army from Shinar (along with several other kings) seemed to be trying to conquer all of the known world.

Word gets to Abram that his nephew Lot has been captured and Abram leads a small army of Amorites who he lived among in a raiding party to take back the people and things that had been taken (specifically with the goal of rescuing Lot).  They've just been victorious in their battle--something that could have only been done with the help of God.

Out of nowhere in this story, a new king that we haven't met before and have never heard of his nation before shows up, and while we won't see him again in person after this, he'll be mentioned a couple more times in the Bible (in Psalms and Hebrews) as one that the Messiah had to be like, so we're going to spend a little time talking about him here and how he seems to related to Christ.  Whether or not this is a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ is uncertain, though that is also a possibility.

First we see that Melchizedek is the king of Salem.  We don't really know of a place called Salem, but it sounds kind of like Jerusalem and many believe this to be the same city and it is the word for "peace."  Do we know anyone else in the Bible referred to as The Prince of Peace? Maybe simply a coincidence, but I felt that it was important.

The next interesting thing that we see that again may not be unusual, but is worth mentioning, is that he is about to strike a covenant of peace with a meal of bread and wine, and we are told parenthetically that he was not only king, but a priest of the Most High God.  Now that is very strange.  First that bread and wine would have something to do with a priestly function already, and that he was priest of the Most High God before the role of priest was established in the Levitical system--Hebrews will point this out that he was not a descendant of Levi and that in Judaism kings came from Judah and priests from Levi and no one person should be able to fill both offices, but this one man (much like Christ would thousands of years later) served in both offices representing God to the people as king and representing the people before God as priest.  See why the author of the Psalms and the author of the epistle to the Hebrews will come back to this man to identify Him with the Messiah?

Melchizedek then blessed Abram in a way that normally only a prophet (or God Himself would do) filling yet another office.  It is interesting that Melchizedek doesn't simply identify God as the maker of heaven of earth, but the possessor of it.  This is very much in contrast to the enemy forces that have been trying to conquer and possess the heavens and the earth, first by building a great tower into the sky so that they could reach the heavens where God existed (as they thought He existed in a physical realm that was high above them) and now to try to conquer the physical world, but Melchizedek reminds us that God is the sole owner of all of creation and no one else can take away His possessions from Him.

We then see again that the battle belongs to the Lord as Melchizedek rightly recognizes that the victory that Abram won that day was because God Most High delivered Abram's enemies into his hands.  There's no earthly reason why such a small band of warriors should be able to fight off the combined armies of five nations that had just conquered the combined forces four city-states.  All glory and honor and praise belongs to the Lord, and Melchizedek makes sure that is where our attention is pointed.  In much the same way, the Son tells us that His role is to glorify the Father in all things.

We then see Abram giving a tenth of everything to the king of Salem--not unusual as a form of tribute to someone you recognize as a greater king, but we didn't see this king do anything to join the battle and help them win, so what is it that Abram sees in this king that he's willing to give a tenth of all the spoils of war to him?  Is it possible that Abram actually recognizes this "man" as the King of Heaven? This would not be the first time or the last time in the book of Genesis that God would come down in the form of a man among His people.  We even saw this as early as Genesis 3 where God used to come down and walk and talk with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and we've seen in Genesis 10 that God came down to inspect the Tower of Babel and see what the people had done and the rebellion that was brewing.  We see another possible theophany/christophany here and we're definitely going to see another couple of cases in the coming chapters, so it's not completely out of the realm of possibility, thought the text does not proclaim this specifically.  At a minimum it's another one of those "isn't it interesting?" situations in this text.  Clearly God is the King of Heaven and the highest of any kings--Jesus will eventually be given the title of King of Kings and Lord of Lords--and the tithe definitely belongs to Him.

The rest of the passage is a negotiation between Abram and the king of Sodom.  The king of Sodom just asks for his people to be returned to him and that all the possessions that had been taken should be given to Abram as spoils of war.
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Abram refuses to fall prey to materialism as he already recognizes that God is the one who has provided for all of his needs and he refuses to let any earthly king have reason to say any differently.  If Abram had taken all of the possessions of the Canaanites, they would have claimed that they were the ones that made him rich and successful.  Abram asks for nothing in return other than food for his men and compensation for the Amorite men who fought alongside him.  We would be wise to understand what Abram is doing here in making sure that we depend on God and not man for our provisions to be met and to make sure that no one can hold anything over us, but at the same time to make sure that the others among us are taken care of--even those who are enemies of God, but have come alongside of us to help us in our time of need.  God can use anyone, even heathen Canaanites to accomplish his purposes.

So much said in such a short passage.  If you want to know what else the Bible has to say about Melchizedek, read Psalm 110 (definitely a Messianic Psalm) and Hebrews chapters 5, 6, and 7 (I've already written blogs on these chapters in the book of Hebrews if you want to go back and look at them).