(BA) Genesis 14

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The emperor Chedorlaomer of Elam, supported by three other kings, rules over five kings in the region of Sodom and Gomorrah. After twelve years, they rebel, and Chedorlaomer with his allies launches a punitive expedition that strikes much of Canaan, defeating the rebels and taking Abram's nephew Lot captive in the process. Abram marshals his forces, defeats the emperor's coalition, and returns Lot safely to Sodom. Abram refuses to enrich himself in the process. At the end of the chapter, he has an encounter with Melchizedek, a Canaanite priest-king of Salem, traditionally identified as Jerusalem.

This is a most peculiar chapter. In terms of the Documentary Hypothesis, it is generally treated as a separate composition, not originally a part of any of the four traditional sources.

Historically, it assumes a political situation that seems never to have existed: Elamite domination of Canaan. The kings described in the text do not clearly match any known to have existed in the text's timeframe.

Though I am no expert, the only thing I have seen that seems to make sense of this odd chapter is the solution described by Michael Astour ("Chedorlaomer" in ABD): that a story about attacks on Babylonia has been creatively reworked and anachronistically worked into Abram's life story.

The narrative tells us that a vast Elamite empire ruled over five minor kings in the Jordan Valley. As for the five kings, we read in Genesis 13 that the region in which Lot settled was the kikkar ha-yarden, which would seem ordinarily to refer to the fertile valley just north of the Dead Sea. Genesis 19 likewise places Sodom and Gomorrah in the kikkar. So one might expect that the five kings mentioned here would be kings in the kikkar north of the Dead Sea. But according to the Anchor Bible Dictionary, "Zeboiim", scholars remain divided over whether the five cities are to be found north or south of the Dead Sea. To further complicate matters, Genesis 14:3 seems to presuppose a very different geography of the region from the one known at present.

14:3 suggests that the Valley of Siddim, the site of the battle of the nine kings, was found on land now covered by the Dead Sea. This fairly straightforward interpretation of Genesis 14:3's wording can be found in Gesenius's Lexicon (entry for ŚDYM), among many other places. Michael Astour (ABD, "Siddim") also reads the passage this way -- that Siddim is the fictional name for a valley supposed to have existed on the land now under the Dead Sea.

(14:1) "in the days of". Following the Masoretic Text. The Vulgate reads "in those days".

(14:1) "Amraphel". It was once common to say that the Amraphel of this story is the famous Hammurabi known to history, but that opinion has been generally abandoned. If the Amraphel of this story is supposed to be a historical character, it is not certain who that would be. Kittel went so far as to suggest that instead of the current Hebrew consontantal reading ʔmrpl ("Amraphel"), the text should in fact be read ʔmrpy ("Hammurabi"). This emendation has been dropped by Kittel's successor BHS (5th ed.).

(14:1) "Shinar". A term referring to a region in Mesopotamia, synonymous or closely related to Babylon, as can be seen from the Tower of Babylon episode. Amraphel is thus a Babylonian or proto-Babylonian king according to Genesis. Unlike in the Tower episode, however, imperial power is not concentrated in Babylon, but, surprisingly, in Elam, as the text soon makes clear. Although Babylonia does not lead the imperial coalition, for some reason it appears at the head of the list in this verse.

(14:1) "Arioch king of Ellasar". The identity of Ellasar, and therefore of Arioch, is unknown, although a variety of proposals have been made. See for example ABD, "Ellasar".

(14:1) "Chedorlaomer king of Elam". It is strange that Chedorlaomer, who as we will soon see heads this coalition, is listed third out of four kings.

(14:1) "Tidal". BHK notes the existence of a Septuagint manuscript which reads Thargal.

(14:1) goyim. This term, in Hebrew, can be translated as the common word "nations"; thus, "Tidal king of nations." But on this interpretation, we might expect Tidal to be the leader of this coalition: the others are kings of individual places, but Tidal is "king of nations". But it is not so. So perhaps we should here read "Goiim" as a place name. One suggestion is that the Goiim of this passage is to be identified with the historical Gutium, in the Zagros mountains, but according to the Anchor Bible Dictionary this is merely a guess based on the similarity of the sounds. Other proposals include Tidal as a king of Anatolia, or of Assyria (ABD, "Goiim").

(14:2) "Bera" in Hebrew appears like "with evil". BHK notes the existence of a Septuagint manuscript which reads Balla.

(14:2) "Birsha" in Hebrew appears like "with wickedness". This, combined with the name of the king of Sodom, suggests that these are invented names for the kings of two cities that the Bible uses as exemplars of wickedness.

(14:2) Shinab. BHK notes a variant reading of Sinab, recorded in the margin of Ginsburg's Bible. A Septuagint manuscript reads Sennaar.

(14:2) "Admah". This precise name appears only a handful of times in the Bible, in all cases in connection with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah's destruction. Though the story demands that it be found in the kikkar, its precise location is unknown, and of course its king Shinab is also unknown to history.

(14:2) "Shemeber". BHK notes that the Samaritan Pentateuch has a d instead of r at the end of this name, producing a name which can be read "name has perished". According to Benyamim Tsedaka et al.'s translation of the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Samaritan reading of the name is Sham’abbaad.

(14:2) "Zeboiim". There is a Kethib-Qere over this word, over a mater yod versus a mater yod toward the end. This difference is trivial even by my standards.

(14:2) The name "Bela" appears only in this story (Skinner). While there is no "king of Bela" elsewhere in the Bible, there is a King Bela, in Genesis 36:22. This Bela son of Beor is, fairly obviously, literarily related to the prophet Balaam son of Beor, whose name in Hebrew varies from his only by one letter (blʕ versus blʕm). Balaam son of Beor was apparently a folk figure of the ancient Levant beyond just Israelite culture, as he appears in the Deir Alla inscription as a prophet as well.

(14:2) "The group of five cities," said Skinner, "is thought to be the result of an amalgamation of originally independent traditions." Skinner notes that in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah's destruction, when Zoar is spared, Admah and Zeboiim are unmentioned. On the other side of the same coin, Hosea's references to the destruction of Admah and Zeboiim do not mention Sodom and Gomorrah. This is the root of the idea that two different traditions of destruction have been combined in this chapter.

(14:2) Speaking of the names of the kings in this verse, Skinner asks, "Can it be accidental that they fall into two alliterative pairs, or that each king's name contains exactly as many letters as that of his city?" This is to be added to the potential Hebrew meanings of the names Bera, Birsha, and Shemebed as evidence for these names being literary rather than historical.

(14:3) the Siddim. Hebrew haśśidim. The -im at the end of this word is the ending that generally signals a plural masculine noun. If we are in fact dealing with a plural noun, the most obvious candidate for the singular form is something like the word śadeh ("plain", "field"; see Gesenius). So we would have then "valley of the plains", though several other etymologies have been proposed, including shedim ("demons", Skinner). This valley, at least by this name, appears only in this chapter. Gesenius took it as a simple fact that the story pre-supposes that the Siddim Valley is the narrator's idea of a valley which once existed, but is now covered by the Dead Sea. This is a straightforward reading of "the Siddim valley, which is the Salt Sea." And yet, if this is implied, it is curious that the text nowhere records the creation of the Dead Sea, if Genesis 19 is supposed to be an etiology for that sea's existence.

(14:3) "Salt Sea." That is, the body of water now known as the Dead Sea.

(14:4) "the thirteenth year". BHK recommends following the Samaritan Pentateuch, which reads here "in the thirteenth year".

(14:4) "served ... rebelled". In this context, "served" may refer to something as simple as the payment of annual tribute, while "rebelled" might simply refer to ceasing to pay tribute. Skinner interpreted rebellion as non-payment of tribute, and in support mentions 2 Kings 18:7 and 2 Kings 24. In both of these passages a king "rebels" against an emperor, and in both of those narratives the "rebellion" occurs prior to the empire attacking. Thus "rebel" would seem to have the sense of non-payment rather than an active military revolt.

(14:5) "Rephaim". Given the other entries on the list of those "struck", we might expect to see here "the Rephaim", but in the Masoretic Text we merely read "Rephaim". BHK recommends that we read, with the Septuagint and Samaritan Pentateuch, "the Rephaim".

(14) "Rephaim". The term refers to the legendary giants who were believed to have inhabited Canaan, or parts of it, in the distant past.

(14:5) "Ashteroth Karnaim" can be read in Hebrew as "two-horned Ashteroth". Here only the name Ashteroth Karnaim appears, but the legend of the Rephaim is connected by Joshua 13:12 with a place called Ashteroth, where the Rephaite king Og of Bashan is said to have lived. This location is in the Transjordan, so at least roughly in the vicinity of the five kings. Skinner thinks that a Karnaim is probably mentioned in Amos 6:3, where the context would indicate it was a city conquered by Israel, while 1 Maccabees 5:26 places a Karnaim in the Gilead. Curiously, 1 Maccabees 12:26 speaks of "Karnion and the shrine of Atargatis" and if they were a single place, and as strange as it sounds the goddesses Atargatis and Astarte/Ashtoreth are etymologically related, although perhaps I'm just seeing a spurious coincidence there.

(14:5) "Zuzim". The version of Symmachus reads Zoizommein, which according to BHK indicates an underlying Hebrew reading of Zamzumim. According to BHK, the readings of the Septuagint, Itala, and the Targums Onkelos and pseudo-Jonathan may perhaps all point to a reading of ʕzwzym.

(14:5) "Zuzim". Like the Rephaim, the Zuzim are mythological giants. According to Deuteronomy 2:20, Zamzimmim, which as noted above may be the correct reading for this verse anyhow, is the Ammonite term for the Rephaim. As they appear in this passage as a people wiped out in the punitive raid on Lot's dwelling, likewise the Ammonites are connected to Lot by a story which will follow after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

(14:5) "Ham". Not spelled, in the Masoretic Text like the "Ham" son of Noah. But BHK notes a variant reading, supported by some Samaritan manuscripts, and by Jerome's translation of the Hebrew Psalms, which is spelled like Ham son of Noah. The Septuagint, Itala, Syriac, and Vulgate all have a reading which does not see a proper name here at all, but presupposes a Hebrew consonantal text identical to the Masoretic. If we were to follow this line of reasoning, we would read "among them" instead of "in Ham".

(14:5) "Emim". According to Deuteronomy 2:11, a Moabite term for the giants.

(14:5) "Shaveh Kiriathaim". Like the other places mentioned so far in the first attack of the four kings, we find ourselves in Transjordan. The name Kiriathaim is given in Jeremiah 48:1 and Ezekiel 25:4 as a location associated with Moab. As to the name "Shaveh Kiriathaim", the ASV marginal note suggests translating it "the plain of Kiriathaim".

(14:6) "Horites". Though not explicitly depicted as giants in the Bible like the Rephaim, Zamzumim (Zuzim), and Emim, the Horites appear in the same passage in Deuteronomy 2, as an indigenous people who lived in Edom prior to the Edomites. The Edomites are located east of Canaan, though further south than the Moabites and Ammonites, so they still fit into Genesis 14's portrayal of the Elamite confederacy beginning its campaign east of Canaan.

(14:6) "in their Mount Seir". BHK recommends that we follow the Samaritan Pentateuch, Vulgate, Peshitto, and Septuagint in reading "in the mountains (or hills) of Seir". On the other hand, Skinner notes the opinion of one Buhl, who says that the original reading is just "in their mountain", and that "Seir" is a later explanatory edition.

(14:6) "El Paran". This exact name appears only here, although the wilderness of Paran appears multiple times in the Bible. The Septuagint takes El as meaning "terebinth", which is reasonable. The itinerary here of the Elamite coalition indicates that this is the far southern end of the expedition, as they then "turn back" and go to Kadesh. The sources I've read all identify it with Elath, on the edge of the Red Sea.

(14:6) "wilderness". From the geography of the passage and the proximity to the name Paran, this must refer to the wilderness of Paran.

(14:7) "turned back". So the Elamite confederacy has reached the end of its first sweep through the Transjordan. Oddly, they have attached various legendary or semi-legendary figures from Deuteronomy 2 rather than the five kings that they came to punish. They now head north-north-east toward Kadesh.

(14:7) "Kadesh". That is, Tell el Qudeirat, by the general agreement of scholars that the biblical descriptions of Kadesh fit only with this site. In biblical terms, Kadesh is sometimes regarded as the southern edge of the land of Israel.

(14:7) "territory of the Amalekites". Hebrew śedeh haʿamaleqi, or "the plain of the Amalekite[s]". The Septuagint and Peshitto indicate a reading of śarei haʕamaleqi , "the princes of the Amalekite[s]".

(14:7) "Amalekites". A people placed in the Sinai and Negev by the Bible, so logically mentioned at this point in the narrative. Or, at least, it is logical in a geographical sense. A bit of a difficulty is produced because Genesis 36:22 makes Amalek, presumably forefather of the Amalekites, the grandson of Esau, and thus the great-great-grandson of Abraham, in whose time Kedorlaomer's forces smite the Amalekites.

(14:8) The only other occurrence of the name Hazazon Tamar in the Bible is in 2 Chronicles 20:2, where it is identified as Ein Gedi, along the west bank of the Dead Sea. On the other hand, this location is the odd one out geographically, as the Amalekites and Kadesh are both along the southern border of Judah. And so it has also been suggested that this Hazazon Tamar is the same as, or near to, the Tamar of Ezekiel 47:19 and 48:28, in both of which cases Tamar is listed as along the southern boundary of the land of Israel. In this case, Hazazon Tamar can be read as "gravel-lined Tamar" or else "Hazazon of Tamar", that is, the town of Hazazon found in the vicinity of the better-known locality of Tamar.

(14:8) "Zeboiim". A Kethib-Qere appears here of the same sort found in verse 2.

(14:8) "with them in the Siddim Valley. The Peshitta reads, "all of them in the Siddim Valley".

(14:9) "four kings against five". According to Skinner, Genesis here implies that all four of the eastern kings appear personally for the battle, which is highly unlikely historically.

(14:10) "bitumin pits". Says Skinner, the bubbling asphalt that would appear in the waters of the Dead Sea naturally inspired the idea that, if the Dead Sea was once dry land, it must have been filled with bitumin pits.

(14:10) "the king of Sodom and Gomorrah". It would seem that this phrase should be taken as some sort of collective reference to the warriors involved, given the second half of the sentence. That's my guess, at least, because if the "king of Sodom and Gomorrah" fell, and was presumably killed, why does the King of Sodom show up apparently unarmed at the end of the chapter? Instead of "and Gomorrah", the Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint, and Peshitta, and according to Kittel one medieval Hebrew manuscript, read "and the king of Gomorrah."

(14:11) "their food-stores". I'm translating this on the assumption that the raiders are being described here as taking the stockpiles of food that an agricultural society would have, although the Hebrew word is simply "their food". Translating literally as "their food" seems to me like it would suggest raiding the small collection of food that people have in their fridges or cupboards in the modern world -- a much smaller problem.

(14:12) "Abram's brother's son." Says Kittel, this is a later addition to the passage. In any case the word order is quite odd. In the Septuagint the word order is more normal; according to Skinner, the variation in placement is a sign that "Abram's brother son" was a marginal gloss later inserted into the text itself. Also noteworthy: "Lot is elsewhere called simply the 'brother' of Abram" (Skinner, speaking of verses 14 and 16).

(14:12) "Now he was living in Sodom". Presumably this note is to alert the reader that Lot had moved into the city of Sodom itself. Prior to this he is pictured as a herdsman living in a tent. Genesis 13:12 -- "and he moved his tent as far as Sodom".

(14:13) "the Hebrew". Today, the noun "Hebrew" is a somewhat archaic way of saying "Jewish", but it would seem in the Bible to have been a wider category than Jews, considering that Abraham, the grandfather of Judah, is called a Hebrew, and that Eber, presumably the father of the Hebrews, appears even further up the family tree. Other uses of the term include Potiphar's wife describing Joseph as a "Hebrew", Joseph describing his homeland as "the land of the Hebrews". A number of references that distinguish the descendants of Israel from the Egyptians refer to them as "Hebrews". Likewise in descriptions of conflicts with the Philistines, the non-Philistine party is called "Hebrews", and Jonah describes himself as a "Hebrew".

(14:13) "oaks". Hebrew Elonei Mamre, or "terebinths of Mamre". The Septuagint and Peshitto have renderings that indicate merely the singular, "oak of Mamre", just as in 13:18.

(14:13) "the Amorite". Here Mamre is a person; according to Skinner Mamre is the name of a tree or trees in J, and an alternate name for Hebron in P. As is common in Genesis, the place-name Mamre becomes personified as an individual.

(14:13) According to Skinner, Eshkol here is a personification of the valley of Eshkol, which according to [EB] is to be found near Hebron, that is, near Mamre. According to Numbers 13, the valley of Eshkol got its name from the word eshkol ("grape-cluster") for the grapes there. As Skinner notes, Eshkol is a reasonable name for a valley, but not for a man.

(14:13) "Aner". The Samaritan Pentateuch reads something like Anram, the Septuagint Aunan, the Peshitto something like Anir.

(14:13) "bound by covenant". Literally, "masters of covenant".

(14:14) "lead out". The Hebrew word is rare in this particular use. A more common meaning of it is "to empty", and it is also used for "to unsheath" a sword. Using it in this way, with humans as the direct object of the verb, occurs only here. "Lead out" seems like a decent guess. The Samaritan Pentateuch reads "mustered", and the Septuagint and Vulgate read "counted". If the Septuagint reading is correct, the original Hebrew word may have been pqd ("enumerate" or "muster"), rather than the ryq/rwq found here. The Targums Onkelos and Pseudo-Jonathan read "equipped".

(14:14) "his trained men". Hebrew hanika(y)v, a word which occurs only here. Various proposals have been made, some on the basis of a supposed relation to the Hebrew root hnk ("dedicate"), and some on the basis of similar words in other languages.

(14:14) "[servants] born into his household". Hebrew yelidei beito. This phrase appears also in Genesis 17 several times, where the context points to slaves born into one's household as opposed to those bought from outside with money.

(14:14) "three hundred eighteen". It has been suggested that this number is created by gematria from from the Hebrew name "Eliezer", of the servant who managed Abram's household. Why a writer would be motivated to do this, I don't know, so while I haven't looked deeply into the question, my default stance is skeptical of this sort of thing.

(14:14) "Dan". Traditionally the northern edge of the land of Israel, Kadesh and Tamar being traditional markers of the southern boundary. So the imperial forces came in at the southern border of Canaan, and left Canaan at its northern border with Abram in hot pursuit. The argument could be made, and I bet it has been, that in expelling the empire from the borders of Canaan, Abram is militarily in some sense making good the promise at the end of chap. 13 that all this land belongs to him. In contrast to the portrayal of Joshua, however, Abram seems uniformly friendly to the indigenous peoples of the land.

(14:15) "divided himself against them". Gesenius takes this as meaning, "he divided his forces against them". The phrasing seems odd, though. Kittel believed there was probably an error here in the Hebrew, and points out to readers that the Septuagint reads "fell upon them" (NETS).

(14:17) "and of the kings". Hebrew we-et ha-melakim, while a variant reading found in Ginsburg's Masoretic Bible (according to Kittel) omits 'et. The difference between reading this verse in Hebrew with and without _et is insubstantial, and is rather like the difference between "and of the kings" and "and the kings" in this verse in English.

(14:17) "Shaveh Valley". The expression "Shaveh Valley" occurs only here, while the expression "Shaveh of Kiriathaim" occurs only in 14:5. It would stand to reason that they refer to either the same or nearby locations. But we immediately run into an issue. The use of the term "Emim" in 14:5, along with the geographical context of the other locations mentioned there, would point to a location in the Transjordan or more specifically in Moab. The expression "King's Valley" in this verse appears only here and in the story of Absalom's setting up a memorial stone for himself in the "King's Valley". But that verse does not even give the location of the king's valley, and if it did we would not be sure that "the king's valley" was not a later gloss in Genesis anyhow. Michael Astour (ABD, "Shaveh, Valley of") claims that this valley must be a particular plain near the brook Kidron, which he argues for on the basis of various sorts of ancient extrabiblical evidence.

(14:18) "Melchizedek". Hebrew malki-ṣedeq, which could be read as "my king is Tsedeq" or "my king is righteousness." The name Malkizedeq can be compared to Adonizedeq ("my lord is Tsedeq") who we are told by Joshua was king of Jerusalem.

(14:18) "Shalem". Often rendered in English as "Salem". It is spelled like the "salem" or "shalayim" of Jerusalem (Yerushalayim), and accordingly it has traditionally been considered to be a name for Jerusalem, as in Psalm 76 ("in Salem is his tent").

(14:18) "Melkizedeq, king of Salem". By an allegorical reading, a passage in Hebrews makes Melchizedek a 'type' of Christ, choosing to read malki-ṣedeq as though it were melek-ṣedeq ("king of righteousness") and melek shalem ("king of Shalem") as if it were melek shalom ("king of peace"). The interested reader can consult Hebrews 7.

(14:18) "El Elyon". Meaning, "El Most High" or "God Most High". El Elyon is often used in the Hebrew Bible as an appellation for Yahweh, but if we were to attempt to view Melchizedek as a historical king of Jerusalem prior to the Israelites, the worship of El Elyon in that context would likely not be the worship of Yahweh.

(14:19) "creator". Or the Hebrew term could be read as "possessor".

(14:20) The text does not explicitly say who gave a tenth to whom. Did Abram give to the Melchizedek, or did Melchizedek give to Abram? On the one hand, we might imagine that Melchizedek, grateful for Abram's protection in driving the marauding empire from Canaan, gave Abram a gift. Or, alternately, given that priests receive gifts from worshippers in the Bible at shared meals, it would perhaps be more natural to regard Abram as giving to Melchizedek.

(14:18) "a tenth". The word is the same as the one commonly translated "tithe". This passage thus locates the biblical practice of tithing to the priests of Jerusalem all the way back in the very first proto-conquest of Canaan by father Abraham.

(14:21) "Yahweh". The Codex Alexandrinus and the Lucianic recension of the Septuagint here omit "Yahweh" (Kittel).

(14:20) "everything". Does this refers to the spoils of the war? To Abram's property more generally?

(14:22) Kittel notes that some Septuagint manuscripts and the Peshitto omit "to Yahweh". In any case, it is interesting that the name "Yahweh" does not appear on the lips of the Canaanite priest.

(14:23) "will I take". Literally, "if I take", in a Hebrew expression of swearing that indirectly invokes a divine punishment if the oath-taker violates his promise.

(14:24) The preceding narrative, although noting a covenant with Aner, Eshkol, and Mamre, does not mention anyone other than Abram's servants going with him on his anti-Elamite excursion, but now we are informed that Abram pulled off this feat with the help of his Canaanite (or more precisely, Amorite, whatever that means) allies.

(14:24) At the end of this verse the Masoretic Text has a section marker (setumah).