Melchizedek, priest of God Most High: Genesis 14 with Psalm 110

Genesis is traditionally ascribed to Moses, and many scholars hold it was shaped from earlier sources by later editors; chapter 14 is often called a self-contained unit, because it is the only place in Genesis where Abram fights a war and the only one that sets the family of promise among the kings of the great powers. On a conservative dating Abram lived around 2000 to 1800 BC; others place the patriarchal traditions later. No inscription names the four eastern kings. Chedorlaomer has the shape of an Elamite royal name, but no king by that name has been identified. The text is written for Israel, who would read it as a story of their ancestor and of the land he later received.

The occasion is a revolt. Five small cities of the Jordan plain had paid tribute to an eastern coalition for twelve years and rebelled in the thirteenth (14:4). The coalition crushed the peoples of the region, defeated the cities in the valley of Siddim, and carried off Lot, who had chosen to live in Sodom (13:10-12). Abram is called 'the Hebrew' (14:13), the first use of that word in the Bible. He lives among Amorite allies and acts like a chieftain with a private force.

Salem, where Melchizedek reigns, is identified with Jerusalem by the Bible itself, since Psalm 76:2 sets 'Salem' beside 'Zion' as the LORD's dwelling, and Josephus and Jewish tradition say the same. Psalm 110 is headed 'A psalm of David' and is a royal psalm, an oracle about the king enthroned in Zion (110:2). Jesus treated it as spoken by David in the Holy Spirit (Mark 12:36). Some critical scholars have proposed a later date and a different king, but the New Testament reading rests on the superscription.

Genesis 14 is narrative, and narrative teaches by what it reports and how it arranges it. The story has a frame of two kings: Melchizedek meets Abram first, and the king of Sodom speaks only after the blessing. The order matters, because Abram takes his tenth and his oath from the blessing, and refuses reward from Sodom. The Melchizedek scene is only four verses long (14:18-20), and the writer gives no genealogy, no account of his rites and no word about his death. What the text does not say must not be filled in without warrant.

Psalm 110 is Hebrew poetry and a royal oracle. Verse 1 reports a divine speech, verse 4 an oath, and the psalm moves from enthronement to battle. The text of verse 3 is hard and has several translations, so the argument below rests on verses 1 and 4, which are clear. The New Testament reads these verses as being about the Messiah, and the class follows that reading, because Jesus gave it (Mark 12:35-37) and Peter and Hebrews rest their argument on it (Acts 2:34-35; Hebrews 1:13; 5:6).

Verses 1 to 12. Four kings from the east, led by Chedorlaomer of Elam, march against five rebel cities. The valley of Siddim was full of tar pits (chemar, 14:10), and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled and fell into them or into the hills. The victors take goods, food and people, and among them 'Abram's nephew Lot and his possessions' (14:12).

Verses 13 to 16. A survivor tells 'Abram the Hebrew', who lives by the oaks of Mamre with three Amorite allies, Mamre, Eshcol and Aner. Abram musters 318 trained men 'born in his household' (14:14), a number that shows how large his household had grown. The Hebrew word for trained occurs only here. He pursues as far as Dan, which scholars take as a later name for the place called Laish (Judges 18:29), and divides his men by night, a classic stroke of surprise. He chases the raiders to Hobah north of Damascus and brings back Lot, the people and the goods (14:16).

Verses 17 to 20. Two kings go out to meet the returning Abram. The first is Melchizedek king of Salem. His name is two Hebrew words, melek (king) and tsedek (righteousness), and means either 'my king is righteous' or 'king of righteousness'. Hebrews takes the second sense and notes that Salem means peace (7:2). He 'brought out' bread and wine, which in the Hebrew is a plain verb for bringing food and says nothing about sacrifice. The narrator adds the reason in parenthesis: 'since he was priest of God Most High'. This is the first time the word priest (kohen) appears in the Bible. He is not an Israelite, not a descendant of Levi, and nothing is said of his appointment. He is a king and a priest in a Canaanite city, worshiping God under the title El Elyon.

Then he blesses. His words have two halves. 'Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth' (14:19) is a blessing that comes down from God. 'Blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand' (14:20) is praise that goes up to God. The priest stands between the two. The word translated Creator (qoneh) can also mean owner or possessor. In the same breath he names Abram's victory as God's gift. Then Abram gave him 'a tenth of everything'. Hebrews reads the direction of the blessing and the payment as the sign of who is greater (7:4-7), and the Genesis text itself shows Abram giving and Melchizedek blessing, not the other way round.

Verses 21 to 24. The second king, of Sodom, offers Abram the goods in return for the people. Abram answers with an oath: 'I have raised my hand to the LORD God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth' (14:22). He puts the name of Israel's covenant God, YHWH, beside the title Melchizedek used, which means he recognizes the God of Salem as his own God. He will take not even a thread or a sandal strap, so that no one can say 'I have made Abram rich' (14:23). His allies and servants may take their share.

Psalm 110

The psalm opens with 'The LORD says to my Lord' (110:1), the word of the LORD to the one David calls his lord, and the invitation is to sit at the LORD's right hand until his enemies are made a footstool. The king's rule goes out from Zion (110:2). Then comes the oath: 'The LORD has sworn and will not change His mind: You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek' (110:4). The Hebrew for 'order' (al-divrati) is difficult and has been translated as 'in the manner of', 'after the order of' and 'because of my word'. In all readings the point is that the king is also a priest, and that the priesthood is forever, by oath, and likened to Melchizedek's, not Aaron's.

This union was without precedent in Israel. Under the law, kingship belonged to Judah and the priesthood to Aaron's house. Saul lost his dynasty for presuming to offer the sacrifice (1 Samuel 13:8-14) and Uzziah was struck with skin disease for burning incense in the temple (2 Chronicles 26:16-21). David and Solomon did bless the people and offer sacrifices on special occasions (2 Samuel 6:17-18; 1 Kings 8:62-64), but they were not priests. Psalm 110:4 therefore looks beyond ordinary kingship to a king of a new kind.

Priesthood is older than Israel's law. Before Sinai, fathers offered sacrifice for their households (Genesis 8:20; Job 1:5), and Jethro, a priest of Midian, offered sacrifice and ate with Moses and the elders (Exodus 18:12). Melchizedek shows that God had a true worshiper and priest outside Abram's line. At the same time his blessing fulfills what God had promised Abram: that he would be blessed and that through him others would be blessed (Genesis 12:2-3). In Genesis 14 Abram is the one receiving blessing from a priest. The priest's work is already complete in outline: he stands between God and a man, brings the blessing down, carries the praise up, and receives a tithe as a sign of acknowledgment.

In the rest of the Old Testament, kingship and priesthood are kept separate. Aaron and his sons are given the priesthood by a perpetual statute (Exodus 29:9), and the kings come from Judah. Zechariah sees them joined in the future: the Branch will build the temple, will rule, and there will be a priest on his throne, with peaceful counsel between the two offices (Zechariah 6:12-13). Psalm 110:4 and Zechariah 6 are both promises, and both are pictures of a king who is also priest. The oath of Psalm 110:4 differs from the statute of Aaron: it promises something permanent and uses the lesser, earlier figure of Melchizedek as its pattern.

In the New Testament, Psalm 110:1 is the Old Testament verse most often quoted or echoed. It stands behind the preaching of the resurrection and ascension (Acts 2:34-35), Paul's account of Christ's reign (1 Corinthians 15:25; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1), Peter's (1 Peter 3:22), and the opening claim of Hebrews (1:3, 13). Psalm 110:4 is used only in Hebrews (5:6, 10; 6:20; 7:11, 15, 17, 21), which is the New Testament's one sustained argument about Christ's priesthood. Hebrews 7:11-12 states the main point: if perfection had come through the Levitical priesthood, there would have been no need for another priest of a different order, and a change of priesthood requires a change of law.

The connection is promise and fulfillment, with Melchizedek as a type. Hebrews does not say that Melchizedek was Christ. It says he was made to resemble the Son of God (7:3), and it reads the silence of Genesis about his father, mother, genealogy and death as a picture that Scripture has drawn. His name and city give 'king of righteousness' and 'king of peace' (7:2), and Jesus is the righteous king whose reign brings peace (Isaiah 9:6-7; Romans 5:1). The priesthood of Jesus is not by descent, because he came from Judah, a tribe about which Moses said nothing concerning priests (7:14), and is by the power of an indestructible life (7:16).

Genesis 14 shows a priest who blesses and who is greater than Abraham, and Hebrews argues that Jesus is greater still. The tithe from Abraham passes through him to Levi, who was, in a figure, still in Abraham's body when the tenth was paid (7:9-10). The oath of Psalm 110:4 sets Jesus above the Levitical priests, who died and so were many (7:23), while he continues forever and 'always lives to intercede' for those who come to God through him (7:25). The author adds that such a priest is 'holy, innocent, undefiled' and needs no sacrifice for his own sins (7:26-27). The king of Psalm 110 sits at God's right hand, and Hebrews unites the two lines: Christ is king in the line of David and priest by the oath (8:1; 10:12).

Jesus himself used Psalm 110:1 to ask how David's son could be David's Lord (Mark 12:35-37), and at his trial he joined it to Daniel 7:13 when he said the Son of Man would sit at the right hand of Power (Mark 14:62). Both lines are fulfilled in the one who rose and ascended. The bread and wine have been read since early centuries as an echo of the Lord's Supper, but Hebrews 7 does not make that link, so the class calls it an echo only.