Ah, the first account of war in the Bible! Those who know me well will remember that I am a student of the art of war, and though not many details are given here there are a couple of things I find interesting. The main observation, though, is that an army of four allied kings, which had just gone on quite a campaign of conquest throughout the region and defeated five kings arrayed against them at Siddim, was routed by Abram with his 318 trained men and a few allies. That seems quite a feat, though of course Abram had God on his side. I wonder what sort of troop numbers there were involved - and did Abram defeat the entire enemy army or was just a section of it guarding the captured people and goods?
The other neat thing in this section is the appearance of Melchizedek, who is described as the king of Salem and a priest of the Lord. Abram's gift of "a tenth of all" (NAS) to this priest-king is the first example of tithing I know of. He is made mention of again in the New Testament, when it is said that Jesus was "a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek" (NAS). What does that make Melchizedek? I seem to recall in high school Bible classes that he was a "type" of Christ - not an incarnation of Him, but an example of what Christ's leadership would be like. His place of kingship is also interesting, as Salem seems to be identified with the city we now know as Jerusalem! Even in the most ancient of times it seems that place was a center for worship, as it should still be today (and will be in the end times).
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New America Standard, New King James, New International
Voting on Laws
15 years ago
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Just to let you know, I am still with you on this journey. I just haven't had much to add in the past few days. Keep up the great work, my friend. By the way, thanks for the comment re: Gilgamesh, I also found that interesting, but didn't have a lot of time to research it further.
I'm glad you are still with me, sir! Don't worry if you go a while without leaving comments - a lot of these early books especially are going to have little to talk about anyways (or so it seems to me). My brother is actually going to start reading daily as well, once I am done with Genesis; apparently he has read that four times already in recent memory.
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