Recognizing God - Genesis 14

Bible Study Lesson for August 5

Genesis 14 is a strange story in the book of Genesis. It doesn’t connect much to what happens before or after it. It does present us with a rare look at Bronze Era politics in Canaan. There is a rebellion and a war, which endangers Abram’s nephew Lot, and leads to a strange encounter between Abram and an otherwise unknown king and priest, Melchizedek of Salem. We will unpack a few things from this story, but the main idea is that Abram’s faithfulness to God leads him to teach a righteous king more about the Lord.

Verses 1-11 (Setting and Upsetting)

These verses tell of a war between city-states. They seem to indicate a failed rebellion of the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and their allies against King Chedorlaomer of Elam and his allies. The barest details are given, but this type of rebellion would have been common in a world of shifting political power. One city would sense a loss of power in a city that it served and would seek to regain its independence or establish its own small empire in the region. Scholars sometimes compare this type of empire-building to gang wars over neighborhoods within a modern city or region. The importance of this event for the narrative in Genesis is that it results in Lot being captured.

Verses 12-17 (Abram To the Rescue)

Lot’s capture is what brings Abram into the story. When Abram learns of Lot’s capture, he comes up from his place in the south to go and rescue his nephew. While the text doesn’t directly say it, it is fair to assume that Abram’s victory, with his army of 318 men, is a result of God’s favor and providence. Abram uses a nighttime attack to overcome his disadvantage in being outnumbered, and he prevails in bringing back Lot and the captured goods and people to the kings who had been defeated.

Verses 18-24 (Tell Them the Name)

These verses are the heart of this passage, and have been the most important for later biblical interpretation. Melchizedek shows up in the story without much explanation. Tradition holds that the “Salem” of which he is king is the site of the city of Jerusalem. In this story, it is difficult for us to see exactly what is going on because of the way the original Hebrew has been translated into English. Melchizedek is identified as a priest of “God Most High,” which in Hebrew is El-Elyon, a god of the Canaanites that we know of from other sources. But El-Elyon is not a name, but rather a title, and so Abram is able to use that title to identify “God most high, maker of heaven and earth” by using the personal name of God, Yahweh, translated in our Bibles as Lord.

Abram’s naming of El-Elyon as Yahweh is interesting because it shows us that Abram knows who Yahweh is: the Highest God, the maker of heaven and earth. What makes Melchizedek different from other priests the people of Israel will encounter is that he is worshipping Yahweh, even if he doesn’t know exactly who he is worshipping. Abram is able to introduce him to Yahweh, the Highest God who created the heavens and the earth.

Walter Brueggemann points out that Abram’s move in identifying Yahweh as “God Most High” is similar to Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill (Acts 17:22-31). In that story, Paul encounters the Athenian altar to “an unknown god,” and he uses that as a jumping-off point to proclaim to them that the God that they do not know has no need of their altars or their sacrifices, but that this God wishes to draw near to them in relationship.

In the broader story of Genesis, this story gives us an example of what it means for Abram to “invoke the name of the Lord” (Genesis 12:8). To paraphrase, Melchizedek says to Abram “the god who did this for you is a good god,” and Abram says, “yes, and let me tell you his name.” There are two ways for God to relate to other religious practices. The most common one is competition. We see that throughout the Old Testament as God has conflict with Dagon of the Philistines (1 Samuel 5), and throughout the Kings narratives with Baal (see especially 1 Kings 18). These gods are presented as rivals and pretenders, falsely claiming the Lord’s authority for themselves. But there are other religious traditions that are basically viewed as “almost there.” They just need clarification.

I am reminded of a story that I heard of some missionaries who went to share the gospel with a tribe who had never heard it before. They went through the whole story of Jesus, his ministry, his crucifixion and resurrection, his atonement of our sins. When they finished, a hush fell over the crowd gathered there, and they conferred for a moment, and then said to the missionaries, “Thank you for telling us his name.” They had an impulse. They had an idea about who God was, and they saw it more fully laid out in the story of Jesus. Like Melchizedek, they had been worshipping the true God, they just needed to know a little bit more to better understand Who that God was.

In the past couple of sermons, I have been talking about how we can share our testimonies to inspire faith in other people. In this story Abram doesn’t miss a chance to tell people about the God he worships. He informs Melchizedek of the identity of the “God most high” and he also tells the king of Sodom that this God has brought him success. 1 Peter 3:15 says, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you and accounting for the hope that is in you....” It is my hope that in telling people about what God has done for me, I can inspire them to faith and help them recognize God’s activity in their own lives.