Melchizedek Blesses Abram

Genesis 14 tells of a war. Four allied kings, among them Chedorlaomer of Elam, defeated the kings of Sodom and four neighbouring cities and carried off Lot, the nephew of Abram. Abram led out 318 trained men born in his household, pursued the victors as far as Dan, attacked by night and chased them to Hobah, north of Damascus. He brought back Lot, the other captives and the goods (Genesis 14:1–16).

On his return the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the valley of Shaveh, the King’s Valley (Genesis 14:17). Genesis continues: “Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine: and he was priest of God Most High” (Genesis 14:18). Melchizedek pronounced a blessing on Abram, and blessed God Most High for delivering Abram’s enemies into his hand. Abram gave him a tenth of everything (Genesis 14:19–20). The king of Sodom asked for the people and offered Abram the goods. Abram refused them, saying that he had sworn to “Yahweh, God Most High” to take nothing that was the king’s (Genesis 14:21–24).

Genesis does not say where Salem lay. Psalm 76 names Salem in parallel with Zion (Psalm 76:2). Josephus, retelling the story in the first century AD, adds that Salem was afterwards called Jerusalem (Josephus, Antiquities 1.180–181). In the Jewish War he says that the city’s founder was a Canaanite ruler called “the Righteous King”, the meaning he gives in the Antiquities to the name Melchizedek, and that this man was the first to build a temple there and gave Salem the name Jerusalem (Josephus, Jewish War 6.438) (Josephus, Antiquities 1.180–181). The identification rests on such later texts.

Psalm 110 addresses one who is told to sit at God’s right hand and to rule from Zion, and adds an oath: “You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek” (Psalm 110:1–4). A Hebrew scroll found in fragments in Cave 11 at Qumran focuses on him. As the Israel Antiquities Authority describes it, the text portrays Melchizedek as a heavenly saviour who will rescue the righteous at the final judgment (11QMelchizedek the Israel Antiquities Authority’s description).

The letter to the Hebrews applies the psalm’s oath to Jesus (Hebrews 5:5–10). It reads the name Melchizedek as “king of righteousness” and king of Salem as “king of peace”, and notes that he appears “without father, without mother, without genealogy” (Hebrews 7:1–3). Because Abraham paid him a tithe and received his blessing, Hebrews argues, his priesthood ranks above that of Abraham’s descendant Levi (Hebrews 7:4–10). Jesus, the letter goes on, came from the tribe of Judah and not from Levi; he is a priest of this other order and, because he lives for ever, holds his priesthood permanently (Hebrews 7:11–17, 23–25).

Later readers differ over the bread and wine. The Catholic Church sees in Melchizedek’s gesture a prefiguring of its own offering in the Eucharist (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1333). In the sixteenth century John Calvin rejected that reading: Melchizedek gave the bread and wine to refresh Abram and his men, he wrote, and Hebrews rests its argument on the blessing (Calvin, Institutes 4.18.2).