Genesis 14: Part Two
King Melchizedek of Salem – only a real bible geek or the graduate of a rigorous Sunday School class would know who this is, yet the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews comes back to him some two thousand years later to draw a comparison between this king /priest and Jesus the Christ. (Hebrews 6:19ff)
Salem is Jerusalem, Jerusalem long before King David made it the capital of a nation and long before King Solomon built Yahweh’s temple there. This is the only mention of Jerusalem in the torah (the first five books of the bible), and El Elyon, the ancient high god of the Canaanite gods, was worshiped there. King Melchizedek of Salem was a priest of this “God Most High.” He brings out bread and wine for a sacrificial meal – how else does one share communion with a god? – and blesses Abram in the name of this “maker of heaven and earth.” Here is a meal with god and humans done in the name of peace.
How are we to understand this event? Is El Yahweh? Why would Abraham respond with a tithe – ten per cent – to such a prayer to a Canaanite god when he has made covenant with Yahweh? Did Abraham consider El to be another name for Yahweh? Or was this god “close enough”? How are we to understand “other” gods?
Melchizedek became an image of the ideal king who is also the priest of a people. We see this in psalm 110:4: “The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’” His name means “king of righteousness,” and we see him here as the King of Salem, and salem means peace. The covenant is with Abraham and his descendants, yet God appears to be worshiped by these others, too. Can it be that God is allowed to operate outside the lines we understand to be drawn? Has God, perhaps, always loved the whole world?