Genesis14chapter 14

This chapter is heard inside the third portion of the annual cycle, in the same sitting as the call of Abram and the covenant that follows it (src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts). The war of the kings, the rescue of Lot and the meeting with Melchizedek are read without a break. The card above carries the portion and the prophetic reading set beside it.

Every comment the corpus holds on this chapter is kept with its English text, which is true of no other chapter in these twenty five. Rashi is quoted here from the public domain Rosenbaum and Silbermann edition, and Radak from the CC-BY translation of Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash.

Rashi reads the names of the kings for their meaning. Amraphel he identifies with Nimrod, and he reads the name as the man who told Abraham to plunge into the fiery furnace (Rashi on Genesis 14:1:1, citing Eruvin 53a). Bera he reads as a name of evil, toward God and toward people (Rashi on Genesis 14:2:1, citing Midrash Tanchuma, Lech Lecha 8). He reads En-mishpat as a name given for what would happen there later, at the waters of Meribah, and he gives the plain sense of Onkelos beside it (Rashi on Genesis 14:7:1).

Radak reads the war itself as a matter of numbers and expectation. The five kings went out expecting other subject kingdoms to join them, and expecting weight of numbers to tell. He holds that the four won so that Abram would gain the name he gained by the rescue (Radak on Genesis 14:8:1). Rashi reads the same point from the count of the kings, that the fewer won and that Abram pursued them even so (Rashi on Genesis 14:9:1).

Rashi reads the share of the spoil at the end of the chapter as a precedent. Abraham gave a portion to Aner, Eshcol and Mamre, who had stayed with the baggage while his servants fought. David made that the rule in Israel. The share of the man who stays with the stores is the share of the man who goes down to the battle (Rashi on Genesis 14:24:1, citing 1 Samuel 30:24 and 30:25).

Rashi carries four sayings of the rabbis on this chapter, and each stands here as what they taught.

The first is the one a Christian reader meets first. On the eighteenth verse Rashi reports the Midrashic reading that Melchizedek is "identical with Shem, son of Noah" (Rashi on Genesis 14:18:1, citing Nedarim 32b). The letter to the Hebrews reads the same figure another way, as a priest whose line is not traced, and the two readings are named here with their holders.

The second is on the pits of the tenth verse. Rashi reports that the clay was thick enough to hold a man, and that the king of Sodom came out of it by a miracle. Some of the nations had doubted that Abraham came out of the furnace at Ur, and they believed it after seeing that escape (Rashi on Genesis 14:10:1).

The third is on the man who escaped and brought the news. Rashi gives Og as the plain sense, the one left of the Rephaim. He reports the Midrash that reads him as the last of that generation (Rashi on Genesis 14:13:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 42:8 and Midrash Tanchuma). The fourth is on Lot. Rashi asks what brought the capture on him, and answers that it was his dwelling in Sodom (Rashi on Genesis 14:12:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 42:7).

The corpus records forty places where the Midrash and the Talmud cite this chapter, thirty four under Midrash and six under Talmud, with the locator for each one and no text. Bereshit Rabbah reads the fourth verse at 42:6, the tenth at 42:7 and the sixteenth at 41:3 and 43:4. It reads the twenty first verse at 43:9 and the twenty fourth at 67:12.

Aggadat Bereshit reads the thirteenth verse at 19:3, the fourteenth at 13:3, the fifteenth at 46:3, the eighteenth at 43:1, the nineteenth at 50:2 and the twenty second at 45:1. Bamidbar Rabbah reads the first verse at 10:5, the seventh at 19:14, the thirteenth at 16:16, the fifteenth at 20:12, the seventeenth at 15:14 and the twentieth at 12:11. Kohelet Rabbah reads the ninth verse at 5:15:1, and Bereshit Rabbati reads the seventh at Parashat Bereshit 72.

The Talmud is cited at Chullin 95b:8 on the tenth verse and Chullin 89a:1 on the twenty third. The Jerusalem Talmud reads the third verse at Taanit 4:2:12. Avot DeRabbi Natan is cited at 34:5 and 34:6, and its second recension at 38:6.