translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: GEN

label: NET study note

text: Shinar (also in v. 9 ) is the region of Babylonia.


text: On the geographical background of vv. 1-2 see J. P. Harland, “Sodom and Gomorrah,” The Biblical Archaeologist Reader , 1:41-75; and D. N. Freedman, “The Real Story of the Ebla Tablets, Ebla and the Cities of the Plain,” BA 41 (1978): 143-64.


text: The Salt Sea is the older name for the Dead Sea.


text: The story serves as a foreshadowing of the plight of the kingdom of Israel later. Eastern powers came and forced the western kingdoms into submission. Each year, then, they would send tribute east – to keep them away. Here, in the thirteenth year, they refused to send the tribute (just as later Hezekiah rebelled against Assyria). And so in the fourteenth year the eastern powers came to put them down again. This account from Abram’s life taught future generations that God can give victory over such threats – that people did not have to live in servitude to tyrants from the east.


text: The line of attack ran down the eastern side of the Jordan Valley into the desert, and then turned and came up the valley to the cities of the plain.


text: The reference to the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah must mean the kings along with their armies. Most of them were defeated in the valley, but some of them escaped to the hills.


text: E. A. Speiser ( Genesis [AB], 103) suggests that part of this chapter came from an outside source since it refers to Abram the Hebrew . That is not impossible, given that the narrator likely utilized traditions and genealogies that had been collected and transmitted over the years. The meaning of the word “Hebrew” has proved elusive. It may be related to the verb “to cross over,” perhaps meaning “immigrant.” Or it might be derived from the name of Abram’s ancestor Eber (see Gen 11:14-16 ).


text: The use of the name Dan reflects a later perspective. The Danites did not migrate to this northern territory until centuries later (see Judg 18:29 ). Furthermore Dan was not even born until much later. By inserting this name a scribe has clarified the location of the region.


text: The King’s Valley is possibly a reference to what came to be known later as the Kidron Valley.


text: Salem is traditionally identified as the Jebusite stronghold of old Jerusalem. Accordingly, there has been much speculation about its king. Though some have identified him with the preincarnate Christ or with Noah’s son Shem, it is far more likely that Melchizedek was a Canaanite royal priest whom God used to renew the promise of the blessing to Abram, perhaps because Abram considered Melchizedek his spiritual superior. But Melchizedek remains an enigma. In a book filled with genealogical records he appears on the scene without a genealogy and then disappears from the narrative. In the Lord declares that the Davidic king is a royal priest after the pattern of Melchizedek.


text: Who delivered . The Hebrew verb מִגֵּן ( miggen , “delivered”) foreshadows the statement by God to Abram in Gen 15:1 , “I am your shield” ( מָגֵן , magen ). Melchizedek provided a theological interpretation of Abram’s military victory.