Smooth Operator - Genesis 14:1-24

After parting ways with Lot, Abraham finds himself in a bit of a pickle. There is a list of kings and cities that these kings are in charge of and all their fighting each other, I’m not exactly sure what their army make up was, as far as how many soldiers they had, what kind of weaponry, etc. but it turns out that when Sodom and Gomorrah are conquered, Lot and his people and “his goods” were captured as well. One of Lot’s people managed to escape and went to Abram for help. Abram heard this and “armed his trained servants, born into his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan.” Again, I don’t know the make up of these enemy armies, but my guess is that they have significantly more than 318 guys, so it probably would have been a terrifying prospect to go up against these armies that far outnumbered you. It seems like Abram knows this so he uses a sneak attack similar to that of Teancum, in which he “divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them… and he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people.” It’s possible that Abram and his people were just such exceptional operators that they were able to liberate prisoners from a superior force, but my guess is that a lot has to do with the fact that Abram was righteous and so protected by God. Just another example of “the most important factor in winning a military engagement is your righteousness.” I don’t know if the king of Sodom was also taken prisoner and freed by Abram or if the king was never taken, but when Abram brought Lot and all the prisoners he rescued back, it seems that both the king of Sodom and “Melchezidek king of Salem” came out to celebrate him. Melchezidek brought bread and wine out and “he brake bread and blest it; and he blest the wine, he being the priest of the might high God.” That last bit is a JST but it seems to add a lot of depth to exactly what Melchezidek’s celebratory mind was at, and he praises “blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hands.” Even Melchezidek notes that Abram’s success was attributed to divine intervention and not any skill of his own. The king of Sodom celebrated Abram in a different way saying, “give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself.” I never understood why this is significant, but apparently anciently, and probably even in modern day as well, “to the victor goes the spoils.” So the attacking tribe would have plundered Sodom and all the other cities that they conquered, so when Abram beat them he must have taken all that stuff back. So when the king of Sodom says “just give me the people and you can keep the stuff,” he’s offering Abram all the wealth of the army that he just defeated which is a pretty good gesture seeing as how I’m sure that the king of Sodom wanted that stuff as well. Abram declines the offer though saying, “I have lift up mind hand unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich.” I never understood this, because I grew up poor and wanted money as security more than anything, but what I get from this is Abram saying, “the Lord provided my victory and I trust that the Lord will take care of my physical welfare too, everything I get comes from God, not you.” He does stipulate though that he only wants what his men have eaten and it appears that he allows his “portion of the men which went with me,” and names three of them specifically “let them take their portion.” It seems like he’s saying, “I don’t want it, but they can take what is rightfully theirs,” which is interesting and gives a nod to agency.