Mamre The Covenant

Ur formed the starting point of the small Hebrew clan, the 'people from beyond the river', on their great and mysterious adventure; Haran was the pastoral setting for YAHWEH's revelation; Shechem, at the Oak of Moreh, was the place of the Promise; Bethel was the place where the promise was confirmed and made explicit. And now at Mamre, quite close to Hebron, once again under an oak, the ceremony of the Covenant was to take place.

At The Oak Of Mamre

Abram went with his tents to settle at the Oak of Mamre, at Hebron (Bereshith 13:18).

Bethel, situated to the north of what was to become Yerusalem was far too near to the important trading routes and to those Canaanite cities where idolatrous and obscene forms of worship were well established. The nomad shepherds definitely preferred the highlands of Judaea where the scarcity of the population ensured almost complete isolation.

Thus there was another journey and another camp. They settled some twenty miles to the south of the rock where already was established the Canaanite city which was one day to become the qadash city of Yerusalem. This time the camp site seems to have been well chosen since Abram settled there for a very long time and it was there that he was to die.

The Oak of Mamre, like the Oak of Moreh, was certainly one of the numerous set apart trees such as were held in reverence by the idolaters as the dwelling-place of a deity. These trees were sometimes reputed to furnish oracles. The Oak of Mamre stood nearly a mile north of the village of Hebron at the place now known as Ramet el-Khalil, 'the hill of the Friend'. 

Abram's Counter-Attack

News was brought to Abram that four Mesopotamian kings, whose names and titles are given by the Scriptures 1, had invaded the southern part of the country. When they arrived before Sodom and Gomorrah the 'kings' of these two cities gave battle but were routed. After their victory, won in the country bordering the Dead Sea, the Mesopotamians set off home taking with them, in accordance with the custom of the times, prisoners and booty. The survivor who brought the news to Abram told him also that Lot and his clan, who had settled at Sodom, formed part of the horde of prisoners now on their way to the Euphrates.

Without delay Abram armed three hundred and eighteen of his men ('members of his household from birth') and with 'his allies' went in pursuit of the raiders. Somewhere near Dan, right in the north of Canaan, near the source of the Yordan, he fell upon the rear-guard of the invaders, taking them by surprise; in their triumph they had not allowed sufficiently for a counter-attack. Abram succeeded in setting Lot free and returned south with him together with all the goods. and his possessions, together with the women and people'. In other words with the whole clan.

Scriptural commentators agree that this chapter does not belong to the Yahwistic or Elohistic sources; it is rather a warlike account which finds a natural place in the history of nomads.

1 Amraphel, king of Shinar; Arioch, king of Ellasar; Chedorlaomer, king of Elam; and Tidal, king of the Goiim Modern historians have so far been unable to identify any of these names in the royal lists of Mesopotamia, but they belong to Mesopotamian or Elamitic nomenclature of this ancient period. These 'kings of Mesopotamia' give the impression of being petty kings (patesi) or even merely Bedouin chieftains.

The Qadash Meeting Of Abram And Melchizedek

Melchizedek, king of Salem brought bread and wine; he was a kohen of YAHWEH Most High. He pronounced this blessing:
'Blessed be Abram by YAHWEH Most High, creator of heaven and earth,
and blessed be YAHWEH Most High for handing over your enemies to you.'

And Abram Gave Him A Tithe Of Everything (Bereshith 14:18-20).

This is a very intriguing part of the story. Abram was on his way back from the north of Palestine after the defeat of the four kings of Mesopotamia and the liberation of Lot. To regain his camp at Hebron he took the Valley of Shaveh, that is, the Valley of the King. Josephus says that this place lay within a quarter of a mile of Yerusalem. Suddenly, with nothing to prepare us for the encounter, there appears an astonishing personage Melchizedek, king of Yerusalem. According to the exegetes these verses of Bereshith were inserted after the composition of this chapter, which belongs to a special category and is very ancient. The literal sense of the verses is this.

Melchizedek, king of Salem (very probably Yerusalem) comes to congratulate Abram on his recent victory. By Abram's military operation Melchizedek was freed from certain danger. On the other hand, he was well aware that Abram represented a by no means negligible force and thus his gesture was intended as a token of friendship towards the victorious patriarch. He therefore brought with him choice provisions, bread and wine, for the men exhausted by the fighting during the previous days. Abram, not wishing to be outdone by the king, gave him a part of the booty obtained in the battle. Mutual blessings were pronounced to 'YAHWEH Most High' (E/-E/yon); this name was attributed by Melchizedek to his YAHWEH (Shalem, regarded as the great god of the region). Abram, who knew the only true YAHWEH, had no intention of starting a theological discussion; he accepted the blessings of Melchizedek, but attributed them to YAHWEH. After this meal Melchizedek disappears from the historical annals of the Hebrews as suddenly as he had appeared. That is all, in the literal meaning of the passage.

But we have here the first contact of Yisrael (in the person of its father Abram) with Yerusalem. And this explains why the scriptural writer recorded this ancient memory with such care.

This is the first time that we encounter the symbolism of the episode which recurs on different occasions in the Old and New Testaments. In addition, David, after capturing Yerusalem, for that reason was to become the representative, that is, the kohen, of the true YAHWEH who was acknowledged as the only 'Most High', a kohen of the order of Melchizedek, because he was king of Yerusalem. Subsequently, Melchizedek was regarded by theologians as a figure of the MessiYah; they did so following the text of Bereshith and the Tehillim, whose origins go back to a thousand years before our era. At all events, after this warlike interlude Abram returned to his camp in the oak-grove at Mamre.

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