Meditationen am Gnadenstuhl: Good Friday - About Melchizadek
Friday of Holy Week
Daily Lectionary Readings: Exodus 12:29-32; 13:1-16; Hebrews 6:1-20; (Lamentations 5:1-22; Psalm 22)
Hebrews 5:5-6 [5] So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him,
“You are my Son,
today I have begotten you”;
[6] as he says also in another place,
“You are a priest forever,
after the order of Melchizedek.”
Today’s meditation is a little paper I wrote a few years ago regarding Melchizedek. We won’t have a meditation for Holy Saturday or Easter. I hope all will take advantage of our “Easter Vigil” online service of prayer and Scripture on our YouTube channel, as well as our sermons and services posted online, if you are unable to attend the Divine Service on Easter Sunday. We will resume daily devotions on Monday.
There is perhaps no more enigmatic figure in the Pentateuch than Melchizedek, mentioned only twice in the Hebrew scriptures, in Genesis 14 and Psalm 110, and in the book of Hebrews. The only other similarly mysterious figures in the Hebrew scriptures are the Nephilim, mentioned in Genesis chapter six. Melchizedek, like the Nephilim, is subject to two widely diverse interpretations: the literal and the mystic such as those found in the writings of the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. While much ink had been shed concerning these mystical interpretations, it will be shown that when handling difficult historical passages of the Bible, the simplest means of allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture in a literal manner is best. It will also be demonstrated that Melchizedek, like many figures in the Old Testament, is an archetype of Christ. Ultimately, it will be shown that whether one considers Melchizedek a type of Christ or a Christophany does not change the homiletical approach to the text. We meet Melchizedek in only three short verses of this pericope:
17After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King's Valley). 18And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) 19And he blessed him and said,
“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
Possessor of heaven and earth;
20and blessed be God Most High,
who has delivered your enemies into your hand!”
And Abram gave him a tenth of everything. 21And the king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself.” 22But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have lifted my hand to the LORD, God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth, 23that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’ 24I will take nothing but what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me. Let Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre take their share.”1
Genesis chapters twelve through twenty-two relate Abram’s journey of faith and trust in the promises of the Lord, and also relates Abram’s doubt when threats and obstacles to the fulfillment of the promises arise.2 It begins with his call by the Lord to leave his homeland and journey to Egypt. Here Abram’s resolve is tested as he must present his wife Sarai as his sister to preserve his life from Pharaoh. Abram and his family are sent out of Egypt upon the discovery that Sarai is indeed his wife after the Lord sent plagues upon Pharaoh because of her. After leaving Egypt, Abram and his family travel with Lot into the Negeb3 to Bethel where Abram had first constructed an altar to the Lord. Here Abram and Lot separate – Lot into the Jordan Valley and Abram in Canaan, as the land could not support both men’s livestock.
The stage is now set for Abram’s encounter with Melchizedek, after the war of the kings in the Valley of Siddim in which Lot was captured with all his family and goods.4 We next see Abram as a warrior, leading 318 trained men into battle by night, splitting their forces to defeat Lot’s captors and bring Lot and his family back with them. It is here that Abram encounters and is blessed by Melchizedek.
Immediately after, in Genesis fifteen, God makes a covenant with Abram, defining the lands that would belong to his descendants, which would be more numerous than the stars, and that Abram would enjoy “good long life.” Abram is again tested in Genesis sixteen because of Sarai’s barrenness, to lie with her maidservant Hagar in order to bear him a son, Ishmael, who becomes the father of the Arab peoples.
Next Abram receives a new name from the Lord, Abraham, and the covenant of circumcision in chapter seventeen leading into Abraham’s receipt of the promise of Isaac’s birth to Sarai, now called Sarah. In chapter eighteen Abraham meets three strangers and brings them food and drink, in a reversal of the actions of Melchizedek. Finally, Abraham intercedes for Sodom, to no avail, and Sodom is destroyed by the Lord.
As one reads through the Abram / Abraham narrative, the curious encounter with Melchizedek in Genesis fourteen seems almost to be an intrusion into the flow of the story, as Tremper and Longmen note.5 Indeed, Horton considers verses eighteen to twenty of Genesis fourteen to be a later insertion,6 though his reasoning that one can simply remove these verses and find that the narrative flows seamlessly is dubious scholarship at best. Rather, we agree with Gieschen that what is initially of note in this passage is the very first mention of a priest in the Pentateuch as well as application of Divine names to him7, which sets this encounter apart as important, and has thus spawned a wealth of writings about him by both Jewish and Christian authors. John Calvin states that “it is not to be doubted that God had constituted [Melchizedek] the only head of the whole Church.”8 It is the confluence of the office of king with the office of priest which makes Melchizedek initially so intriguing, and ultimately so unique that the writer to the Hebrews references him when referring to Christ: “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”9
There are several other ways in which Melchizedek is set apart in this text. The first is his kingdom, Salem, which means “peace” and is widely recognized to be the ancient name of Jerusalem (City of Peace)10, the future kingdom of King David. Secondly, Melchizedek’s name means “King of Righteousness.”11 He is described as being the “Priest of God Most High.” Melchizedek is further highlighted by his priesthood of the One True God in lands surrounded by pagan kings. Thirdly is the manner in which Abram’s encounter with Melchizedek is interjected into the narrative in the form of a Hebraic chiasm:
A Blessed be Abram by El Elyon
B who is Creator of heaven and earth (v.19)
A’ And blessed be El Elyon
B’ who delivered your enemies into your hand (v.20).12
which is also noted by Horton, who goes on to say that the entire pericope centers around this blessing.13 We also have the contrast of Abram’s response to Melchizedek with that to the king of Sodom. Abram makes it clear that he wanted nothing to do with the king of Sodom, yet appears grateful for the attentions of the king of Salem14 when Melchizedek brings out bread and wine to refresh Abram and his men. Indeed Abram appears to recognize Melchizedek as a fellow worshiper of the One True God, submitting to his blessing and offering him a tithe of his war spoils.15 Luther draws the obvious connection between Melchizedek’s “bringing out” (distributing) of bread and wine to Christ’s institution of His Holy Supper.16 From these points we can see that Melchizedek points forward to not only the priest-king office of King David but to the Great High Priest and King, Jesus Christ. Melchizedek is a type of both David and ultimately Christ.
The Enochian literature offers some tantalizing information to support Melchizedek’s apparent immortality and divinity, narrating that he was taken by the archangel Gabriel and deposited in Eden to preserve him from the global flood.17 Ephram the Syrian holds that he is Shem, the son of Noah, while Chrysostom makes much of his lack of ancestry or beginning of life.18 One must ask, however, why would such an important figure as Shem need to be hidden behind an enigmatic construct like Melchizedek? While he may or may not be an example of a Christophany, Melchizedek’s description in Hebrews 7:3 as “without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life” may simply establish that these facts about Melchizedek are neither mentioned nor significant historically. What is theologically important is the parallel drawn between Melchizedek and Christ. Christ’s priesthood is valid, because it comes from God, just as Melchizedek’s. Melchizedek is a type of Christ by the very lack of information about him, save the validity of his office. By not mentioning Melchizedek’s parentage or birth or death, he serves to foreshadow Christ’s virgin birth, being of the lineage of David (also a priest-king) and Christ’s divinity – being with the Father from eternity and reigning over creation for all time.
Just as there has been much conjecture about the “sons of God” and the “daughters of man” intermarrying in Genesis 6:1-4 to produce some type of “angel-human” hybrids, so too much has been put forth to attempt to fill in the blanks surrounding the mysterious Melchizedek. If we let Scripture speak for itself, the simple answer to the Genesis six passage is that the sons of God, the line of Seth, intermarried with the daughters of man, those people who participate in the increasing corruption on the Earth.19 Accordingly, if we let Scripture interpret Scripture for Melchizedek, we find that, Theosophy or not, the simplest explanation is the best.
We find that Melchizedek is a figure set apart by his unique office, unique name, unusual actions for a king, and his blessing of Abram and use of divine names. Keil and Delitzsch point out:
“there was something very significant in the appearance in the midst of the degenerate tribes of Canaan of this king of righteousness, and priest of the true God of heaven and earth, without any account of his descent, or of the beginning and end of his life; so that he stands forth in the Scriptures… Although it by no means follows from this, however, that Melchizedek was a celestial being (the Logos or an angel), or one of the primeval patriarchs (Enoch or Shem)… we can see in him nothing more than one, perhaps the last, of the witnesses and confessors of the early revelation of God, coming out into the light of history from the dark night of heathenism; yet this appearance does point to a priesthood of universal significance, and to a higher order of things, which existed at the commencement of the world, and is one day to be restored again.”20
In all these aspects, the noble figure of Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of the Most High God was a type of the God-King and eternal High Priest Jesus Christ on the basis of this brief encounter with Abram, and of the word of the Holy Spirit imparted to King David, that the King of Zion sent forth from the right hand of the Lord should be “a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek”21
Melchizedek appears suddenly and briefly in the text and is never heard from again. The writer to the Hebrews references him over two-thousand years later. Why? In order to highlight both what is said and left unsaid about him, in order to establish the legitimacy of a royal office holding a non-Levitical priesthood.22 This curious figure, whether a Christophany or merely an archetype of Christ unique to the Scriptures, points forward to Jesus Christ and the Great High Priest and King of all creation. Melchizedek blessed the Lord for the conquest of his enemies and came out to serve his servant Abram. Greater than Melchizedek is Jesus Christ, who comes to serve us with His body and blood for the life of the world. Soli Deo Gloria!
1Genesis 14:17-24 (ESV).
2Longman, Tremper. The Story of God Bible Commentary: Genesis. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2016, pp.162-163.
3Genesis 13:1.
4Genesis 14:1-12.
5Longman, Tremper. Genesis. p.183.
6Horton, Fred L. The Melchizedek Tradition: A Critical Examination of the Sources to the Fifth Century A.D. and in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. p.13.
7Gieschen, Charles A. Angelomorphic Christology : Antecedents And Early Evidence. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017. p.171.
8Calvin, Jean. Genesis. Edinburgh Carlisle, Pa: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975. p.387.
9Hebrews 6:19–20 (ESV).
10Mathews, K. A. The New American Commentary, Volume 1B, Genesis 11:27-50:26. Nashville, Tenn: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996. p.148.
11Alter, Robert. The Five Books of Moses: A Translation With Commentary. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2004.p.71.
12Mathews, Genesis 11:27-50:26. p.149.
13Horton, The Melchizedek Tradition. p.15-16.
14Longman, Tremper. Genesis. p.188.
15Longman, Tremper. Genesis. p.187.
16Luther, Martin, et al. Luther's works, Volume 2, Lectures on Genesis Chapters 6 to 14. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1960. p.387.
17Charlesworth, James H. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1983. pp.206-212.
18Sheridan, Mark, and Thomas C. Oden. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Old Testament II, Genesis 12-50. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2002. p.26.
19Engelbrecht, Edward, and Paul E. Deterding. The Lutheran Study Bible: English Standard Version. Saint Louis: Concordia Pub. House, 2009. p.24.
20Keil, Karl F, and Franz Delitzsch. Commentary on Genesis. Amazon Digital Services, 2014. Kindle. Location 3599.
21Psalm 110:4b (ESV).
22The New Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2006. Vol. IV. pp.685-686