And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaim in Ashteroth-karnaim, and the Zuzim in Ham, and the Emim in Shaveh-Kirjathaim,
In the fourteenth year the eastern kings come back in force and crush three peoples before they ever reach Sodom. Commentators treat this as the first battle recorded in Scripture, and as a picture of a power the world cannot resist.
Verse 5 is the answer to the revolt of verse 4. Writers call it a campaign to win back a lost rule, wrecking cities on the way.
We have no record of a battle in the Scriptures until we reach Genesis 14. There four kings from the Mesopotamian district made an expedition towards the Dead Sea. They ravaged cities as they marched, and finally defeated the five kings of the cities of the plain… Chedorlaomer was apparently the overlord of the kings with him, and he had extended his rule over the region of Sodom. The rejection of his rule was the reason for the expedition.
The first name in the list is a Hebrew word that older translations left untranslated.
rapha means "a fearful one." In the plural, with "the" in front, it works as a proper name: the REPHAIM, or sons of Raphah. They were a race of giants who lived beyond the Jordan, and Og the giant king of Bashan came from them… At times the term Rephaim applies to any people in Canaan who were of great stature… The word Rephaim is untranslated in Gen. 14:5.
The Emim, last in the list, got their name from the people who later took their land.
A people, described as "great, and many, and tall, as the Anakim," who lived on the east of the Dead Sea. Chedorlaomer and his allied kings struck them down. Their land later passed to the Moabites, who called the people EMIM, that is, "terrible."
Ashteroth-karnaim, the first battlefield in the verse, is named after a goddess:
Ashteroth-Karnaim — Double-horned Astarte (Phoenician); Venus.
Chedorlaomer is not a legend. Commentators point to the sheer scale of his reach.
King of Elam in the time of Abram… The inscriptions carry the name of KHUDUR-LAGAMAR king of Elam, thought to be the same as Chedorlaomer. He had subdued the five kings near the Dead Sea. That was some 700 miles away across the desert, or 1,000 by the Euphrates and through the land of Canaan.
One writer sets that fame beside a man who left no records at all:
At this point in the Scripture narrative we come to names of people that the archaeologists believe they can identify from their research into the past. Some of these greater kings, such as Amraphel and Chedorlaomer, left their mark on very ancient records. Abram the pilgrim left no mark of that kind. Years before, he had cut himself off from their cities and their whole way of life.
The kings crush six nations before they even reach Sodom. One writer sees in that advance a picture of false religion holding the world down:
The five kings were subject to Chedorlaomer for twelve years — a picture of the world held under false religion — but at last they rebelled against this bondage (v. 4)… Chedorlaomer and his allies began by defeating six nations (vv. 5-7) before they came to Sodom and Gomorrah… But the ungodly world of the flesh has little power against religion inspired by Satan. To be truly delivered from such a yoke, you need a true knowledge of the Lord Jesus.
These armies swept through the region, but the fight was never Abram's.
His tent marked him as a stranger to all these things. To him the battle of "four kings with five" would be a matter of very small importance. And his altar marked him as one whose pursuits were of quite another character, a heavenly one… It did not matter to Abram whether the crown of victory was about to rest on the head of the king of Sodom or of Chedorlaomer, king of Elam. His portion was not in danger through their strife.
- Revolt — Twelve years of submission ended in revolt, so the eastern kings came back. Verse 5 is the first blow of that campaign, not a random raid.
- Giants — The Rephaim were a race of giants living beyond the Jordan. The Emim were tall too, their name means "terrible," and Moab later took their land.
- Reach — Chedorlaomer struck some 700 miles from home, and ancient inscriptions carry his name. Abram the pilgrim left no monument at all.
- Pattern — Six nations fell before the kings even reached Sodom. One writer reads that advance as a picture of the world held down by false religion.
- Distance — The armies swept past a man with a tent and an altar; what he owned was never on the battlefield.
and the Horites on their mount Seir, to El-Paran, which is by the wilderness.
This verse sits inside a list of conquests. Four kings from the east swept south, and the Horites of Seir were one more people in their path. The names are strange and the places remote. So why does Scripture keep such a careful record of a war Abram had not yet joined?
The verse names the people struck in Mount Seir. They were the original inhabitants of that region, and their name points to how they lived:
Descendants of Seir, and the original inhabitants of Mount Seir. The children of Esau destroyed them. It is thought that they were cave-dwellers, as the name implies. The sandstone rocks of Mount Seir are full of dwellings cut into the rock. There are traces of the same throughout the region of Edom.
The mountain itself may carry a man's name:
Seir was a Horite who lived in the land, and as a chief he may have given his name to Mount Seir. The Horim were dispossessed by the children of Esau.
The march reaches El-paran, on the border of the wilderness. That name marks a spot in the far south:
Some translations put 'the plain of Paran' in the margin. It may have been a boundary mark in the wilderness of Paran, in the south of Palestine.
Chedorlaomer was no local chief. The scale of his reach says something about how early organised power arose — and how it ended:
In the days of Abraham we hear of Chedorlaomer, king of Elam. He and his three allies came 2,000 miles to punish the kings under his rule in the valley of Siddim. That is plain proof of early power. Yet the father of the faithful punished him hard.
Here the record touches ground that spades have reached:
It is an interesting fact that at this point in the Bible's story we come to names of people that archaeologists believe they can identify. Their digging into the past has turned these names up. Some of these greater kings, such as Amraphel and Chedorlaomer, left their mark on very ancient records. Abram the pilgrim would leave no mark of that kind. Years before, he had cut himself off from their cities and their whole way of life.
The Horites lost Seir twice over — first to this raid, later to Esau's descendants. One writer looks at the same peoples in Deuteronomy and sees God's purpose behind the change:
The possessions referred to here had long ago been in the hands of giants. But it was God's purpose to give their territories to the children of Esau and Lot, and so He destroyed these giants. Who or what can stand in the way of what God has planned?
Commentators also read this march as a picture:
The five kings became subject to Chedorlaomer for twelve years. This pictures the world under the control of false religion. In the end they rebelled against this bondage (v. 4). But false religion can be determined and strong, as the history of the professing church through the middle ages teaches us. Chedorlaomer and his allies began by defeating six nations (vv. 5-7) before they approached Sodom and Gomorrah.
The chapter ends with a reversal. One man stood outside this whole struggle, and he was the one who rescued its victims:
Turning away from the world is the path to victory over it. Choosing it means being held captive by its power. The powerful ones of the earth carry Lot away captive, along with the people his worldly leanings had led him to live among. Abram is free and walks in the faith of God. From God he has more force than all the kings, conquerors or conquered. He delivers Lot and the kings who could not help themselves.
- Sweep — Four kings came 2,000 miles and crushed people after people. The Horites of Seir were one of them, and the march reached the desert edge at El-paran.
- Cave — The Horites were the first people of Seir. Their name points to the rock dwellings still visible there, and the mountain may carry the name of one of their chiefs.
- Land — Seir changed hands more than once. God's purpose stood behind the change, and no power can block it.
- Monument — The invaders left their names in ancient records. Abram left none. He had already walked away from their cities and their way of life.
- Victory — The man who refused the world rescued the man who chose it.
And they returned, and came to En-mishpat, which is Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites that dwelt at Hazazon-Tamar.
Four kings are sweeping back on a long raiding march, striking the Amalekites and the Amorites before they turn on Sodom and carry Lot away. The verse reads like a list of names, yet it holds the Bible's first mention of Amalek, its first mention of Kadesh, and a war that Abram watches from outside.
Verses 5 to 7 are not a detour. They show a power crushing everything in its path before it ever reaches the cities of the plain.
Chedorlaomer and his allies began by defeating six nations (vv. 5-7) before approaching Sodom and Gomorrah. Then the king of Sodom and Gomorrah, with three other kings, went out to engage the four kings in battle (vv. 8-9).
The places named run from mountain country to open desert.
So the whole world becomes a scene of warring interests and selfish conflicts — high places and lower ones alike, the mountain or the wilderness (v. 6).
The verse gives this place two names. Kadesh, the second one, enters the Bible right here, and it returns again and again in Israel's later history.
This place is first mentioned in connection with the battle of the kings, when Lot was taken captive (Gen. 14:7). It was one of the stopping places of the Israelites, and they stayed there a long time. From there they sent the twelve spies into the land. At the end of the thirty-eight years' wandering they came back to Kadesh, and Miriam died and was buried there. It was here also that Moses struck the rock when the people complained about water.
The older name has a meaning of its own. A list of Genesis names gives it plainly:
En-mishpat — Fountain of judgment.
The last place struck goes by another name in Scripture.
Same as En-gedi. Gen. 14:7. It is Hazazontamar in 2 Chr. 20:2.
These Amorites were not strangers to Abram.
He was at the time living by the oaks of Mamre the Amorite, who with his two brothers were allies of Abram. In later years a link of this kind would have been wrong, but at this time "the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet complete" (Gen. 15:16), and the Lord makes no issue of it.
Amalek appears here for the first time. The timing raises a question commentators cannot settle.
This early mention seems to show that the Amalekites were not the descendants of Amalek, the son of Eliphaz, the son of Esau (Gen. 36:12). Unless, that is, Scripture is naming the land that the descendants of Eliphaz would later occupy.
This first mention matters because of what Amalek becomes later:
From Numbers 24:20 we learn that "Amalek was the first of the nations." He had won that place of supremacy by natural power and skill, long before Israel had become a nation. Here was Amalek, the man after the flesh, who had made himself great, resenting the intrusion of a people that God had chosen for Himself (Ex. 17).
Abram is nowhere in this verse, and that absence is the point.
His tent marked him as a stranger to all these things. It marked him as a man to whom the battle of "four kings with five" hardly mattered. And then his altar marked him as one whose pursuits were quite of another character, even a heavenly one. His tent showed him to be a stranger on earth; his altar showed him to be at home in Heaven.
Staying outside the fight did not mean staying still. When the raid carried off Lot, Abram acted.
He was not taking sides with the four kings of the Babylonian empire, or with the five kings of the cities of the plain. He had no need to enter the conflict to defend himself. It was for the express purpose of delivering a brother who had come under the power of the world.
- Sweep. Six nations fall before Sodom is even touched. Mountain and desert alike become one scene of warring interests.
- Judgment. The stop named here is En-mishpat, "fountain of judgment." Its other name is Kadesh — later the place of Israel's long wandering, the spies, Miriam's grave, and the struck rock.
- Reach. Hazazon-tamar is another name for En-gedi. The Amorites struck there share a name with Mamre, Abram's ally, whose guilt was not yet full.
- Enemy. Amalek first appears in this verse, long before Esau's grandson of that name. Commentators cannot settle the puzzle, but Amalek comes to stand for the power that resents God's chosen people.
- Outside. Abram's tent and altar kept him clear of the whole conflict. He entered it only to rescue a brother who had fallen under the world's power.