Read Genesis 14:1-24 at Bible Gateway.
Hebrew paragraph divisions
Gen 14:1-24 {s} Signs of Messiah: victory over death, Melchizedek, bread and wine
Gen 14:1-24 chiastic structure and signs of Messiah
Gen 14 History of Ancient Kings
Amraphel king of Shinar
Shinar is the valley where Nimrod instigated the 70 nations to build the Tower of Babel. In modern scholarship it is called Sumer. Babel is the Hebrew name, Babylon is the Greek name for the same place.
Map of ancient Mesopotamia with place names
It was long accepted before the rise of modern Biblical skepticism, that Amraphel is one and the same as Hammurabi.
“Khammu-rabi, like others of his dynasty, claimed divine honors, and was addressed by his subjects as a god. In Babylonian ilu is ‘god,’ the Hebrew el, and Ammu-rapi ilu would be ‘Khammu-rabi the god.’ Now Ammu-rapi ilu is letter for letter the Amraphel of Genesis.”
A. H. Sayce, professor of Assyriology at Oxford, Monument Facts, pg. 60, cited in The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis by Bill Cooper.
The letter for letter transliteration of Ammu-rapi ilu to Amraphel is from Babylonian cuneiform to Hebrew, whereas Hammurabi is an English transliteration.
Arioch king of Ellasar
Arioch is likewise a letter for letter Hebrew transliteration of the Babylonian cuneiform Eri-Aku, and several inscriptions from this king exist, for example:
“To the god Nin-girsu, his king, Eri-Aku, the shepherd of the possessions of Nipur, the executor of the oracle of the holy tree of Eridu, the shepherd of Ur and the temple of E-Udda-im-tigga, king of Larsa, king of Sumer and Accad; on the day when Anu, Bel and Ea, the great gods, gave into my hands the ancient city of Erech, I built to the god Nin-girsu, my king, the temple Dugga-summa the abode of his pleasure, for the preservation of my life.”
cited by Bill Cooper, The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis, chapter 13: The Kings of Genesis 14.
The inscription lists the main city over which Eri-Aku is king, as Larsa, which transposed letter for letter into the Hebrew, is Ellasar.
Nipur, Ur, Larsa, Accad, and Erech (or Uruk), were all ancient cities in the Mesopotomian plain between the two rivers, and are well represented in Babylonian cuneiform. The map clearly lists the cities of lower Mesopotamia between the two rivers, over which Arioch claimed kingship. Hammurabi was king of Babylon and environs further north, in central Mesopotamia between the two rivers. The two kings ruled adjacent territories, and the history told in the ancient cuneiform (and also in the quoted inscription) suggests occasional warfare and taking over the other’s territories.
Chedolaomer king of Elam
Elam was the firstborn son of Shem (Gen 10:22). The country of Elam, of which Elam, the son of Shem, was the first king, was west of the Tigris River, up to the Zagros Mountains. King Chedolaomer’s name exists in ancient Elamite inscriptions as Khudur-Lagamar, of which Chedolaomer is a perfect letter for letter transcription from ancient Elamite into Hebrew.
In Elamite, the name means “Servant of Lagamar.” For many centuries Chedolaomer was held to be a complete fiction, somehow made up by proposed 5th century BC editors of the biblical text, but recent discoveries in ancient Elamite cuneiform inscriptions have not only turned up this king’s name, but also that Khudur meant “servant,” and Lagamar as the name of the Elamite moon god, none of which could be known to 5th century BC editors.
Tidal king of Goiim
This name appears as Tudchula, the son of Gazzani, in Babylonian cuneiform tablets housed in the British Museum; the same tablets also contain the names of Hammurabi, Arioch, and Chedolaomer, among others. Thus we have proof from archaeology that these four kings were contemporaries of each other. Tidal, in Hebrew, is again a perfect letter for letter transcription of the Babylonian Tudchula. As to the place over which Tidal was king, the Hebrew Goiim means “nations,” Goy, Gentiles.
(I am indebted to The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis by Bill Cooper for the brief historical insights mentioned here. The book contains much more amazing detail about the ancient history recorded in Genesis and its archaeological and cuneiform confirmation).
You can see some of the true history retained in Persian mythology.
In the Persian epic Shahnameh, the term Tūrān (“land of the Tūrya” like Ērān, Īrān = “land of the Ārya”) refers to the inhabitants of the eastern-Iranian border and beyond the Oxus. According to the foundation myth given in the Shahnameh, King Firēdūn (= Avestan Θraētaona) had three sons, Salm, Tūr and Īraj, among whom he divided the world: Asia Minor was given to Salm, Turan to Tur and Iran to Īraj. The older brothers killed the younger, but he was avenged by his grandson, and the Iranians became the rulers of the world.
Turan, Wikipedia
Here we see a war between three sons, among whom the world was divided, where two are joined against one. The three sons must be based on the historical Shem, Ham, and Japheth; the Bible records the root of their division in Gen 9. How interesting then, if the kings of Elam and Mesopotamia, territories allotted to Shem and his descendants, joined with the Goiim, perhaps a reference to Japheth and his descendants, against the kings of Canaan, who were unquestionably descended from Ham. (Please remember when seeing bits of true history embedded in national mythologies: the Scripture records the true history; the details in national mythologies may either support or be completely opposite of that true history, or a combination of the two.)
Rephaim, Zuzim, Emim, Horites
Moses wrote concerning the ancient country of the Moabites:
(The Emim had dwelt there in times past, a people as great and numerous and tall as the Anakim. They were also regarded as giants, like the Anakim, but the Moabites call them Emim. The Horites formerly dwelt in Seir, but the descendants of Esau dispossessed them and destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their place, just as Israel did to the land of their possession which the Lord gave them.) Deu 2:10-12
Moses wrote concerning the ancient country of the Ammonites:
(That was also regarded as a land of giants; giants formerly dwelt there. But the Ammonites call them Zamzummim, a people as great and numerous and tall as the Anakim. But the Lord destroyed them before them, and they dispossessed them and dwelt in their place, just as He had done for the descendants of Esau, who dwelt in Seir, when He destroyed the Horites from before them. They dispossessed them and dwelt in their place, even to this day.) Deu 2:20-22
The Zamzummim of Deu 2:20 is obviously the same as the Zuzim of Gen 14:5. The Hebrew translated “giants” in Deu 2:11 and 20 is, interestingly enough, Rephaim!
For further study off site
Giants in the Old Testament – Answers in Genesis
Did Chedorlaomer and the other kings really exist?
Abram’s 318 men – Biblical Horizons Newsletter
Chronology Wars – Answers in Genesis
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