MELCHIZEDEK

17. What was the most outstanding contact with kings in Canaanland in Abraham’s career, and why did Abraham pay him a tithe?

¹⁷ Before this, Abraham had had contact with earthly kings. The most significant of such contacts was when he met the outstanding king in the land of Canaan. Abraham had just been obliged to rescue his nephew Lot from the hands of four kings who had invaded the land of Canaan and defeated five of its kings and had carried off captives, including Lot. On his return from inflicting defeat upon those four marauder kings, Abraham approached the city of Salem, in the mountains to the west of the Dead Sea. “And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine, and he was priest of the Most High God.

This mysterious King-Priest Melchizedek, although given such scant mention in history, was not lost to sight. Nine hundred years later the Most High God inspired another king of Salem, King David of Jerusalem, to prophesy and show just how significant Melchizedek had been within the purpose of the Most High God. According to this, Melchizedek was the prefiguring of a still greater king, one even greater than David, one whom even David would be obliged to call “my Lord.” This prefigured king could be no one else but the Messiah, the “seed” of God’s “woman.” So, under the power of God’s holy spirit, David wrote, in Psalm 110:1-4:

“The utterance of Jehovah to my Lord is: ‘Sit at my right hand Until I place your enemies as a stool for your feet.’ The rod of your strength Jehovah will send out of Zion, saying: ‘Go subduing in the midst of your enemies.’ Your people will offer themselves willingly on the day of your military force. In the splendors of holiness, from the womb of the dawn, You have your company of young men just like dewdrops. Jehovah has sworn (and he will feel no regret): ‘You are a priest to time indefinite According to the manner of Melchizedek!’”

Not alone would he be a lordly King higher than David, but he would also be forever a “priest” of the Most High God, like Melchizedek the king of ancient Salem.—Psalm 76:2; 110:4.

21. Why, then, would Abraham’s name become great?

²¹ Little did the patriarch Abraham, back there in the twentieth century B.C.E., realize that the “kings” to whom he and his wife Sarah were to become the ancestors would include the Messianic king who was foreshadowed by Melchizedek, to whom Abraham paid tithes of all his spoils of conquest. No wonder that Abraham’s name was to become great because of its association with such a King-Priest! No wonder that, through this Priest-King like Melchizedek, all the families of the earth would bless themselves or procure a blessing by means of Abraham!—Genesis 12:3.