Melchizedek

In the Old Testament, a figure of importance in biblical tradition because he was both king and priest, was connected with Jerusalem, and was revered by Abraham, who paid a tithe to him. He appears as a person only in an interpolated vignette (Gen. 14:18–20) of the story of Abraham rescuing his kidnapped nephew, Lot, by defeating a coalition of Mesopotamian kings under Chedorlaomer.

In the episode, Melchizedek meets Abraham on his return from battle, gives him bread and wine (which has been interpreted by some Christian scholars as a precursor of the Eucharist, so that Melchizedek's name entered the canon of the Roman mass), and blesses Abraham in the name of “God Most High” (in Hebrew El 'Elyon). In return, Abraham gives him a tithe of the booty.

Melchizedek is an old Canaanite name meaning “My King Is [the god] Sedek” or “My King Is Righteousness” (the meaning of the similar Hebrew cognate). Salem, of which he is said to be king, is very probably Jerusalem. Psalm 76:2 refers to Salem in a way that implies that it is synonymous with Jerusalem, and the reference in Gen. 14:17 to “the King's Valley” further confirms this identification. The god whom Melchizedek serves as priest is “El 'Elyon,” again a name of Canaanite origin, probably designating the high god of their pantheon. (Later, the Hebrews adapted another Canaanite name as an appellation for God.)

For Abraham to recognize the authority and authenticity of a Canaanite priest-king is startling and has no parallel in biblical literature. This story may have reached its final formulation in the days of King David, serving as an apologia for David's making Jerusalem his headquarters and setting up the priesthood there. Abraham's paying tribute to a Jerusalem priest-king then would anticipate the time when Abraham's descendants would bring tithes to the priests of Jerusalem ministering in the sanctuary at the Davidic capital. The story may also relate to the conflict between the Levite priests descended from Abraham and the Zadokite priests of Jerusalem, who later changed their allegiance to Yahweh, the Hebrew god. The Zadokites monopolized the Jerusalem priesthood until forcibly taken away to Babylon, at which time Levite priests asserted their own hegemony; the Melchizedek episode could reveal the reascendancy of Zadokite power.

The biblical account also poses textual problems. Abraham paying a tithe to Melchizedek is an interpretation, though a likely one, of the original biblical text, in which the matter is ambiguous; it seems incongruous that Abraham gives a tenth of the booty to Melchizedek and then refuses to take any of it for himself (verses 22–23). Again, some scholars have asserted that it would be unusual for an author of Davidic times to construct a narrative with a Canaanite protagonist.

Psalm 110, in referring to a future messiah of the Davidic line, alludes to the priest-king Melchizedek as a prototype of this messiah. This allusion led the author of the Letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament to translate the name Melchizedek as “king of righteousness” and Salem as “peace,” so that Melchizedek is made to foreshadow Christ, stated to be the true king of righteousness and peace (Heb. 7:2). According to the analogy, just as Abraham, the ancestor of the Levites, paid tithes to Melchizedek and was therefore his inferior, so the Melchizedek-like priesthood of Christ is superior to that of the Levites. Furthermore, just as the Old Testament assigns no birth or death date to Melchizedek, so is the priesthood of Christ eternal.

Copyright © 1994-2011 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. For more information visit Britannica.com.