What Does Genesis 14:16 Mean?

Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High. The abrupt introduction of Melchizedek is one of the most theologically freighted sentences in Genesis. He appears without genealogy, without prior introduction, without explanation of who he is or how he acquired his role. He is simply there: king of Salem, priest of God Most High, bearing bread and wine. The combination of kingship and priesthood, normally distinct offices in the ancient Near Eastern world, marks him immediately as an unusual figure.

Salem is almost universally identified with Jerusalem: the city whose name will be elaborated as Jeru-salem, with "shalom" (peace) embedded in its final syllable. The king of peace, bringing bread and wine, blessing the covenant patriarch after a military victory, this is the picture that the New Testament will identify as one of the most significant typological prefigurations in the entire Old Testament. The letter to the Hebrews spends two chapters on Melchizedek as the type of Christ's eternal priesthood, the one who is "priest forever after the order of Melchizedek," as Psalm 110 says.

God Most High, El Elyon, is the divine name Melchizedek uses. This name appears in the blessing he will pronounce and in his declaration about who delivered the enemies into Abram's hand. It is a comprehensive divine title: El Elyon is the God above all other gods, the possessor (creator) of heaven and earth. That a Canaanite king-priest used this title for the God of Abram is evidence that the knowledge of the one true God was not limited to the covenant patriarch's immediate family. Melchizedek knew something real about the God who had blessed Abram's mission.