The Abraham Story Part 18: Abraham Endangers Sarah Again

The Blessing of Seed Distorted

Genesis 19:30–38 NASB95

30 Lot went up from Zoar, and stayed in the mountains, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to stay in Zoar; and he stayed in a cave, he and his two daughters. 31 Then the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of the earth. 32 “Come, let us make our father drink wine, and let us lie with him that we may preserve our family through our father.” 33 So they made their father drink wine that night, and the firstborn went in and lay with her father; and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. 34 On the following day, the firstborn said to the younger, “Behold, I lay last night with my father; let us make him drink wine tonight also; then you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve our family through our father.” 35 So they made their father drink wine that night also, and the younger arose and lay with him; and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. 36 Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father. 37 The firstborn bore a son, and called his name Moab; he is the father of the Moabites to this day. 38 As for the younger, she also bore a son, and called his name Ben-ammi; he is the father of the sons of Ammon to this day.

So you remember that city Zoar that Lot, like, really negotiated to try and go to? Yeah, he actually never even stayed there very long.

Verse 30, "Lot, he left Zoar and he actually went up and decided to live on that mountain anyway, the mountain that he said he didn't wanna go to. And his two daughters were with him because he was afraid of dwelling in Zoar." I would be too. It's like everything scorched except for one place.

"So he decided to go live in a cave, just him and his two daughters." The word "cave," I'm not making this stuff up, is a noun form of the Hebrew word "naked." So the best I can do in the English idiom is, we might talk about an exposure in the rock as maybe like a ledge or something you could get on. And that's a similar idea of talking about an exposure in a rock face that gives you shelter. So that's the Hebrew word that gets translated as cave. So he's going up to the high place and he finds a little naked exposure, and he goes into the place of nakedness.

"Now the firstborn daughter said to the little one," remember for Lot, negotiating about the little city was about his scheme to come up with his own idea of salvation. Now you've got the older sibling talking to the littler sibling saying, "'Man, our father's really old and I think we're the only humans left around.

There's no man in the land who's gonna come over us. You know, like the way it is with all the land. So I've got an idea, let's get Dad drunk and then let's have sex with them. Let's lie with him and we will make seed have life from our father.'" This is their plan to preserve seed in the world.

Can you see the Ham and Noah in the tent?

What was God's purpose in the ark? It's to keep seed alive. To keep life alive in the land. And so they are taking upon themselves the role that God has already provided, which is keeping them alive. 

"And so they got their father drunk with wine, the firstborn went laid with her father and he did not know."

Do you remember in the Noah story when Noah woke up and he knew what his son did to him? They got him so drunk he did not know when she laid down or when she got up. 

"Next day, the firstborn said to the little one, 'Hey, look, last night with my father, I laid with him. Let's get him drunk again, you go lie with him so we can keep seed alive from our father.' And again, they made their father drink wine. The little one got up, she laid with her father, he had no clue when she laid down or when she got up. 

And so yeah, the two daughters of Lot got pregnant by their father."

As far as I know, in terms of cultural comparatives, there is no culture in the world where it's acceptable for a father to impregnate his daughter and, like, this is okay or, like, this is a good thing. 

So the point is, even by the standards of Sodom and Gomorrah, this is not okay. "And so the two daughters of Lot become pregnant by their father.

The firstborn gave birth to a son and she called his name Moab," which is spelled like you would spell the Hebrew word "from the father," Moab.

"She called his name Moab and he's the father of the Moabites to this day.

The littler one also gave birth. She called his name Ammon," just some kind of Semitic word for "relative." "And he's the father of the sons of Ammon to this day."

This is, like, coming burlesque and grotesque and everything in between.

It's that little scene with Ham in the tent, with the volume turned up on it.

Lot’s folly wasn’t in accepting the counsel of the angels and the deliverance that they sought to provide. Rather, his folly was in his desire to secure his own deliverance by going to a “little” city (Zoar). His folly creates further problems. For some unstated reason, Lot and his daughters leave Zoar and go up to the eastern hills, where his choice of a cave isolates their entire family. It’s precisely that isolation that leads the daughters to think that they’re the only people left in the region and that they need to come up with their own plan to “keep seed alive” (Gen. 19:32, 34).

In both cases, the result of the father’s folly and the children’s inappropriate behavior is the birth of sons who will become hostile to Avraham’s descendants for the rest of the Hebrew Bible.

Moab, Ammon, and Sibling Rivalry

Do you remember who, what people groups followed after that weird story about Ham and his father?

Canaanites.

Canaanites are directly connected to that. And then also then Ham's grandson, Nimrod, Babylon, and Assyria. So there's something similar happening here, Moabites, but there's a twist. That's always, with the Hebrew Bible there's a twist. 

The births of Moab and Ammon, whose descendants will form the kingdoms on the east side of the Jordan, become the mirror image of the Canaanites on the west side of the Jordan. However, unlike the Canaanites who came under the curse of Noah (Gen. 9:25-27), the Moabites and Ammonites are, like Yishmael, family with Avraham (they’re his great-nephews). So their hostility is open to resolution and perhaps even reconciliation.

The Hostility of Moab and Ammon

Moab will conspire with Midian (sons of Qeturah) to curse the Israelites as they wander in the wilderness (Num. 22-24).

Moabite women seduce Israelite men into worshipping their gods

Eglon the king of Moab allies with Ammon to oppress Israel (Num. 25). (Judg. 3:12-14).

Moabites and Ammonites spar with the Israelites in the days of Jephthat(Judg. 10:6-8), King Saul (1 Sam. 11:11, 12:12, 14:47), David (2 Sam. 8:2, 12), Ahab (2 Kgs. 1:1), Elisha (2 Kgs. 3).

This is the birth story of some of the most notorious, snake-like enemies of the sons of Israel. Nahash, the Ammonite, his name means snake. And he comes and he comes to blind and gouge out the eyes to take away the sight of the Israelites

The Future Reconciliation of Moab and Ammon

The Moabite Ruth is integrated into the lineage of Avraham, Judah, David, and Jesus Messiah!

David forms a peaceful alliance with Moab and even leaves his parents there for safety from Saul (1 Sam. 22:4).

Jeremiah anticipates the eventual restoration of Moab (Jer. 48:47) and Ammon (Jer. 49:6).

Asteroid?

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/destruction-of-city-by-space-rock-may-have-inspired-biblical-story-of-sodom-180978734/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/fernandezelizabeth/2021/09/23/a-massive-meteor-may-have-destroyed-the-biblical-city-of-sodom/

Two LORD

https://youtu.be/GxftCFJNNfE

Don’t show just give to do research

Abraham Surrenders His Sons

Chapters 11 to 19, we've gone through the Genesis 1 through 9 melody three times now.

And the outer ones, the outer two matched each other in terms of beginning with promises of birth, of seed leading up to a Babylon-like Sodom and Gomorrah debacle. And Lot was at the center of these crises. In the middle was the two covenants and the failure, the failure between them. So you can see how this actually has been one whole movement of thought.

And Avraham, think about how his character has developed over the course of this. He went from a guy who just doesn't talk and just responds to God's blessing and call to a guy of very imperfect faith and trust with the thing in Egypt, the thing separating from his brother, but then he's got a transformed view of his stuff when we got to chapter 14.

He's got imperfect faith when God gives him a promise of seed and land. Well, he has actually amazing faith and then imperfect faith when it comes to the second promise. He and his wife lack faithfulness entirely when it comes to the story of Hagar. And so God gets in his face and is like, "Shape up, you're my covenant partner. Stop it. Just be faithful." So we walk in to chapter 18 and, yeah, it was a great story. It's one of the few stories that's just almost entirely good. Well, at least on Avraham's part. Sarah was still working that Eve theme by laughing and doubting in the tent. But Avraham's character, he comes into his own. He becomes the righteous intercessor, who maybe is a little, again, too big for his britches, thinks he's gonna teach Yahweh a thing or two. But Yahweh, he honors it. He delivers righteous, the righteous out of the city or the semi-righteous, Lot, out of the city. And so then the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is this big crescendo to all of that.

It's the first main movement. 

Now that the subplot of Lot’s problematic presence has been addressed (from Gen. 12:4 to 22:9-14 chapter 19), there are still other themes in Avraham’s story that need to be resolved.

The promise of a chosen son who will be named “Yitskhaq” (from Gen. 17-18).

The problematic presence of Hagar and Yishmael, whom Sarah doesn’t like (from Gen. 16).

The question of how Avraham is going to become a blessing to the nations around him (Gen. 12, 14).

The promise that Avraham will inherit the land of the Canaanites. (Gen. 12, 13, 15, 17).

These four stories are arranged in a symmetrical pattern, inviting the reader to relate the stories to one another and compare and contrast them.

The next movement through the cycle is what we call chapters 20 through 22. And this is going to be almost entirely focused on the seed.

And we're gonna walk through the cycle one full time here in these chapters.

The last thematic cycle is going to be through the last sentences of 22, and then to Avraham's death. And this is going to be the first little down payment of him owning a piece of the land.

And it happens to be a cave, which, remember, this comes from the word "naked." It's called the cave of "Machpelah." Machpelah, the cave of Machpelah. It becomes, like, this really big deal in the book of Genesis. So the word "makpelah" means pair. It's the naked pair or couple. 

The cave of the naked Couple.  So we began with a naked couple, who were exiled into death. And this story begins with the death of the third Adam and Eve. And they're buried together in the cave of the naked couple. (Adam, Noah, Abram)

Placement Within the Avraham Story as a Whole

The four stories in this unit have also been designed with an eye toward its arrangement. It is curious upon a first reading, until we realize that the stories have been organized to correspond to the sequence of stories in the previous large literary unit of the Avraham stories.

The story in Genesis 20:1-18 is a clear replay of 12:10-20. In both stories, Avraham lies about Sarah being his sister, which results in her being taken by a foreign king. The innocence of both kings is highlighted, as is Avraham’s guilt for the deception.

The story in Genesis 21:1-21 is essentially part two of the Sarah versus Hagar rivalry. Now that Yitskhaq (Isaac) is born, the presence of Yishmael is a threat to Sarah. And so Hagar finds herself exiled once again, and once again God comes to her in the wilderness and provides rescue in the form of water.

The two stories in Genesis 21:22-34 and 22:1-19 are connected to the episode of Avraham’s intercession on behalf of the righteous in Sodom. In Genesis 18:17-19, Yahweh speaks to himself about how he chose Avraham to be the vehicle of divine blessing to the nations. In the episode of Genesis 21:22-34, Avimelek can see that this is true of Avraham, so he seeks to make a covenant of peace with him

In Genesis 18:16-33, Avraham uses his privileged role to gain an audience with Yahweh and intercedes on behalf of the innocent in Sodom, asking God to spare the city, which he overlooks from a high place. In Genesis 22:1-19, Avraham is called to a high place where he is to offer up the life of his son as a sacrifice that will intercede for his own sins (against Hagar and the kings).

These repetitions allow the narrator to compare and contrast each story with earlier precedents in the life of Avraham, creating more nuance in the developing portrait of God’s chosen one

Avraham Endangers Sarah, Again

As we read this You're gonna feel like I've been here before and that's because you have been here before.

Genesis 20:1–18 CSB

1 From there Abraham traveled to the region of the Negev and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While he was staying in Gerar, 2 Abraham said about his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” So King Abimelech of Gerar had Sarah brought to him. 3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “You are about to die because of the woman you have taken, for she is a married woman.” 4 Now Abimelech had not approached her, so he said, “Lord, would you destroy a nation even though it is innocent? 5 Didn’t he himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ I did this with a clear conscience and clean hands.” 6 Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you did this with a clear conscience. I have also kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I have not let you touch her. 7 Now return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, know that you will certainly die, you and all who are yours.” 8 Early in the morning Abimelech got up, called all his servants together, and personally told them all these things, and the men were terrified. 9 Then Abimelech called Abraham in and said to him, “What have you done to us? How did I sin against you that you have brought such enormous guilt on me and on my kingdom? You have done things to me that should never be done.” 10 Abimelech also asked Abraham, “What made you do this?” 11 Abraham replied, “I thought, ‘There is absolutely no fear of God in this place. They will kill me because of my wife.’ 12 Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife. 13 So when God had me wander from my father’s house, I said to her: Show your loyalty to me wherever we go and say about me, ‘He’s my brother.’ ” 14 Then Abimelech took flocks and herds and male and female slaves, gave them to Abraham, and returned his wife Sarah to him. 15 Abimelech said, “Look, my land is before you. Settle wherever you want.” 16 And he said to Sarah, “Look, I am giving your brother one thousand pieces of silver. It is a verification of your honor to all who are with you. You are fully vindicated.” 17 Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female slaves so that they could bear children, 18 for the Lord had completely closed all the wombs in Abimelech’s household on account of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.

Gerar is in the region of Canaanites. And if you remember Genesis 10, you'll remember that. 

"Now, Avraham said about Sarah, his wife, 'She's my sister.' And Abimelech, the king of Gerar, sent and he took Sarah." Yeah, we're already here. Okay, so you have been here before. Do you notice that this is like a super condensed version?

Last time it was, well, they went to Egypt, and this long conversation, "Look, people are gonna see you and they're gonna see me," right? And it's this long, so now it's sort of like you don't need the full replay of Avraham's motive. You already know, you already know his motives. So it condenses this, that whole opening scene and it just takes it for granted. That's the opening.

"So Elohim came to Abimelech in a dream of the night, and he said to him, 'Look, you're dead, your about to die

You're about to die on account of the wife that you just took. She's married to her husband.'

Now you need to know Abimelech hadn't even gone near her yet. And so he said, 'Well, hold on my Lord, you're telling me you're going to murder a whole nation that is righteous. I've done right. I've done right by her, I've done right. I haven't done anything wrong. 

Didn't he say to me, "She's my sister?" And didn't she also say, "He's my brother?" Look, I'm blameless here. I'm innocent. In the innocence of my hands have I done this.' And Elohim said to him in a dream, 'Oh yeah, I know. 

I know that in the blamelessness of your heart, you have done this. In fact, I was the one withholding you from committing a moral failure against me. I didn't let you touch her.'"

And so now you had better return the wife of that man, he's a prophet.

He's the kind of person who can stand on the high place and hang out with me and intercede on behalf of others.

"So this is the kind of guy who will stand and appeal to me on behalf of others so that I show mercy, but also do justice. 

So he could pray for you on your behalf, so that you can have life. 

But if you don't return her, you will certainly die. You and everything that belongs to you."

Avraham the Deceiver

In this story, Avraham replays his deception of a foreign king from the story in Genesis 12:10-20. And while his own motives and reasoning are omitted by the narrator, we are meant to infer them from the parallel story in Genesis 12.

In the intervening chapters, however, Avraham has become a more dimensional character. In Genesis chapters 14 and 18, we saw Avraham play a role in God’s purposes among the nations. Specifically, Avraham is God’s chosen vehicle to bring blessing on the nations, yet he persists in deceiving the nations and putting his own wife at risk. In Genesis 18:16-33, we also learned that Avraham has been invited into the divine council, so his intercession is accepted by God and can influence the divine will. Instead of asking God for help or deliverance in Gerar, Avraham resorts to his old schemes.

Avimelek the Righteous King

In contrast to Avraham, Avimelek is depicted as a normal ancient Near Eastern king who takes wives as he chooses. Because Avraham has forfeited his role as God’s intercessor in this moment, God comes “directly” to Avimelek in a dream. The dialogue between God and Avimelek makes clever use of the intertwined “failure” narratives from Genesis 3-9 and also of Avraham’s intercession in Genesis 18:16-33 by comparing and contrasting the characters in this story with those of earlier narratives.

Abimelech has to become his own intercessor.

When Avraham continues and repeats his scheming, his self, his cowardice, his fear, his lack of trust. This is Avraham failing again to be what God has called him to be, which is a source of blessing to the nations. And this repeated self-preservation instinct where he'll put others at risk to preserve his own life. That's where we're at here again. Except what's fascinating here, do you remember in the story back in Egypt, Pharaoh just found out that Sarah was his wife. We are not told how. In this story, it's the major focus. Yahweh comes in a dream.

And he says, "I'm innocent." He has to advocate for himself. It's sort of like Avraham's cowering down in the corner hoping he doesn't die. And so the nations have to take up their own role as their own intercessor before God. 

And so God's like, "Yeah, you know, actually I kept you from taking from the forbidden tree. I wouldn't allow you to."

it's as if Yahweh and this king are working together to do the thing that Avraham should be doing on behalf of the nations. 

But there is an ultimatum. Listen, you did do something that was wrong, even though you had innocent motives, you did something that was wrong and you better do the right thing or else you will certainly die. Line in verse 7 you will certainly or surly die "mot tamut," it's exactly copy and paste what God says to Adam and Eve about the tree. The day that you eat of it, mot tamut, you will certainly die. So we're back in it. 

Notice how brief we've just been ushered right back into the cycle of the melody here. Except Avraham repeats himself and the focus here is on, it ironic that sometimes the chosen one, God's chosen people, are the unrighteous. And sometimes the non-chosen ones are the actual righteous ones.

I did not see that coming. I thought this was a story about good guys and bad guys. But when the righteous, the people who are supposed to be righteous are asleep on the job, it's like the story is just sitting there going, remember, it's like, there's a bigger story of God and the nations. And God can keep his plans with them moving forward, even if his people are failing at their role.

Think of Jonah. He is asleep in the boat while the sailors are praying.

Jonah 1:16 CSB

16 The men were seized by great fear of the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.

Genesis 20:8–18 CSB

8 Early in the morning Abimelech got up, called all his servants together, and personally told them all these things, and the men were terrified. 9 Then Abimelech called Abraham in and said to him, “What have you done to us? How did I sin against you that you have brought such enormous guilt on me and on my kingdom? You have done things to me that should never be done.” 10 Abimelech also asked Abraham, “What made you do this?” 11 Abraham replied, “I thought, ‘There is absolutely no fear of God in this place. They will kill me because of my wife.’ 12 Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife. 13 So when God had me wander from my father’s house, I said to her: Show your loyalty to me wherever we go and say about me, ‘He’s my brother.’ ” 14 Then Abimelech took flocks and herds and male and female slaves, gave them to Abraham, and returned his wife Sarah to him. 15 Abimelech said, “Look, my land is before you. Settle wherever you want.” 16 And he said to Sarah, “Look, I am giving your brother one thousand pieces of silver. It is a verification of your honor to all who are with you. You are fully vindicated.” 17 Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female slaves so that they could bear children, 18 for the Lord had completely closed all the wombs in Abimelech’s household on account of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.

"So Abimelech got up early in the morning," like you would too, "and he called all his servants, he called all the men, right? And he told them, 'Don't go near this lady.' And the men were freaked out very much. 

And so Abimelech called to Avraham and he said to him," and what he says to him is exactly what God said to Adam and Eve, and exactly what God said to Cain. "'What is this that you have done? 

What moral failure have I done against you that you would bring on me and my kingdom this great moral failure? Doings that should never be done. That's what you've done to me.'

And Abimelech said, 'What is it that you saw that you have done this thing?'"

There's a wordplay in this section, 'cause the word "to be afraid" in Hebrew is spelled with the same letters in different order for the word "to see."

So Abimelech told the, his servants and they were afraid. And then he asked Avram, what did you see? Like, what did you, when you came into my city, what did you see that motivated you to do this really stupid thing? And Avraham said, "Well, it's because when I entered this, you know, pagan sin city, I thought to myself, 'Oh, people don't fear God around here.

They're gonna murder me on account of my wife.'" So do you get the irony here? Who actually does fear God?

Abimelech does. Who is the one who doesn't fear God? 

So Avraham was afraid he would get murdered, but in fact he has no fear of God in this story and he almost got the whole city murdered. Yeah, that's what Abimelech said. And then look at this, remember the blame shifting thing from the garden? 

"She technically is my kind of my sister, right? She's the daughter of my father, just not the daughter of my mother. And so she became my, with a family marriage thing.

And so when Elohim made me wander from the house of my father, I said to her, 'Here's how you can show loyalty to me. Wherever we go just tell people you're my brother.'" He's trying to like lessen it, make it seem less offensive. Like he almost put the whole life of the city at stake for his own, like, insecurities.

"So Abimelech took flocks and cattle and slaves and female slaves." Have we been here before?

Abraham, "He gave them to Avraham. He returned him to Sarah his wife. And Abimelech said, 'Look, you're clearly really special to your God, 'cause he puts up with you and woke me up last night.

So listen, you can stay wherever you want in my land.

Wherever it's good in your eyes, make camp.'

To Sarah he said, 'Look, here's a thousand silver pieces that I just gave to your brother. Let's just consider it a covering of the eyes.'" Think Genesis 3, where it was all about your eyes will be opened.

Let's just pretend this never happened. Let's cover it all up. Here's the money. Let's pretend it's covering over the eyes for everyone with you. No one will think I slept with you. Here's the hush money, it's hush money. "'As for everything, you were beyond dispute.'

So Avraham prayed to Elohim, and Elohim healed Abimelech and his wife and his female slaves, and they were able to give birth because Yahweh had restrained the wombs of the house of Abimelech on account of Sarah, the wife of Avraham." And that's the last sentence in the story.

So have you noticed a pattern of saving like the super important information to the very last line? So this is one of those. 

So you remember God said, yeah, bring, you know, return the man's wife and he'll pray for you. Avraham will pray for you, so that you can have life. And you were kind of like, "Okay, I guess. I guess your life was at risk if you don't return him." And now you realize, like, Yahweh was withholding fertility from the whole city because he had ignorantly taken of the forbidden thing.

And so look here, finally, Avraham is playing the right role, interceding so that there can be Eden for the nations. But man, it's like Yahweh has to really work overtime to get Avraham to do the thing that he called him to do. And so these stories are so interesting.

It's once again, God working with very imperfect covenant partners. And Yahweh has to get so involved and clean up after his chosen one. And for me, the stark image here is the righteous king who's so righteous he has to intercede for himself. Whereas the guy we think would be the righteous chosen one is totally abdicating his responsibility. And God puts up with it. He puts up with it. And he has to, like, force Avraham to play the role that he wants him to play.

God's people are often God's biggest obstacle to his purposes among the nations, yeah. It's a fascinating theme that you would not expect to find in, well, I don't know what we should expect to find in the Bible, but there it is and it's a big thing.

It's also true.

It's just like true historically. Whether it's Israel or the Church or whatever, it's just, it's very true to life, isn't it?

One last little note just to say, when Avraham prays and the wombs are opened, it's because Yahweh had restrained the womb. You remember back in chapter 16, when Sarah had this great plan about how she was gonna build herself up. Do you remember what she said to Avraham? She said, "Listen, Yahweh's the one who has restrained my womb." And here Yahweh is restraining the womb and, because of what happened, and so Avraham prays and there's healing for the womb.

Can you just guess what the next sentence is going to be?

"The Lord did with Sarah just as he said, she conceived and bore a son." So his prayer for the nations ends up becoming the vehicle of the release, or the coming to fruition of his own wife's womb.

So out of even this terrible situation, it's this humans are stupid and do terrible things and God is this, he does the work around and is able to bring about his purposes through and despite his own people. So chapter 21, we've got babies on the brain.

Isaac’s Birth

Bibliography

https://bibleproject.com/classroom/abraham

Middleton, J. Richard. Abraham’s Silence: The Binding of Isaac, the Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: A Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2021.

Cotter, David W. Genesis. Edited by Jerome T. Walsh, Chris Franke, and David W. Cotter. Berit Olam Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2003.

Josephus, Flavius, and William Whiston. The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987.

Richard N. Longenecker, “The Melchizedek Argument of Hebrews: A Study in the Development and Circumstantial Expression of New Testament Thought,” in Unity and Diversity in New Testament Theology: Essays in Honor of George E. Ladd (ed. Robert Guelich, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 161.

https://bible.org/article/melchizedek-covenantal-figure-biblical-theology-eschatological-royal-priesthood#P8_421

Anders Aschim, “Melchizedek and Jesus: 11QMelchizedek and the Epistle to the Hebrews,” in The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism: Papers from the St. Andrews Conferences on the Historical Origins of the Worship of Jesus (eds. Carey Newman, James Davila, and Gladys Lewis, JSJSup. 63; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 130.

Paul J. Kobelski, Melchizedek and Melchiresa (CBQMS 10; Washington DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1981), 126-7.

https://bible.ca/manuscripts/Septuagint-LXX-Shem-was-Melchizedek-Masoretic-chronology-Messiah-Jesus-Christ-priesthood.htm

https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/history-circumcision-0010398

https://www.gotquestions.org/city-gate.html