Gen 14 - Melchizedek is without father, mother, without genealogy; How can this be? Stunning!

The first 11 verses of this chapter have nothing to do with Abram or Lot, but it sets up this war that happens and it's the kidnapping of Lot that takes place. We don't know the size of the armies here but there are four kingdoms against five Kingdoms. They came from the north and attacked the five kings.

Gen 14:12
And they also took Lot, Abram’s nephew, and his possessions and departed, for he was living in Sodom.

Now we have the reason here for bringing up this this whole war, lot was vacuumed up along with all the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. This is the first recorded war in scripture.

Abram had 318 servants in his house that were trained for battle. See, Abram was actually, you could say, a general, he was ready. Maybe you didn't ever view him that way, he wasn't just this little old man that was wandering around the desert. He was very rich, he was very wealthy, he had lots of servants and he had a lot of men that worked for him.

He went in pursuit as far as Dan, which was known as Laish, according to Egyptian texts, from about the 19th century B.C.

Hebrews 7:1-3
For this Melchizedek, King of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham as he was returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, 2to whom also Abraham apportioned a tenth part of all the spoils, was first of all, by the translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then also king of Salem, which is king of peace. 3Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, he abides a priest perpetually.

How can he say so much about this guy that we know so little about. We have three verses here in total, there is a little bit about him in the Psalms too, and we'll get to that.

Heb 7:4-6
Now observe how great this man was to whom Abraham, the patriarch, gave a tenth of the choicest spoils. 5And those indeed of the sons of Levi who receive the priest’s office have commandment in the Law to collect a tenth from the people, that is, from their brethren, although these are descended from Abraham. 6But the one whose genealogy is not traced from them collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed the one who had the promises.

See, what he's saying here is, now why would Abraham whose descendants became the priests and you're supposed to be greater than your children okay, in stature alright. Abraham is greater than the Levites in stature and they collected a tenth. Now, we have a guy here who's greater than the Levites and he's giving a tenth of all he has, which is interesting.

So, who is this guy, and he says the genealogy is not traced.

Heb 7:7-10
But without any dispute the lesser is blessed by the greater. 8And in this case mortal men receive tithes, but in that case one receives them, of whom it is witnessed that he lives on. 9And, so to speak, through Abraham even Levi, who received tithes, paid tithes, 10for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him.

Heb 7:11-12
Now if perfection was through the Levitical priesthood (for on the basis of it the people received the Law), what further need was there for another priest to arise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be designated according to the order of Aaron?

Melchizedek is a priest and he's getting a tenth and he's not a priest according to the law, he's not a Levite, so he's in a different order of the priesthood. He's not a priest according to the Torah right, well here's the problem okay, if I were to say oh alright, the first five books here, now here's the law, are you perfect? No, you're not, you don't achieve perfection by having the Torah, alright, as a matter of fact, there are around two billion people in this world that have the Torah and don't even know it's called the Torah, much less read it and follow it okay. So having this does not make you perfect. Therefore, the Levitical priesthood, which is based on this, won't make you perfect, so there's a problem. It says in verse 12

12For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also.

There's a little bit of translation issue there, people say, well, see, the Torah changed, it says so right there, no, it really doesn't say that. The term for change, it really means transferred, transferred or substituted, okay, Torah allows for substitution. Remember when Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac on the mountaintop what was he allowed to substitute? A ram, that was caught in the thicket. He was allowed to do that, why? Because Torah allows for substitution on certain instances. Messiah was allowed to bare our sins okay, to bear that burden that we can't bear. Why? Because Torah does allow substitution.