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Bible Dictionaries
Melchizedek
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or The original meaning was probably ‘My king is Zedek’; but the name is interpreted ideally in Hebrews 7:2, where it is taken to mean ‘king of righteousness,’ and at the same time, because of Melchizedek’s rule over Salem (= ‘peace’), ‘king of peace.’ Thus the personal and the official titles point to the actual character of the man. The typical hero, first righteous and therefore self-governed and blessed with the tranquillizing consciousness of the presence of God, appears to the writer as an anticipation of Him in whom alone righteousness and peace are completely realized both in His own person and life and in His gifts to men. Thereupon the writer proceeds to develop the comparison in the interest of his conception of the supreme and permanent priesthood of Jesus Christ.
1. The original source of the story is Genesis 14:17-20, of which the literary history is still uncertain. It is not an integral part of any of the principal documents, though the chapter as a whole has a few affinities with P. At present the only safe conclusion is that it comes from an independent source, of which the special characteristics cannot yet be determined. Nor is there any real evidence of a lack of historicity. The combination of kingly and priestly offices in one person, who was invested with a sacred character as a descendant of a deity, was a not unusual feature of government in the primitive ages (see J. G. Frazer, Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship, 1905, p. 29 ff.), and may well have prevailed among the Canaanite tribes. Yet the writer of Hebrews need not be regarded as a witness to the historicity of the narrative, or as concerning himself with such a question. He treats Melchizedek ideally rather than historically, and interprets the picture preserved in Genesis without committing himself to any opinion as to its literal or biographical accuracy. His object is not to confirm nor to question the narrative, but to work out a conception of priesthood which he found in the priestly archives of his nation; and in so doing he makes at least as much use of the silences of Scripture as of the assertions. Accordingly, B. F. Westcott (Hebrews, 1889, p. 199 f.) takes him as pronouncing no judgment on the historical problems, but as eliciting the typical and abiding value of the story.
2. Immediate source of the exposition.-The writer need not be conceived as going back through Psalms 110:4 to the original tradition in Genesis 14 and working upon it independently; for there is sufficient reason to believe that the narrative had for a couple of centuries engaged the attention of some of the religious leaders of the people, and in the interpretation an interesting development may be traced. ‘God Most High’ (Hebrews 7:1) is a phrase of frequent occurrence in the Apocrypha (for the passages see E. Hatch and H. A. Redpath, Concordance to the Septuagint , 1892 ff.), especially in Ecclesiasticus; and the title ‘priest of the Most High God’ was revived by the Maccabaean princes, whilst John Hyrcanus (137-105 b.c.) combined in himself the triple functions of prophet, priest, and king (see Josephus, Ant. XIII. x. 7, Bellum Judaicum (Josephus) I. ii. 8; and R. H. Charles, Book of Jubilees, 1902, p. lxxxviii, Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, 1908, p. li ff., with references there cited). Evidently the Melchizedek tradition was considered as pointing to the Maccabaean leaders (cf. J. Skinner, Genesis, 1910, on 14:20), in whose period Psalms 110 may have undergone its final liturgical revision. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs is a Palestinian book; but Philo is a witness for the prevalence of a similar interest in the ancient story in Egypt. He argues in favour of an identification of Melchizedek with the Logos, whose priesthood, however, is viewed as a symbol of the action of reason in bringing righteousness and peace to men (Mangey, i. 103, 533, ii. 34). The thought in Hebrews is clearly an advance, parallel in part to that between the Philonic and the Johannine Logos, but confronting the reader with a religion instead of a philosophy, and with a supreme personal Helper instead of with a dubious process of reasoning.
3. Significance in Hebrews.-The apparent object of the writer was to mark the adequate and final character of the priesthood of Jesus Christ. As a person He is compared with Melchizedek, whose order of priesthood was confessedly above that of Aaron (q.v. [Note: .v. quod vide, which see.] ); while in regard to priestly acts and functions His efficiency and freedom from limitations are exhibited in comparison with the necessary defects of the Aaronic office. More particularly three features in the story of Melchizedek are singled out. (a) He was king as well as priest, and as priest-king he possessed the endowments of righteousness and peace, and was able to impart them with royal bounty. (b) He was dissociated from all the relations of time, neither qualified by priestly descent for his office, nor interrupted in its discharge by death (Hebrews 7:3). (c) Accordingly, through these timeless and regal qualities his priesthood becomes unique, incomparably above all Aaronic and Levitical institutions, and with nothing like it in human history until the Incarnate comes upon the stage and takes to Himself a Priesthood in which He admits no peer, and of which eternal and superabundant adequacy is the note (see Priest).
4. Later developments.-In the patristic literature of our period no objection appears to have been taken to the use of the story in Hebrews, though its classification among the alleged theophanies was early and had probably already begun. On the other hand, the Jewish writers adopt an interpretation of their own, either through dislike of the teaching in Hebrews, or in substitution for its application to John Hyrcanus, which had been discredited by the collapse of his influence before the end of his reign. Shem was identified with Melchizedek in early parts of the Talmud and Targums (Nedarim, 32b, Sanhedrin, 108b, Targ. [Note: Targum.] Jonathan), and the narrative was taken to mean that the priesthood was transferred to Abraham, while the rest of the descendants of Shem were excluded. Another tradition distinguishes Shem from Melchizedek, but associates them in the work of transferring the body of Adam to Jerusalem. The story survives with many embellishments in the Ethiopic Book of Adam; and only for its beginnings, with mixed Jewish and Christian influences at work upon it, can a place be allowed within our century.
R. W. Moss.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Melchizedek'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/m/melchizedek.html. 1906-1918.
