Genesis 14:18

Melchizedek] The word may mean 'Sidik' (a deity) 'is my king,' although in Hebrews 7 the Jewish writer in connexion with his argument explains it as 'King of righteousness.' In Joshua 10:3, five hundred years later, we find another king of Jerusalem whose name has the same termination, viz. Adonizedec, i.e. 'Sidik is my lord.' Melchizedek was king of Salem, the chief town of the Jebusites, known to us as Jerusalem. The Amarna letters (1400 b.c., written in cuneiform characters on clay tablets) which passed between the rulers of Egypt and their officers in Canaan (at that time tributary to Egypt), show that its name was then Uru-Salim, 'the city of peace.' Among these tablets are letters from its king Ebed-tob to the Pharaoh of the time, in one of which he states that his office was not an hereditary one, but that he owed his position to the Egyptian king. Cp. Hebrews 7:3, 'without father or mother.'

Brought forthe bread and wine] to refresh Abraham and his party.

He was the priest of the most high God] This Canaanite chieftain was both king and priest, a combination not uncommon in those days: cp. Jethro (Exodus 18:12). 'He (Melchizedek) is designated priest of El Elyon, the most high God, whom Abraham, as we see from Genesis 14:22, could in a general way acknowledge as his god. This agrees very well with the findings of the history of religions. There is abundant evidence for the name El or Il as the oldest proper name of deity among the Babylonians, Assyrians, Phœnicians, and Sabeans,.. among foreign peoples he was early pushed into the background by younger gods who only expressed particular aspects of his being.. but Melchizedek in his worship still held fast to him as the old sovereign god, the ruler of the universe' (D.).