John Gill Commentary Genesis 14

And it came to pass, in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, &c.] Or Babylon, as Onkelos, where Nimrod began his kingdom, (Genesis 10:8–10). This was Nimrod himself, as the Jewish writers generally says; though more likely Ninyas the son of Ninus and Semiramis, and grandson of Nimrod; or rather some petty prince or deputy governor of Shinar, under the king of Babylon; since, though named first, he was not the principal in this war, but fought under the king of Elam, and as an ally and auxiliary of his; and it may be the kingdom of Babylon was not as yet of any great extent and power, and that all those stories told of Ninus, Semiramis, and Ninyas, are mere fables; and indeed we hear nothing in Scripture of this kingdom, and the kings of it, from this time, until the times of Merodach Baladan, the son of Baladan king of Babylon, in the reign of Hezekiah king of Judah; nor of the Assyrian kingdom, and the kings of it, until Pul king of Assyria, in the times of Menahem king of Israel; wherefore it is greatly to be questioned, whether those kingdoms rose to any considerable height until these times: though some think that Shinar here does not intend Shinar in Chaldea or Babylon, which was too far distant from Abram, but Shinar in Mesopotamia, a large city at the foot of a mountain, three days distant from Mansil, which is now, in Arabic, called Singjar, and by Ptolemy, Singara^F14.

Arioch king of Ellasar; or Telassar, according to the Targum of Jonathan, a place in Mesopotamia, inhabited by the children of Eden, (Isaiah 37:12); and Stephanus^F15 makes mention of a city in Coelesyria, upon the borders of Arabia, called Ellas, of which this prince may be thought to be the governor; or rather he was king of a people called Elesari, whose country is placed by Ptolemy^F16 in Arabia; and could Ninyas be thought to be Amraphel, this king would bid fair to be Ariaeus a king of Arabia, or a son of his of the same name, that was a confederate of Ninus, as Diodorus Siculus^F17 relates out of Ctesias.

Next follows, Chedorlaomer king of Elam; or the Elamites, as the Vulgate Latin version, the Persians, see (Acts 1:9). This led Diodorus^F18 to say, that the war Moses speaks of is what the Persians waged against the Sodomites. This seems to have been the most powerful prince at this time, to whom the five kings of Sodom had been subject for twelve years, but now had rebelled, and to subdue them again he came forth, with three other kings his allies, see (Genesis 14:4Genesis 14:5); but if Elam is the same with Persia, as it often signifies, or with Elymais, a part of Persia, that kingdom could not be at this time so large and potent as it has been since; or Chedorlaomer would not have stood in need of the assistance of other princes against such petty kings as those of Sodom, &c. Nor does it seem credible that he should come out of Persia, and pass through so great a part of the world as the countries of Assyria, Chaldea, Mesopotamia, Syria, and part of Arabia and of Canaan, to bring five such small towns or cities into subjection to him, as he must, as Sir Walter Raleigh^F19 observes; nor could the trifle of goods, as they may be comparatively called, he carried off, be an equivalent to the expense he must be at in so long a march. It is more probable, therefore, that this was the name of some place near to the land of Canaan, built by some of the posterity of Elam, the son of Shem, and called after the name of their ancestor; or it may be a colony of the Elamites in those parts, of which this prince was their head and chief:

and Tidal king of nations; that is, either of other nations distinct from those before mentioned, so Aben Ezra; or else, as he also observes, the name of a province; or as Jarchi and Ben Melech, the name of a place called Goim, because there were gathered together many out of various nations and places, and they set a man to reign over them, whose name was Tidal; just as one of the Galilees in later times was called Galilee of the nations, for a like reason. Sir Walter Raleigh

FOOTNOTES:

• F14: Hyde Hist. Relig. Pers. c. 2. p. 46.
• F15: De Urbibus.
• F16: Geograph. l. 6. c. 7.
• F17: Bibliothec. l. 2. p. 90.
• F18: Apud Drusium in loc.
• F19: History of the World, par. 1. B. 2. c. 1. sect. 13. p. 138.

[That these] made war with Bera king of Sodom
A city in the plain of Jordan, which with the four following made the Pentapolis, or five cities of the plain. Strabo ^F25 says, in this place formerly were thirteen cities, the metropolis of which was Sodom, and which yet has remaining a compass of sixty furlongs; according to Dr. Lightfoot {z}, it should be placed in the southern extremity of the lake Asphaltites, whereas it is usually set in the maps in the northern bounds of it: and with Birsha king of Gomorrah ;
another city in the plain of Jordan, called by Solinus ^F1 Gomorrum: Shinab king of Admah ;
a third city situated in the same plain: and Shemeber king of Zeboiim ;
a fourth city of the plain, which seems to have its name from the pleasantness of its situation: and the king of Bela, which is Zoar ;
so it was afterwards called by Lot, being a little city, (Genesis 19:20Genesis 19:22) ; but before, Bela; the name of its king is not mentioned, being a person of no great note and importance, and his city small.

FOOTNOTES:

• F25: Geograph. l. 16. p. 526.
• F1: Polyhistor. c. 48.

All these were joined together in the vale of Siddim
Or "of fields", or "ploughed lands" ^F2 , a fruitful vale abounding with corn; or of gardens or paradises, as the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem, being full of gardens and orchards, and was as the garden of the Lord, even as Eden, see (Genesis 13:10) ; though Aben Ezra thinks it has its name from the slime or bitumen, of which there was great plenty in it, see (Genesis 14:10) .

Now the above five kings, as they all dwelt in the plain, they entered into a confederacy, met together, and joined their forces in this vale, to oppose the four kings that were come to make war with them, as being an advantageous place, as they judged, perhaps on more accounts than one; and here they stayed to receive the enemy, and give him battle, see (Genesis 14:8) ;

which is the salt sea ;
afterwards so called, not at this time, for then it would not have been fit for armies to be drawn up in battle array in it; but it was so called in the times of Moses, and after this fine vale was turned into a bituminous lake, and had its name from the saltness of the waters of the lake, or from the city Melach, or city of salt, which was near it, (Joshua 15:62) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F2: (Mydvh qme la) "valle amaenissimorum agrorum", Munster; "in planitie agrorum", Fagius; so Jarchi; "in valle occationum", Hiller. Onomastic. Sacr. p. 937. "dicta ab agris occatis", Schmidt.

Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer King of Elam, who was of the race of Shem, and so the prophecy of Noah began to be fulfilled, that Canaan should be servant to Shem, (Genesis 9:26); for the kings of Sodom and their subjects, were of the race of Ham in the line of Canaan, who had by violence seized on that part of the earth which was allotted to the sons of Shem, and therefore Chedorlaomer being a descendant of his claimed his right, and made them tributary to him, which they were for the space of twelve years.

and in the thirteenth year they rebelled; refused homage to Chedorlaomer and to pay tribute to him.

And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer
Not in the fourteenth year of their rebellion against him, as Jarchi, but from their becoming vassals to him: and the kings that [were] with him ;
those kings before mentioned:

and smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim ;
which were in their way to Sodom and very probably were confederates with the five kings; the Targum, and so the Septuagint, render the word "giants", as it is in (Deuteronomy 2:11) ; but they were one of the nations or tribes of the Canaanites, (Genesis 15:20) ; and had their name either from the Hebrew word (apr) , which signifies to be healthful and robust, as those people might be, or from Rephas, the Remphan of Stephen, (Acts 7:43) ; called Chiun, (Amos 5:26) ; and with Cronus or Ham the father of Canaan, as Bishop Cumberland ^F3 observes; and these dwelt in Ashteroth Karnaim, which was a place in Bashan, (Deuteronomy 1:4) ; it is about six miles, as Eusebius ^F4 says, from Adraa or Edrei, and in the Apocrypha: ``Then Maccabeus marched forth to Carnion, and to the temple of Atargatis, and there he slew five and twenty thousand persons.'' mention is made of a place called Carnion, where was a temple of Atergates, a Phoenician deity, as Ashteroth or Astarte, was;

and this city here had its first name from Astarte the wife of Cronus or Ham, and whose name may be preserved in Carnaim, as Bishop Cumberland ^F5 thinks; though as Astarte is said by Sanchoniatho ^F6 to put on her head the mark of her sovereignty, a bull's head, that is, with its horns, this might be another of her names retained in this city; and it is certain that she was a Phoenician goddess, called the goddess of the Zidonians, (1 Kings 11:5) ; and Sanchoniatho relates ^F7 , that the Phoenicians say, that Astarte is she, who among the Greeks is called Aphrodite or Venus; and Astarte is called by Lucian ^F8 the Phoenician Venus, and by Cicero ^F9 the Syrian Venus; and if she was the same with Diana or the moon, as some think, she might have the name of Carnaim from its two horns, as the word signifies: our English poet seems to have this in his thoughts, when he speaks of Astoreth as the goddess of the Phoenicians: however the in habitants of this place who belonged to the Canaanites were first attacked by the four kings and routed, though not utterly destroyed, because we hear of them afterwards, as well as they that follow:

and the Zuzims in Ham ;
or Hemtha, as Onkelos and Jonathan render it, a place so called from Ham the father of Canaan, and was somewhere in the land of Canaan or near it, and near the former place; for it can hardly be thought the land of Egypt, sometimes called the land of Ham, is meant; these Zuzim are supposed by Jarchi to the same with the Zamzummim in (Deuteronomy 2:20) ; the word is by Onkelos and Jonathan rendered strong and mighty ones, as also by the Septuagint, mighty nations:

and the Enims in Shaveh Kiriathaim :
a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakim, and were accounted giants as they, and who in later times were by the Moabites called Emim, (Deuteronomy 2:10Deuteronomy 2:11) ; and therefore Moses gives them the same name here, which they had from the dread and terror they injected into men, and so the word in all the three Targums is rendered terrible ones; and these dwelt in Kiriathaim, a city in the tribe of Reuben, taken from Sihon, king of the Amorites, and which seems to be situated in a plain, see (Joshua 13:19) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F3: Sanchoniatho's Phoenician History, p. 220, 221.
• F4: Apud Reland. Palest. illustrata, tom. 2. p. 5. 98.
• F5: Sanchoniatho's Phoenician History, p. 35.
• F6: Ibid. p. 36.
• F7: De Dea Syria.
• F8: De Natura Deorum, l. 3.
• F9: ------------with these in troop Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians call'd Astarte queen of heav'n, with crescent horns. --Milton's Paradise Lost, B. 1. l. 437, 438, 439.