Genesis 14:2

Gen 14:2 [That these] made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar.

Ver. 2. That these made war.] War is the slaughter house of mankind, and the hell of this present world. It hews itself a way through a wood of men, and lays "heaps upon heaps" (as Samson did, Jdg 15:16), not with "a jaw-bone of an ass," and one after another, but in a minute of time, and by the mouth of a murdering piece. Alphonsus D. of Ferrara had two of these cannons {a} of a wonderful size; the one whereof he called Archidiabolo, the other, the Earthquake. The Turks battered the walls of Rhodes, with twelve basilisks, so aptly named of the serpent, basiliscus , who, as Pliny writes, killeth man or beast with his very sight. But before these bloody instruments of death were heard of in the world, men could find means to slaughter one another in war; witness these five kings, that came with Chedorlaomer, and smote the Rephaims or giants, the Zuzims or Zamzummims, {Deu 2:20} and the Emims or terrible ones, as their name imports. These they slew by the way, besides what they did in the vale of Siddim, where they joined battle with the five kings, and cut off many. If we may judge one battle by another, hear what was done in a bloody fight between Amurath III, king of the Turks, and Lazarus, despot of Servia. Many thousands fell on both sides; the brightness of the armour and weapons was as like the lightning; the multitude of lances and other horsemen’s staves shadowed the light of the sun. Arrows and darts fell so fast, that a man would have thought they had poured down from heaven. The noise of the instruments of war, with the neighing of horses, and outcries of men, was so terrible and great, that the wild beasts in the mountains stood astonished therewith; and the Turkish histories, {b} to express the terror of the day, vainly say, that the angels in heaven, amazed with that hideous noise, for that time, forgot the heavenly hymns wherewith they always glorify God. In conclusion, Lazarus was slain, and Amurath had the victory, but a very bloody one, and such as he had no great joy of. For he lost many of his Turks; as did likewise Adrian the Emperor of the Romans, when he fought against the Jews and had the better: but with such a loss of his own men, that when he wrote of his victory to the Senate, he forbore to use that common exordium, that the emperors in like ease were wont to use, Si vos liberique vestri valeatis, bene est: Ego quidem et exercitus valemus. {c} There was no such thing, believe it, nor but seldom is there. But as the dragon sucks out the blood of the elephant, and the weight of the falling elephant crushes the dragon, and both usually perish together; {d} so doth it many times fall out with those that undertake war. These four kings beat the five; but, when they got home, became a prey to Abram and his confederates. The Low-countrymen are said to grow rich - whereas {e} all other nations grow poor - with war. But they may thank a good queen, under God (Queen Elizabeth, I mean), who first undertook their protection against the Spaniard. For the which act of hers, all princes admired her fortitude: and the King of Sweden said, that she had now taken the diadem from her head, and set it upon the doubtful chance of war. {f} Dubia sane est Martis alea, nec raro utrique parti noxia , saith Bucholcerus. {g} And I cannot but - as the case stands with us, especially at this present, by reason of these unnatural uncivil wars stirred up amongst us - go on, and give my vote with him. Ideo pons aureus (ut vulgato proverbio dicitur) hosti fugienti extruendus est et magno precio, precibus, patientia ac prudentia alma pax redimenda, ne infoelicitatis portas, pacis tempore clausas, infaustum bellum aperiat . War is sweet, they say, to them that never made trial of it. {h} But I cannot sufficiently wonder at Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, of whom Justin witnesseth, that he took as much pleasure in war, as others do in supreme government. {i} He might have better learned of his own prophets; so St Paul calleth their poets. {Tit 1:12} Homer, the prince of them, ever brings in Mars, as most hated of Jupiter above any other god, as born for a common mischief, and being right of his mother Juno’s disposition, which was fierce, vast, contumacious, and malignant. We that are Christians, as we cannot but, with the prophet Isaiah, count and call war a singular evil; so we must acknowledge with him, that it is an evil of God’s own creating. {Isa 45:7} "I make peace, and create evil," {j} that is, war. I, is emphatic and exclusive, as who should say, I, and I alone. Whencesoever the sword comes, it is bathed in heaven. {Isa 34:5} God is pleased for this to style himself, "A man of war". {Exo 15:3} The Chaldee expresseth it thus, "the Lord and victor of wars". {Gen 17:1} God elsewhere calleth himself, El Shaddai. Aben-Ezra interpreteth Shaddai a conqueror. And indeed the Hebrew word Shadad signifieth to dissipate and destroy: both which he must needs do that becomes a conqueror. {k} God seems to glory much in his workings about warlike affairs. Hence, - "Who {Psa 24:8} is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty; the Lord mighty in battle." He is in Scripture said to "send the sword"; {Eze 14:17} to "muster" the men; {Isa 13:4} to order the ammunition; {Jer 50:25} to bring up both van and rear; {Isa 52:12} to give wisdom, valour, and victory. {Psa 144:1 Eze 30:24 Ecc 9:11} The whole battle is his. {1Sa 17:47} And he oft thereby "revengeth the quarrel of his covenant". {Lev 26:25} So he hath done already upon the Jews and Germans: so he is now doing, alas, upon Ireland and England. And here I cannot but insert that which I find observed by a prime preacher of our kingdom. The late battle at Edgehill was fought in a place called "the Vale of the Red Horse," as if God had said, "I have now sent you the red horse, to avenge the quarrel of the white"; {Rev 6:2; Rev 6:4} the blood spilt at Edgehill the same day of the month in which the rebellion broke out in Ireland, the year before, October 23. Yea, and upon the self-same day, if our intelligence be true, in which that bloody battle was fought near Leipsic, in Germany. This conjuncture is a sad presage, that England is to drink deep in Germany’s and Ireland’s cup. "Father, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from us." "A cup of trembling" it is, surely, to myself, among many others; such as maketh my pen almost to fall out of my fingers, while I write these things; and affects me no otherwise - when I consider of the many fearful convulsions of our kingdom, tending doubtless to a deadly consumption-than the siege of Rome did St Jerome. For hearing that that city was besieged, at such time as he was writing a Commentary upon Ezekiel, {l} and that many of his godly acquaintance there were slain, he was so astonished at the news, that for many nights and days he could think of nothing. When I think {m} of what should move the Lord to make this breach upon us, and notwithstanding that he hath been so earnestly besought; yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still; that of Cajetan comes before me; who, then commenting upon Matthew when the French soldiers having broken into Rome, offered all manner of abuse and violence to the clergy, inserts this passage into his Notes on Mat 5:13 - "Ye are the salt of the earth," - as my former author {n} allegeth, and rendereth him: - "We, the prelates of Rome, do now find the truth of this by woeful experience, being become a scorn and a prey, not to infidels but Christians, by the most righteous judgment of God, because we, who by our places should have been ‘the salt of the earth,’ had ‘lost our savour,’ and were good for little else but looking after the rites and revenues of the Church. {o} Hence it is, that together with us, this city comes to be trodden under foot, this sixth of May 1527." That city, till it became idolatrous, was ever victorious: but since it hath been the nest of Antichrist, it was never besieged but it was taken and sacked. The God of heaven purge out of our Church, daily more and more, that land desolating sin of idolatry, and make good his promise, "That there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts," {Zec 14:21} no evil spirit left in the land. Fiat, fiat . For of England we may now well say, as he once did of Rome: Nunquam magis iustis iudiciis approbatum est, non esse curae Deo securitatem nostrum, esse vindictam. {p}

{a} Peacham’s Valley of Varieties. {Rev 9:17} "Fire, smoke, and brimstone," seem to note out the Turks’ guns and ordnance. For the drawing of that gun that Mohammed used in besieging Constantinople, seventy yokes of oxen and two thousand men were employed.

{b} Turk. Hist., fol. 200.

{c} Dio in Adriano.

{d} Plin.

{e} Heylin’s Geog., p. 253.

{f} Anno 1585. Camden’s Elisab.

{g} Bucholc. Chron., p. 583.

{h} Dulce bellum inexpertis.

{i} Nulli maiorem ex imperio quam Pyrrho ex bello voluptatem fuisse.

{j} Malum per αντονομασιαν ut bellum, quia minime bellum per antiphrasin .

{k} Eundem victorem et vastatorem esse oportet .

{l} Hieron. com. in Ezekiel. - Proem.

{m} Haec scripsi cordiciuts dolens . - August 21, 1643

{n} Mr Arrowsmith, ubi supra, Ep.

{o} Evanuimus, ac ad nihilum utiles, nisi ad externas caeremonias, externaque bona ,& c. - Heylin’s Geog.

{p} Tacit. Hist., lib. i. cap. 1.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 2. These made war with Bera, c.] It appears, from Ge 14:4, that these five Canaanitish kings had been subdued by Chedorlaomer, and were obliged to pay him tribute and that, having been enslaved by him twelve years, wishing to recover their liberty, they revolted in the thirteenth; in consequence of which Chedorlaomer, the following year, summoned to his assistance three of his vassals, invaded Canaan, fought with and discomfited the kings of the Pentapolis or five cities - Sodom, Gomorrah, Zeboiim, Zoar, and Admab, which were situated in the fruitful plain of Siddim, having previously overrun the whole land.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(2) Bera king of Sodom.—The failure of the attempt to explain the names of these five kings, and of the cities over which they ruled (with one or two exceptions), by the help of the Hebrew language makes it probable that the inhabitants of the Ciccar were either Canaanites who had come from the sea-coast, or men of some Hamite stock who had colonised this region from the east. The latter is the more probable view, as they do not seem to have had much affinity either with the Amorites or with the Jebusites, their neighbours.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2. that they made war] This anticipates and summarizes the contents of Gen_14:5-10. As Hammurabi, the conqueror of Elam and founder of the Babylonian kingdom, terms himself king of Amurru = Amorites, or northern Palestine, there is nothing unhistorical in the representation of an invasion of this region by the Elamite suzerain.

Bera … Birsha] The kings of the cities of the Plain mentioned in this verse are not otherwise known. Identifications with the Arabic Bari and Birshi, and with the Babylonian Sinabu, have been conjectured. The five cities here named, sometimes (e.g. Wis_10:6) called the Pentapolis, were, according to the tradition, situated at the southern end of the Dead Sea, and, with the exception of Zoar, were overwhelmed in the catastrophe of chap. 19. Each city has its king, as was the case with the cities of Canaan, according to the Book of Joshua and the Tel-el-Amarna tablets.

It is noteworthy that Bera and Birsha can, in the Hebrew letters, denote “with evil” and “with wickedness” respectively.

The LXX (Cod. A) reads “Balla” for “Bera,” and “Sennaar” for “Shinab.”

Admah, and … Zeboiim] These towns are mentioned in Deu_29:23 and Hos_11:8 as having been overthrown in the great catastrophe described in chap. 19.

the king of Bela] The only king whose name is not given. The omission favours the accuracy of the list. The name “Bela,” meaning “destruction,” conceivably contains a local allusion. It has been suggested that we should read “Bela, king of Zoar.” The reader, in reviewing these two verses, will be struck with the fact that Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, whose name is mentioned first in the list of Gen_14:9, and who is evidently the supreme sovereign in Gen_14:4-5, stands third in the list in Gen_14:1. It is not easy to find an explanation. Some scholars suggest that the names are arranged in the order of their nearness to Palestine! Others, by a slight emendation of the text, reading the final “1” in “Amraphel” as a preposition, render as follows: “in the days of Amraph, when Arioch king of Ellasar was king over Shinar, then Chedorlaomer king of Elam and Tidal king of Goiim made war with, &c.” But the mention of the four kings in Gen_14:9, where their order is different, does not favour the conjecture.

A relief on the upper part of the basalt stele on which is inscribed in cuneiform characters the famous Code of Laws.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 (y) says, in this place formerly were thirteen cities, the metropolis of which was Sodom, and which yet had 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 (a) 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, Gen 19:20; but before, Bela; the name of its king is not mentioned, being a person of no great note and importance, and his city small.

(y) Geograph. l. 16. p. 526. (z) Works, vol. 2. p. 6. Vid. Reland. Palestina illustrata, tom. 2. p. 1020. (a) Polyhistor. c. 48.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Once for all, observe that the name of kings is here and elsewhere given by Moses to the chief governors of cities or little provinces. Compare Jos 12:9, &c.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

2. Bera… Birsha — The names of the kings of the pentapolis of this Jordan plain live only in this record. Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim are said in Gen_10:19, to have been settled by the sons of Ham. Bela, more commonly known as Zoar, is generally supposed to have been situated at the southern end of the Dead Sea. But Grove, in Smith’s Bib. Dict., places it at the northern, as also Sodom and Gomorrah.

This new theory of Grove is controverted, and the older view ably defended by Wolcott in Bib. Sacra, for 1868, vol. xxv, p. 112, ff.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That these made war. The LXX connect the present with the preceding verse by reading "that Arioch," &c. Ewald interpolates "of Abram," before "that Amraphel." ;With Bera. "Gift rA (Gesenius).

King of Sodom. "Burning, conflagration," as being built on bituminous soil, and therefore subject to volcanic eruptions; from conjectured to mean to burn (Gesenius). "Lime place," or "enclosed place;" from hd; s; to surround (Furst). A mountain with fossil salt at the present day is called Hagv Usdum; and Galen also knew of a Sodom mountain. And with Birsha = Vr,ab, "son of wickedness" (Gesenius); "long and thick" (Murphy); "strong, thick" (Furst). King of Gomorrah. GomarjRJa (LXX); perhaps "culture, habitation" (Gesenius); "rent, fissure" (Furst). Shinab. Father"s tooth" (Gesenius); "splendor of Ab" (Furst); "coolness" (Murphy). King of Admah. Fruit region, farm city (Furst). And Shemeber. "Soaring aloft" (Gesenius). King of Zeboiim. Place of hyenas (Gesenius); gazelles (Murphy); a wild place (Furst). And the king of Bela. "Devoured," or "devouring" (Gesenius). Which is Zoar. "The small," a name afterwards given to the city, (Gen_19:22) and here introduced as being better known than the more ancient one.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

ברע BERA —Evil (רע) towards God and evil towards mankind (Midrash Tanchuma, Lech Lecha 8).

ברשע BIRSHA — Because he rose by means of wickedness (רָשַׁע) (Midrash Tanchuma, Lech Lecha 8)).

שנאב SHINAB — He hated (שנא) his Father (אב) in heaven (Midrash Tanchuma, Lech Lecha 8)).

שמאבר SHEMEBER — He set his wings (שם אבר) to fly, flapping them to rebel against the Holy One, blessed be He (Midrash Tanchuma, Lech Lecha 8)).

בלע BELA is the name of this king’s city (but the king’s own name is not mentioned here).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

AND THE KING OF BELA. The reason [why Scripture does not mention his name as it does with the kings of Sodom, et al], is that he ruled over a small city with few men in it and he had no generally recognized reputation.

Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Tanakh — English translation: “Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

עשו מלחמה, now the Torah tells of the battle between them in the valley of Sidim. The fact that there had been previous wars resulting in the five kings becoming subservient to the four kings is mentioned only as a backdrop to this war that prompted Avram’s involvement.

Radak on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash” (CC BY 4.0); “Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology” (CC BY 4.0); and “R. David Kimhi on the first book of Psalms, Translated by R.G. Finch, London, 1919” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.