Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“The king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, at the valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley).”
(Genesis 14:17)

The king of Sodom was NOT a godly person. This is the man who led the culture of Sodom. The people who indulged in their wealth with a selfishness that was hard to believe – especially within a larger culture that prized hospitality. They were prideful. They had enormous resources. They didn’t even need to work hard to have all these things. They didn’t help orphans or widows. They didn’t help the poor or anyone in need. It was every person for themselves. They were arrogant. And in that arrogance, they gave themselves over to anything that felt good. Their feelings dominated their reality, whether we are talking about emotional behaviour, physical behaviour, or passions. They drew no lines. They barred no ideas. They were completely and totally selfishly indulgent – and they didn’t care what effect that behaviour had on you (Ezekiel 16:49-50; Genesis 19:4-9). The king of Sodom didn’t stop this behaviour. He represented the perfection of it. This is who was placing themselves for an encounter with Abram.

The other kings had allied themselves with this ungodly king. Whether they personally objected to anything he did or promoted, they had chosen to stand on his side. This was a united front which faced Abram. At worst, their values were close enough to the king of Sodom to go to war to protect themselves and their way of life. At best, they liked the benefits that came their way from their alliance with the king of Sodom. Either way – or anything in between – was a poor situation for Abram. He was heading into a serious moral quandary. A battle that Lot had already lost and had the down payment of the cost of that alliance.

The King’s Valley wasn’t that far from Jerusalem, although it was currently called by the shorter moniker Salem. In later years, Absalom the son of David would build a pillar in his name as a remembrance of himself to future generations (2 Samuel 18:18).

The sage Chizkuni writes: ‘ויצא מלך סדום, the King of Sodom now emerged from the pits in which he had hidden. He is mentioned by name, as the whole war had revolved around him, he having been the one who had refused to pay taxes to Kedorleomer. (Genesis 14,15) He had been the ringleader of the five rebellious kings.’

The sage Radak writes: ‘ויצא…אל עמק שוה, this was a spot reserved for horse racing as it was a flat piece of land without hills or depressions. The reason it was also called עמק המלך, valley of the king, was that the king and his riders used it as a training ground for their race horses. Onkelos translates it as למישר מפונא, meaning that this plain was free from obstacles such as stones, tree stumps, etc. He translates the words עמק המלך as בית ריסא דמלכא, describing the size of the 180 cubits, the distances over which horses raced.’

The sage Steinsaltz writes: ‘The king of Sodom, who was presumably disheveled and suffering from war wounds, went out to meet him, Abram, perhaps from one of the bitumen pits. The king of Sodom hoped to restore some of his losses through negotiations with Abram, who was now the rising power in the region, after his return from smiting Kedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, to the valley of Shaveh, which is the valley of the king.‘