Genesis 14:21¶ And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, and take the
goods to thyself. 22 And Abram said to the king
of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the
possessor of heaven and earth, 23 That I will not take
from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is
thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich: 24 Save only that which the
young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me, Aner,
Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their portion.
Abram is not going to let the king of Sodom make
himself Abram’s benefactor. He will owe nothing to this king. This is a good
lesson, not to enrich oneself by the kindness of someone or something evil. One
might make a sermon about ‘generosity’ of the Devil and what the consequences
of accepting a reward at his hands might be. Even if the king of Sodom, most
likely a high priest of his own god, had good intentions, Abram was not going
to put himself in the position of having to be grateful to him.
A reward carried with it some important
considerations. To accept a reward from a king implied an understanding of
loyalty to that king. Abram was not the king’s servant and did not enter into
this warfare for the king of Sodom’s sake.
Job 7:2
As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as an hireling looketh
for the reward of his work:
As much as this king of Sodom would have liked to
have someone as wealthy and powerful as Abram beholden to him, perhaps even out
of fear, Abram, the friend of God, would not permit such a thing.
The
mercy and grace of God will be Abram’s reward in the very next chapter. He
needed no bounty from a human king, especially one who worshipped devils in all
likelihood. In the American business culture of Christianity it does not matter
who rewards me as long as I get one. The reward is the object and the character
and condition of the granter of the reward is irrelevant. This is
characteristic of even the most conservative churches whose preachers announce
from the pulpit how wicked and Godless the government is, all the while
accepting tax breaks and any benefit they or their congregation can get from
that same wicked government, accepting rewards from the king of Sodom. Abram
would be apalled.
Three confederates
only are mentioned but in this method of writing referring to the leadership
can also imply men following. Clearly you don’t believe that only the kings
mentioned earlier who attacked Sodom and Gomorrah were present but that they
had an army with them. Common sense tells us that the reference to Aner,
Eshcol, and Mamre does not mean that they, too, would not have had their own
servants armed and battle ready.
No comments:
Post a Comment