Joseph A. Fitzmyer, «Melchizedek in the MT, LXX, and the NT», Vol. 81 (2000) 63-69

Melchizedek is mentioned in the Hebrew Old Testament only in Gen 14,18-20 and Psalm 110,4. The details about this (originally Canaanite) priest-king in these passages were further read and understood in the Hellenistic and Roman periods of Jewish, and later Christian, history. This is seen in the translation or interpretation of the passages in the Septuagint, the writings of Flavius Josephus, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and in the Peshitta, where a process of allegorization was at work.

whom²⁰. No subject of the verb Ntyw is expressed, and the subject of the preceding verb is Melchizedek (14,19a). Did Melchizedek give tithes to Abram, or did Abram give tithes to Melchizedek? The lack of clarity in the text has been known at least since the time of Jerome (Epist. 73.6)²¹. Again, the isolated and rootless character of these verses supplies the explanation. In the original saga Melchizedek, as an allied king, probably paid tithes to Abram, as a sign of tribute to him, but then, when the verses were incorporated into the story of Abram in Genesis, the statement about tithes came to be understood the other way round. As such, it is interpreted in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the fact that Abram paid tithes to Melchizedek is made to show the superiority of Melchizedek’s priesthood over that of Levi, for ‘[Levi] was still in the loins of his father [Abram], when Melchizedek met him’ (Heb 7,10).

        The passage as a whole (Gen 14,17-24) in its final form shows how the priesthood of the Most High God was considered to have been operative in Jerusalem, not just from the time of David or Solomon, but even before Abram arrived in the Promised Land. It shows that the king of Salem was such a priest and that Abram, having defeated Chedorlaomer, the overlord of the whole area, became heir to his territory and paid tithes to the priest-king Melchizedek. Thus despite the rootless character of the vv. 18-20, they became indeed the kernel of the whole chapter in its final Jewish form.

        Such details about the enigmatic figure Melchizedek in the Book of Genesis became in the Hellenistic and Roman periods the objects of further interpretation and speculation. That is why Melchizedek provides a good example of how the Bible was read in these later periods. This mode of reading is detected in the Greek translation of the OT, commonly called the Septuagint (LXX), in Josephus’s writings, in the Latin versions of the Vetus Latina and the Vulgate, and also in the Syriac Peshitta.

        The form of the Melchizedek story in Genesis of the LXX follows in general the tradition of the MT, but there are six notable differences: (1) Nyyw Mxl becomes a!rtouj (in the plural) kai_ oi]non, ‘loaves and wine’; (2) the king of Sodom says to Abram in v. 21: Do/j moi tou_j a!ndraj, th_n de_ i#ppon labe_ seautw=|, ‘Give me the men, but take the horse for yourself’, and Hebrew #krh was rendered th_n i#ppon²²; (3) the divine name in v. 22, as already mentioned, is simply to_n qeo_n u#yiston, instead of the Hebrew Nwyl( l) hwhy; (4) the king of Sodom asks Abram to give him tou_j a!ndraj, ‘the men’, instead of #pnh; (5) the ambiguous wxqy in v. 24, which I have translated as a jussive, is understood as a future (lh/myontai); and (6) the peculiar phrase in Ps 110,4 qdc-klm ytrbd-l( is translated as kata_ th_n ta/cin Melxise/dek, ‘according to the order of Melchizedek’²³.