Thus encouraged, _the Friend of God_ (Jas. ii. 23) removed his tent, and travelling southward took up his abode under the spreading terebinth[27] of Mamre, an Amorite prince (Gen. xiv. 13, 24), near Hebron, or as it was then called Kirjath-Arba, _the City of Arba_ the father of Anak and the progenitor of the giant Anakim (Gen. xxiii. 2; xxxv. 27; Josh. xiv. 15). While dwelling peacefully in this neighbourhood, which like all other places he hallowed with an altar to Jehovah, he received one day unexpected tidings of his nephew Lot. The chiefs of the five cities in the tropical valley of the Jordan, SODOM, GOMORRAH, ADMAH, ZEBOIM, and BELAH, had for twelve years been subject to CHEDORLAOMER, a powerful king of Elam or Mesopotamia. But they had lately united together to throw off his yoke. Thereupon the King of Elam, aided by three other confederate chiefs, proceeded to make war against the southern kings. Sweeping down on a sudden foray, he smote the countries on the eastern uplands of the Jordan and the southern region of Mount Seir. Returning thence he ravaged all the country of the Amalekites, and with his allied chiefs met the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah in pitched battle in the Vale of Siddim, probably at the north-west corner of the Dead Sea. The five southern kings were utterly routed, and with much spoil and many captives the Assyrian invader commenced his return northwards. It was the news of this sudden invasion which now reached the ears of Abram. Without losing a moment he instantly armed his 318 trained servants, and, aided by the confederate chief Mamre and his brothers Eshcol and Aner, arose and pursued the Assyrians by night. The latter had in the meantime reached the neighbourhood of the Sidonian Laish, far up in the northern mountains. Thither, however, Abram pursued them, and falling upon them suddenly, while all unconscious of coming danger, he smote them and chased them to Hobah, on the left of Damascus. Thence, with the recovered captives, amongst whom was Lot, he returned, and at the _King’s Dale_, not far from Hebron, was met by the King of Sodom, accompanied by a mysterious personage, who now meets us for the first and only time, named MELCHISEDEC, a king of Salem and priest of the Most High God. The sudden appearance of one thus uniting the kingly and priestly functions, of whose origin and family we know nothing, has led to much speculation. Putting aside more improbable conjectures, we may perhaps conclude that he was an eminent Canaanitish prince in the line of Ham, who had maintained the pure worship of the One true God, and who, according to a custom not uncommon in patriarchal times, was at once king and priest[28]. A sufficient proof of his high dignity is afforded by the fact that to him the patriarch Abram reverently gave tithes of all that he had taken in his late successful expedition, and received his solemn blessing (Heb. vii. 2, 6). Before they parted