Daily Prayer ©2006

Melchizedek: A Priestly Figure
by Pastor Ronald Boelte

Melchizedek's first appearance in the Bible is the Old Testament in Genesis 14. He was bringing bread and wine to Abraham after his victory over the four kings who had besieged Sodom and Gomorrah and taken his nephew Lot prisoner. In turn, Abraham recognized Melchizedek as greater than himself and gave to him a priestly tithe of ten percent of the bounty taken in the battle.

What the rest of the Bible has to say about this person seems to add more confusion about who this person really was, and if we look closely at Hebrews in the New Testament that confusion is confounded. Many Christians seem to believe that Melchizedek is the human incarnation of Jesus before His birth in the first century A.D. However, a close examination of scripture is necessary to understand what the Hebrew writer was really trying to say to the people back then and what it tells us of this person now.

Also, some rabbinic scholars identify Melchizedek with Noah's son Shem. The account of Melchizedek given in the Dead Sea Scrolls has also divided these scholars into two camps, one that says his existence was as a mortal man and the others that identifies him with the archangel Michael.

It is not totally clear from scriptures who this Melchizedek is, but by looking at the original Greek text of Hebrews and looking at the rabbinical forms of argument that is presented in the book of Hebrews that Melchizedek was not the Christ, but a actual human.

He was a historical figure and a priest of the one true God who live during the times of Abraham. Not much is known about him beyond the fact that he was the priest-king of Salem, the future Jerusalem. He was appointed to that office by God and that he was before the future requirements of the law, which stated that only the line of Aaron could be a true priest of God.

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