Melchizedek meaning

Meaning

King Of Righteousness

Etymology

From (1) the noun מלך (melek), king, and (2) the verb צדק (sadeq), to be just.

Related names

• Via מלך (melek): Abimelech, Adrammelech, Ahimelech, Allammelech, Anammelech, Ebed-melech, Elimelech, Hammoleketh, Jamlech, Malcam, Malchiel, Malchijah, Malchiram, Malchi-shua, Malchus, Malluch, Malluchi, Melchi, Melech, Melecheth-hashamayim, Milcah, Milcom, Molech, Moloch, Nathan-melech, Regemmelech

• Via צדק (sadeq): Adoni-zedek, Jehozadak, Sadducees, Zadok, Zedekiah

Melchizedek is the king of Salem and priest of El Elyon (Genesis 14:18). He has a small but far stretching role in the War of Four against Five Kings, in the aftermath of which Abraham's nephew Lot is abducted by the survivors of that war and subsequently freed by Abraham and his coalition.

These stories were part of a widely maintained oral tradition (see our article on the Torah), glossed with verifiable facts, and written in their present form in Persia in the sixth century BC. The story in which patriarch Abraham beats the vast armies of the Mesopotamian alliance with 318 of his men and takes home his kin (Genesis 14:14), is quite openly an allusion to the return from Babylonian exile and the restoration of the temple and worship of YHWH. The authors made it as clear as they could that these stories are not about military or political encounters, but rather of wisdom and competing information technologies: scripts and writing systems, and statecraft not by law enforcement but by enlightenment.

As we discuss in our article on Haran, the story of the adventures of Abraham is not anecdotal or even historical (in the sense that Abraham would be a single human individual), but rather ties into the greater story of how human consciousness arose and broke from the animal realm (see our article on Noah) produced speech first, then writing, then science and technology (the Logos) and finally a unified global mankind governed only by freedom and the knowledge of natural law (what the Greeks would consider the democratic ideal: ελευθερια, eleutheria, or freedom-by-law).

Somewhere in that story, and right before the Logos meets Abraham (Genesis 15:1), Abraham meets Melchizedek and his service of El Elyon: one God, not many autonomous deities and forces that perpetually fight each other and cause chaos on earth, but a single unified set of laws, in which everything that exists does so in relationship with all other things, and is governed by an inviolable overarching Oneness that will always cause what goes up to fall down, and what goes around to come around, and to level the mountains and raise the seas — hence entropy and the conservation of energy, electrical charge, momentum, baryon number and all that. These laws can be learned and this Oneness can be found. And that's what Melchizedek is the priest of: the scientific tradition.

Melchizedek gives Abraham bread and wine and blesses him, and Abraham gives Melchizedek a tenth of the goods that he retrieved from the looters. This action gave rise to the law of tithing (via Genesis 28:22, via Leviticus 27:30 to Deuteronomy 14:22-29; also see Hebrews 7:1-10), which tells of the invention of taxation: the financial equivalent of photosynthesis. A non-animate object will absorb sunlight and turn it into heat, which is the excitement of all individual molecules into a fervent jostling and bouncing against their neighboring molecules. A living plant cell, however, will absorb energy and turn it into a chemical equivalent (glucose, mostly), for the whole plant to benefit and grow from — and this is more than a cute metaphor: see our article on μελι (meli), honey.

Though grossly abused by most governments today (because virtuous taxation is always voluntary: Exodus 35:21-25, 1 Chronicles 29:8-9, 2 Corinthians 8:3), the idea of a communal treasury was revolutionary and changed everything for mankind. It allowed tribes to federate, to develop a unified identity and a homogenous culture across vast areas of land. Local tribal councils produced representatives to meet periodically with the neighbors in super-councils, and a specific class of people who governed the treasury. Trade routes were secured and law was taught for everybody to believe in. Peace and freedom came from enlightenment, not enforcement.

Melchizedek was the proverbial King of Peace, but like Abraham, this King was not a human individual but rather an economic principle, a predecessor of the ultimate King that is the Logos. He was not located anywhere specifically — his city Salem was not some local city somewhere but rather "that" which hosted the global market, namely the basic principles of trade: respect for everything, cooperation and federation, pacts over vast distances, fairness in exchange, repetition and learning, brotherly love and a communal treasury.

In our article on Haran we propose that at this point of the story, the focus of the world was in Old Europe, with legendary Salem somewhat coinciding with the area of modern Belgrade. Abraham left, and although the primary story does not offer any details or explanation, the fall of Old Europe is hinted to all over the Bible, from Isaiah 52:7 to Ezekiel 16:5-6 to John 12:6.

King David seems to have had access to records (or direct revelation) that are lost to us today when he cites God in Psalm 110:4, "You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek". That there used to be a strong tradition about this Melchizedek becomes evident in Paul's letter to the Hebrews (Hebrews 5:6, 5:10, 6:20 etc.). In this sense there is a huge difference between Melchizedek and Jethro, another famous priest, although at first he is perhaps not a priest of the God of Israel. Jethro is the father of Zipporah, the first wife of Moses, whose allegiance to God becomes evident only after he sees the success of Israel (Exodus 18:11).

But the bottom line is that Melchizedek, like all other major players from the early Old Testament, represents a school of thought or level of social development. He famously had no mother or father or genealogy, which indicates that he represents a natural wisdom tradition that had sprang up spontaneously as part of human nature, and not based on a previous tradition or external authority (Isaiah 59:21, Jeremiah 31:33, Romans 2:12, Hebrews 8:10). But he also famously joined Abraham in forming the earliest formal form of Yahwism, and this appears to indicate that although Jesus is a priest in the order of Melchizedek (not based on something prior or external), he certainly embraces whatever human tradition has allowed the Creator to steer it toward the promised land (Matthew 17:3).

In the Greek New Testament the name Melchizedek is spelled Μελχισεδεκ (Melchisedek) and occurs 9 times in the New Testament; see full concordance.

The use of a hyphen in a name is quite unusual, and although Melchizedek seems a personal name, it looks more like a title. It consists of two elements, the first one taken from the noun מלך (melek), meaning king:

The letter י is possessive, and the form מלכי means either my king, or king of.

The second part of the name Melchizedek comes from the verb צדק (sadeq), meaning to be just:

Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names and NOBSE Study Bible Name List agree on the meaning of Melchizedek: King Of Righteousness. BDB Theological Dictionary sees in the zedek-part a reference to someone (some god?) named Sedeq, and reads My King Is Sedeq.