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.

meaning of Hebrew qdc-klm ytrbd-l( is³, there is little doubt that the Psalm alludes to the king Melchizedek, who is called Nwyl( l)l Nhk in Gen 14,18⁴.

        Before I analyze details about Melchizedek in the three verses of Gen 14, I must say something about the character of them as a unit. As is generally recognized today, Gen 14 is not derived from any of the usual pentateuchal sources⁵. This chapter is not part of J, E, or P. Moreover, even vv. 18-20 may not have been an original part of the story in that chapter, because they interrupt the account of the meeting of Abram with the king of Sodom. They are not, however, necessarily a ‘later addition’, as some have tried to argue⁶, but may be part of an independent ancient poetic saga, as old as the rest of Gen 14. Verses 18-20 seem, however, to have been incorporated secondarily into the account of the meeting of Abram with the king of Sodom⁷, because they interrupt the continuity of vv. 17 and 21. This gives these verses an isolated and rootless character, which explains some of the details in them, but it also shows why Melchizedek appears for a brief moment here and has little connection with the rest of the story in Gen 14.

        The three verses tell of the cooperation of Melchizedek, an allied king,