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.

who went forth to refresh Abram and his troops on their return from battle⁸ with the invading kings, but who also blessed Abram and gave him a tithe of everything.

        Although the Epistle to the Hebrews interprets the name Malki-s[edeq as meaning basileu_j dikaiosu/nhj, ‘the king of righteousness’ (7,2), and does so along with both Philo and Josephus⁹, the name must have originally meant ‘[the god] S[edeq is my king’, or less likely, ‘My king is righteous(ness)’. The first element, Malki, is found in other names like l)yklm (‘El is my king’, Gen 46,17) or hyklm (‘Yah[weh] is my king’, Ezra 10,31). For the explanation of s[dq as the name of a god, one can appeal to qdc-ynd)) (‘S[edeq is my lord’, Josh 10,1.3)¹⁰ and Philo Byblius’s testimony about a Phoenician god named Sudu/k or Sude/k¹¹. This, too, would explain why Josephus calls Melchizedek Xananai/wn duna/sthj, ‘a chief of the Canaanites’¹². For the less likely explanation, ‘My king is righteous(ness)’, one can compare qdcwhy (Hag 1,1) or qdcwy (Ezra 3,2.8), ‘YHWH is righteousness’.

        Gen 14,18 identifies Melchizedek as Ml# Klm, ‘king of Salem’. The tradition reflected in Ps 76,2 shows that ‘Salem’ was another, perhaps older, name for the city of Jerusalem (‘In Salem is His abode; His dwelling is in Zion’)¹³. It would follow, then, that Melchizedek was a king of pre-Israelite Salem/Jerusalem, and this is almost certainly the sense in which the title was understood by the Jewish redactor(s) of Gen 14.

        If, however, the three verses are indeed an inserted unit, which originally narrated something about Melchizedek, a Canaanite chief, then Ml# Klm may well have had a different sense. W.F. Albright once proposed that the phrase was originally hml# Klm and that the final he was lost by haplography (before )ycwh). He translated the phrase, ‘And Melchizedek, a king allied to him [lit. of his peace], brought out bread and wine’¹⁴. Albright compared, yml# #y) ‘my ally’ (Ps 41,10); Kml# y#n), ‘those allied to you’ (Obad 7).

        Melchizedek ‘brought out bread and wine’ (14,18), i.e. food and drink to