Genesis 14:5

came Chedorlaomer The king of Elam was strong enough to deal vigorously with the rebellion in his western dependencies. This and the two following verses describe the punitive expedition, with which Chedorlaomer and his vassal kings crushed the rebellion. Whether the kings led their forces in person, we are not able to say for certain. The description leaves it to be inferred. The Oriental style of chronicle identified successful generals with the name of the king who sent them on their campaign.

The march of the punitive expedition must have been across the Euphrates at Carchemish, and then southward past Damascus. It overthrew the Rephaim, Zuzim, Emim, and Horites who, apparently, were peoples on the east side of Jordan, involved in the rebellion. The southernmost point of the march was reached at the head of the Gulf of Akabah. As it commanded an important trade route, it may have formed the chief objective of the march. Returning from that point, the expedition struck at the Amalekites in the wilderness to the south of Palestine, and then attacked the joint forces of the five cities of the Plain and overthrew them in the valley of Siddim.

the Rephaim or "sons of the Rapha." The name given to the aborigines of Canaan, giant survivors of whom are mentioned in 2 Samuel 21:16-22. The name is specially applied, in Deuteronomy 3:11, to Og, the king of Bashan, whose territory corresponded with the country spoken of in this verse.

Ashteroth-karnaim Generally identified with Tell--Ashtara, in the plateau of Bashan, about 20 miles east of the sea of Galilee. Karnaimmeans "the two horns"; and the full name will therefore probably mean "the two-horned Astarte," who, as the Goddess of the Moon, was represented with two horns. "Astarte of horns was that immemorial fortress and sanctuary which lay out upon the great plateau of Bashan towards Damascus; so obvious and cardinal a site that it appears in the sacred history both in the earliest recorded campaign in Abraham's time and in one of the latest under the Maccabees. Genesis 14:5; 1Ma 5:26; 1Ma 5:43 " (G. Adam Smith, The Twelve Prophets, vol. i. p. 176.)

the Zuzim Possibly the same as "the Zamzummim," mentioned in Deuteronomy 2:20 as the aborigines who were dispossessed by the Ammonites.

in Ham Ham has been conjecturally identified with the old name of the Ammonite capital, mentioned in 2 Samuel 12:26, Rabbath Ammon.

the Emim Mentioned in Deuteronomy 2:10 as the name of the aborigines, "a people great and many and tall, as the Anakim," dispossessed by the Moabites. The name means probably "the terrible ones."

in Shaveh-kiriathaim or the plain of Kiriathaim. In Numbers 32:37 and Joshua 13:19 Kiriathaimis a town in Reuben: in Jeremiah 48:23 in Moab. It is generally identified with Kureyat, about 10 miles east of the Dead Sea and north of the river Arnon.