Genesis 14 - Introduction

EXCURSUS E: UPON ELAM AND THE CONQUESTS AND ROUTE OF CHEDORLAOMER (Genesis 14).

Of Elam we lately knew nothing more than that it was a country called after a son of Shem, and this narrative, containing an account of a conquest of Canaan by Elamites, was a puzzle to thoughtful Bible readers, and a mark for the derision of such critics as imagine that everything of which a clear explanation cannot be given must necessarily be unhistorical. Within the last few years our knowledge has so grown that the narrative fits exactly into its place, although neither the name of Chedorlaomer nor the history itself has been found in the cuneiform texts.
The country of Elam itself is a vast highland on the eastern side of the Tigris, with broad plains lying between mountains which sometimes attain an elevation of eight or ten thousand feet. It is easily defensible, rich, and well watered, and its inhabitants were dreaded neighbours of the Babylonians, upon whose fertile plains they constantly poured down in sudden inroads, and returned to their hills laden with booty. It was from Elam that the Accadians descended and conquered Babylonia, and we thus gather that its earlier inhabitants were Turanians, sprung from Japheth. The names of the towns in that part of the country of which Susa is the capital still bear witness to the supremacy there of this race, while the names of the rest of the Elamite towns are said by M. Oppert (Records of the Past, ix. 5) to be Semitic. Elamitic Semites appear also among the Assyrian sculptures, where “their keen and refined features are set off to great advantage by the blunt outline and thick protruding lips, which have been identified with the Kissians, or Cossaeans, of classic authors, the Kassi of the monuments, the sons of Cush of the Bible” (Rawlinson’s Anc. Mon., ii. 500). Thus in Elam, as on the Tigris and Euphrates, we find the families of the three sons of Noah distinct in lineament and language, but dwelling near one another, and coming in successive waves of population to struggle for the possession of the land.

The first great event recorded concerning Elam is found in the Annals of Assurbanipal, son of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria. He asserts that he conquered Elam, and took the city of Susa in B.C. 645, and that he then brought back an image of Nana which Kudur Nakhunté had carried away from Babylonia 1,635 years before; that is, in B.C. 2280. As Nana and Nakhunté seem to be names of the same goddess, while Kudur means “servant,” we thus find this Elamite king calling himself, perhaps from this exploit, “the servant of Nakhunté.” Lagomar, or Lagomar, is the name of another Elamite god, and thus Chedorlaomer means “servant of Lagomar.”
Nearer to the time of Abram we find an Elamite king named Kudur-Mabuk, who claims the title of adda Martu, that is, lord of Phœnicia, showing that he too, like Chedorlaomer, had conquered Syria. His son was named Eriaku, and being associated with his father in the government, received Larsa as his capital. The names Eriaku and Larsa are the same as those of Arioch and of Ellasar, and this further suggests the idea that Kudur-lagomar and Kudur-Mabuk may have been the same person. Canon Rawlinson gives the probable date of Kudur-Mabuk’s reign as about B.C. 2100, Mr. Sayce about a century later, and M. Lenormant somewhere about the epoch of Abraham (Tomkins’s Studies, p. 180).

Now the Elamite king, fourteen years before, had subdued the Jordan valley (Genesis 14:5), and as this second expedition was prior to Abram’s taking Hagar to wife, which happened in the tenth year after his migration to Palestine (see Genesis 16:3), it follows that Abram and Terah were still at Kharran when Chedorlaomer passed through it, as he must have done, on his march. Himself a Turanian, he would look with ill-will on powerful Semitic chiefs such as were Abraham and Lot, and his visit may have had something to do in urging them on their further route as soon as Terah’s death set them free. We see also that, besides the caravan road, there was a war track to Canaan, and thus, with troubles from Elamite invasions at home to urge him on, Abram was but following the great current of population in going to Palestine first, and thence onward to Egypt. So many took this route and remained in Egypt that, under the name of the Hyksos, they took possession, first of the Delta, and then of Egypt generally. And in this stream of human migration there was one whose going and purpose was Divine.

For twelve years Chedorlaomer’s tribute was regularly paid, but in the thirteenth year the five kings who possessed the wealthiest portion of the Jordan valley rebelled. A twelvemonth is spent in gathering Elam’s forces; but in the next spring, attended by three subject monarchs, the king starts on his march to punish the revolters. On his arrival at Damascus, probably by the same route which Abram had followed, we find him taking a wide circuit, so as to sweep the whole country and fall upon the rebels last, and from the side where they least expected an attack. For, moving southwards through Bashan, he smites the Rephaim and other tribes along the plateau on the east of Jordan, until he reaches the wild mountains inhabited by the cave-dwelling Horites, and which extend from the Dead Sea to the gulf of Akaba. The most southerly spot reached by him was El-Paran, the oak-forest of Paran, situated on the edge of the great desert of Et-Tih. Turning henco to the north and north-west, he smites on his way the Amalekites, whose wandering tribes occupied this vast desert, and thus reaches the Dead Sea, along the western shore of which he marches till he reaches Hazezon-Tamar, better known as En-gedi. This ravine is, as Dr. Tristram has shown, of the utmost strategical importance. For it is easy to march along the shore of the lake as far as this point, while inland the route lies across a rough and almost waterless wilderness. But north of Engedi the shoreline is impracticable even for footmen. We gather that the Amorites held the pass, but were not reinforced by their countrymen, and probably were surprised — for a handful of men could defend the zigzag path which mounts up the side of the precipice to a height of 1,800 feet. At the head of this ravine Chedorlaomer was less than twenty miles distant from Abram at Mamre, but with a difficult country between; and, moreover, his object was to smite and plunder the rich cities of the plain. As he had now traversed two-thirds of the length of the Dead Sea, it again becomes manifest that Sodom and the other cities were at its northern end. In the vale of Siddim the battle is fought, and the five kings, entangled among the bitumen pits, are defeated with so great slaughter that a remnant only escapes. Fleeing, not to the mountains of Moab, as commentators assume, but to those of Judea, they carry the news to Abram, telling him that, with other captives, Lot and his goods are carried away. He draws out at once 318 men, all trained to arms, and all born in his house, and therefore of sure fidelity, as those bought or lately acquired would not be, and, reinforced by bodies of Amorites under Mamre, Aner, and Eehcol, starts in rapid pursuit. Encumbered with goods and prisoners and cattle, Chedor-laomer marched but slowly, and when, after four or five days' pursuit, Abram overtook the Elamites, they would probably be as little prepared for an attack as the Amalekites whom David found, after they had sacked Ziklag, "spread abroad upon all the earth, eating and drinking and dancing” (1 Samuel 30:16). Still they were numerous, and most of them veteran warriors, and so Abram waits till night, and then, dividing his little army into three divisions, he makes his attack, throws them into confusion, and pursuing them almost to the gates of Damascus, recovers all the persons and spoil which they had gathered in their long route downwards and upwards throughout the whole length of Palestine.