DWDP - Gen 14: 1-16 The War of the Kings

Five kings sweep in, cities fall, and Lot is carried off like collateral damage. When we open Genesis 14, the story moves fast, but the questions underneath it are the ones we all live with: what do you do when evil feels organized, when the odds look stupidly unfair, and when someone you love gets caught in the mess?

We walk line by line through the war of the kings, the rebellion over tribute, and the hard details that make the text feel real, including the valley of Siddim and its tar pits. Along the way, we talk about the strange tribal names, why some Bible scholars connect them to the Nephilim and “giants,” and how Scripture frames both human violence and spiritual corruption without turning the passage into fantasy or fear bait.

Then everything narrows to one decision: Abram hears Lot is taken, gathers 318 trained men, and moves. The lesson is bigger than tactics. I call it the “God factor” the reality that God can flip outcomes that look impossible, just like Gideon’s victory. To make it concrete, I share a personal story from medical school when a creation vs evolution debate had a price tag we could not cover, and God provided anyway.

If you need a push to trust God with your own circumstances, start here. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find these Bible devotions and gospel-centered encouragement.

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Welcome To More Than Medicine

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Welcome to More Than Medicine, where Jesus is more than enough for the ills that plague our culture and our country. Hosted by author and physician, Dr. Robert Jackson.

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Papa, can you tell me a story? Do you really want me to tell you a story? Well, you go get your brother and your sisters, and I will tell you a story.

Devotions With Dr Papa Begins

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Welcome to Devotions with Dr. Papa. Gather around, grab your Bibles, and let us look into the written word which reveals to us the living word who is our Lord Jesus Christ.

Genesis 14 Reading War Begins

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Now we're at Genesis chapter fourteen, which describes to us the war of the kings. Let me read to you from chapter fourteen. And it came about in the days of Amrafel, King of Shinar, Arich, King of Elisar, Chedleamar, King of Elam, and Tidal, King of Goim, that they made war with Bera, King of Sodom, and with Birsa, King of Gomara, Shinab, King of Adma, and Shemebur, King of Zeboim, and the king of Bella, that is Zoar. All these came as allies to the valley of Sidim, that is the Salt Sea. Twelve years they had served Cheddar, but the thirteenth year they rebelled. In the fourteenth year Cheddaramar and the kings that were with him came and defeated the Refim in Ashtaroth Karnaim, and the Suzim in Ham and the Em in Shabiratim, and the Horites in their Mount Sair, as far as El Paran, which is by the wilderness.

Who Are These Kings

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Now I'm stop there and let's ask a few questions. Who in the world are these five kings? What is their confederacy and where did they come from? Well, the Confederacy is five city states from Babylonia, led by this man Cheddarleamer, King of Elom, which is the original kingdom of Persia, which is now called Iran. These were fairly small in size compared to the invading armies of the future, but they were fierce and cruel and destructive. Such incursions were common, seeking slaves and booty and conquered lands and tribute. The conquered kings, four of them that were described in verses two through four, in year thirteen they rebelled. They refused to pay tribute any longer. Originally this area was a very fertile valley. This was before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and it was filled with slime pits or asphalt pits, which may have initially attracted the invading armies. Let's read verses five through seven. In the fourteenth year Chedleamur and the kings that were with him came and defeated the Rephaim in Ashtaroth, Karnaim, and the Suzim in Ham, and the Em in Shaviratim, and the Horites in their Mount Sair, as far as El Poron, which is by the wilderness. Then they turned back and came to Enmeshpat, that is Kadesh, and conquered all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites who lived in Hazazon Tamar. All right, a lot of faint strange names, right?

The Invasion Spreads Across The Valley

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So the result of this rebellion was an invasion that resulted in the pillage of multiple uninvolved cities. The invasion of the five kings from Babylonia first crushed all the tribes northeast and then west of the Salt Sea before it reached the five cities on the southern shores against which the invasion had been mounted in the first place. So who were these tribes that were annihilated? Let me just read to you from doctor Morris' book

Giants, Nephilim, And Dark History

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from which I've referred multiple times in all these lessons page three hundred and fourteen in his book The Genesis Record. Some of the tribes and places named are very interesting, though not all have yet been identified archaeologically. The Refaiim, Suzim and Amim are first mentioned as located in Ashtaroth Karnaim, Ham and Shabe, respectively. The Zuzim are probably the same as the Zamzumin, mentioned in Deuteronomy chapter two, who are said to have been giants, a people great and many and tall. The same description was applied to the Amim in Deuteronomy chapter two and verse ten, whose name meant the terrible ones. The Rephaim, meaning strong ones, and the Zamzumin, meaning powerful ones, were possibly tribes of the Anakim, which means giants, who were descended from Anach, the son of Arba. If you remember in Joshua chapter fifteen and verse thirteen, Arba in turn descended from Anach. I'm sorry, Arba in turn was one of the children of Heth. Heath was also ancestor of the Hittites, from whom Abraham later purchased land in Hebron. Hebron had earlier been known as Kiriat Arba, the city of Arba. It is also significant that the sons of Anach were identified with the giants. The Hebrew word is Nephilim in Numbers chapter thirteen, which is the same word as that used for the giants of Genesis chapter six. We talked about that in previous lessons. The word Nephilim, also translated giants in the Septuagint, actually means fallen ones, or possibly those who fall upon, and was associated in Antedeluvian days with the illicit activity of the fallen angels in their possession and corruption of the antedeluvian women. Although it is well not to be dogmatic on this subject, it seems possible to infer from the above references that soon after the flood another unusually intense demonic invasion of Earth took place, probably in connection with the rebellion at Babel, and that certain Canaanite tribes in particular subsequently became so demon controlled that a race of monsters was again produced, as in the days before the flood. Finally, Moses and Joshua were instructed by God to utterly exterminate these tribes when they first entered the promised land, just as God had destroyed the Antediluvians. So there you have it, and that's a lot to think about. Well, somehow Abraham managed to coexist with these demon energized tribes, and the fact that these five kings could defeat them proved their ferocity and their own strength.

Battle In The Tar Pits

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Now let's look at verses eight through ten. And the king of Sodom and the King of Gomorrah and the king of Adma and the King of Zeboim and the king of Bella, that is Zoar, came out, and they arrayed for battle against them in the valley of Sidam, against Chedlamar, King of Elom, and Tidal, King of Goim, and Amrafel, King of Shinar, and Ariok, King of Elisar, four kings against five. Now the valley of Siddom was full of tar pits, and the kings of Sodom and Gemorah fled, and they fell into them, but those who survived fled to the hill country. Then they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their food supply and departed. Well, so the Bible tells us that the five kings pillaged and took all goods and captives. The invading armies they turn then turned their attention to the four kings of the valley. The four kings fled, and their people fled to the mountains. The kings of Sodom and Gomorrah they fled or hid in the tar pits. The five kings pillaged, they took all the goods they took captives, including Lot and his family. They made a huge mistake when they took Abram's nephew captive. Verse eleven and twelve says that they took goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, all their food supply, and then in verse twelve it says they took Lot, Abram's nephew, and his possessions and departed, for he was living in Sodom. Well then let's go to verse thirteen.

Abram The Hebrew Explained

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It tells us that a fugitive informed Abram. Then a fugitive came and told Abram the Hebrew. Abram the Hebrew. Now he was living by the oaks of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshkal and brother of Aner, and these were allies with Abram. Now this is interesting. Abram was informed by an escape, a fugitive, who fled and somehow knew to go and tell Abram. Maybe Lot sent him to his uncle. And the Bible calls Abram the Hebrew. This is the first mention of the name Hebrew, probably derived from the name of Eber, the great grandson of Shem and a distant ancestor of Abram. The word Habiru H A B I R U Habiru, which refers to a nomadic tribe, did not apply only to the Israelites initially. Here it was used as a descriptor of Abram because he was nomadic and he moved about in search of pasture for his extensive flocks. Later the term Habiru was appropriately applied to Isaac and Jacob, who also had extensive flocks and lived nomadic lives. Eventually the entirety of Jacob's offspring were Habiru nomadic and were designated Hebrew, as was Abraham.

318 Men And The God Factor

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It's interesting to note that by now Abram himself was like a king, a chieftain, because his because of his wealth and his possessions and extensive livestock and servants from his retinue he was able to gather three hundred and eighteen able bodied men, all trained in his house in warfare in order to pursue the kings and rescue Lot. His economic and political connections were such that Mamre, Eshgal, and Aener all three threw in with him without hesitation. If three hundred and nineteen men pursuing and overcoming five conquering kings seems unlikely to you, just remember the G factor, the god factor. Remember Gideon and three hundred men overcoming a hundred thousand plus Midianites in a nocturnal surprise attack in the book of Judges, with trumpets and torches and shouting the sword of the Lord and Gideon. The spirit of the Lord turned the Midianite swords one upon another, and they fought against each other until the slaughter was complete. That was a supernatural God inspired victory, the god factor. And so was Abram's victory. His three hundred and eighteen trained men were divided into three companies that fell upon the unsuspecting kings, who were no doubt intoxicated with their victory, and dancing around the fire, Abram's surprise and victory was total and complete, and God orchestrated, just like Gideon's victory many years later. Never overlook the G factor.

Medical School Story Of Provision

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Let me give you a more contemporary example. In nineteen eighty when I was in medical school, six students along with myself in my medical school decided that we wanted to have an evolution and creation debate at the medical school in Charleston where I attended. We contracted with two speakers that would debate one another, one on the evolution side and one on the creation side, and we uh uh contracted with the auditorium there in Charleston and we arranged all the uh travel and restaurants, and the entire cost was going to be four thousand two hundred dollars in nineteen eighty dollars. In today's money that would amount to about forty thousand dollars to understand the magnitude of our of our undertaking. Well, I was sharing with the operating room nurse for the cancer surgeon with whom I was um working during this particular time, and she looked at me and she said, Who's gonna pay for that? And I said, Well, we're trusting in the Lord that he's gonna help us pay for it. And she said, Well, which one of you students has the money for it? And I said, Well, none of us have any money. And she looked at me and she said, You're the biggest damn fool I have ever met in my whole life. And I looked at the doctor who was a Christian man and he just smiled. Well, my six friends and I, we prayed every week for three months. And the week of the event came and all of us had pitched in all the money we had, and we had five hundred dollars of the four thousand two hundred dollars. And my nurse friend, she just looked at me very smug, and she laughed, and she told me again, you're the biggest fool I've ever met. And she laughed and she laughed in scorn. Well, I was elected to be the MC, I guess because I had the biggest mouth. And that night I could not perform my MC responsibility because of people just walking up to me and stuffing money in my coat pockets. And by the end of the night, when we had finished the debate, I had four thousand dollars stuffed into my pockets. However, I did lack two hundred dollars for advertising posters that we had put all over the medical university campus. And I was very depressed that I didn't have the last two hundred dollars. So I waited a week, and then I went to the printing shop on campus with a dejection to tell them I really did not have that two hundred dollars. And when I went into the shop and I confessed to them that I didn't have two hundred dollars, they looked at me and laughed and said, Oh, somebody came in here a week ago and paid that for you. And I just confessed to the Lord my lack of faith. And you see, God came through, and that is the G factor, the God factor. Listen, brothers and sisters, never underestimate the God factor. The next week when I was back in the operating room with my cancer doctor, my nurse friend pounced on me, and when I told her what had happened, she was astonished. My cancer doctor friend just laughed out loud. Never underestimate the God factor. These five kings certainly underestimated the God factor.

Start Your Faith Journey Today

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Now, I know what you're saying to me, and I know what you're saying in your heart. Dr. Jackson, you don't know my circumstances. You don't know my problems. And you know what? That's exactly what my patients say to me. And you're right. I don't know your circumstances, I don't know your problems, but God knows and God cares. God loves you. We were six young medical students with no resources, no money, but we had the faith the size of a mustard seed, and we had faith in a great big God, and he came through. Abram started off with huge promises from God, but his faith stumbled repeatedly, as we will see. But he is still the father of the faithful. That's what he's called, the father of the faithful. Start your faith journey, dear listener, right where you are. Abram built an altar and called on the name of the Lord, and you can do the same. Find your quiet place. Let God speak to you through his word. Muster up your faith even if it's as small as a mustard seed, and

Share The Show And Next Week

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put your trust in God. You're listening to devotions with Doctor Papa. And if you like what you hear, I pray that you would share it with your friends and your neighbors. And we'll be back again next week, and we're gonna find out when Jesus himself meets Abraham as he comes back from this war with the kings in the form of a priest named Melchizedek. You need to be back next week, and until then, I pray that the Lord will bless you real good.

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Thank you for listening to this edition of Mortan Medicine. For more information about the Dr. Family Ministry or Seth, go to their Facebook, Instagram, or website.