Hebrews 7:1-3
Expanded Bible
The Priest Melchizedek
7 Melchizedek [C a priest and king in the time of Abraham; Gen. 14:17–24; Heb. 5:6, 10; 6:20] was the king of Salem [C another name for Jerusalem, meaning “peace”; v. 2] and a priest for God Most High. He met Abraham when Abraham was coming back after ·defeating [L the slaughter of] the kings [Gen. 14:17–19]. When they met, Melchizedek blessed Abraham, 2 and Abraham ·gave [L apportioned/divided to] him a ·tenth [tithe] ·of everything he had brought back from the battle [L of everything]. First, Melchizedek’s name means “king of ·goodness [righteousness; justice],” and he is king of Salem [C another name for Jerusalem], which means “king of peace.” 3 ·No one knows who Melchizedek’s father or mother was [L …without father, without mother], ·where he came from [L without genealogy], ·when he was born, or when he died [L having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; C something unstated was assumed not to exist]. Melchizedek is like the Son of God; he continues being a priest forever [C Melchizedek’s unmentioned genealogy in Genesis is, by analogy, like Jesus’ eternal Sonship and priesthood].
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Hebrews 7:1-3
Amplified Bible
Melchizedek’s Priesthood Like Christ’s
7 For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham as he returned from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, 2 and Abraham gave him a tenth of all [the spoil]. He is, first of all, by the translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, which means king of peace. 3 Without [[a]any record of] father or mother, nor ancestral line, without [any record of] beginning of days (birth) nor ending of life (death), but having been made like the Son of God, he remains a priest without interruption and without successor.
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- Hebrews 7:3 Some believe that Melchizedek was an ordinary man blessed and appointed by God as a special priest, who serves as a Christlike figure in his priestly and kingly functions because his order was a priesthood without end. Others take the description literally to mean that Melchizedek was not a human, but an angel (v 8). If this is so, then Christ, as the Son of God, would be the “High Priest” of the order in which Melchizedek served as priest in the sense that angels are spiritual beings who have a pretemporal, but not eternal origin. Another view suggests that Melchizedek was perhaps a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus in human form. Those who maintain that Melchizedek was an ordinary human being would say the writer is speaking symbolically concerning his ancestry; hence the insertion of “any record of” in the text of v 3 since his death is not recorded in Scripture.
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