Texts in Conversation
Philo and Hebrews both interpret Melchizedek’s name through its Greek translation as “king of righteousness” and “king of peace.” Hebrews builds its case for Jesus’ priesthood on this allegorical reading, similar to Philo’s interpretive method.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Philo Allegorical Interpretation 3.79
Classical
Melchizedek, too, has God made both king of peace, for that is the meaning of “ Salem,’ and His own priest (Gen. xiv. 18). He has not fashioned beforehand any deed of his, but produces him to begin with as such a king, peaceable and worthy of ‘His own priesthood. For he is entitled “the righteous king,” and a “king” is a thing at enmity with a despot, the one being the author of laws, the other of lawlessness. So mind, the despot, decrees for both soul and body harsh and hurtful decrees working grievous woes, conduct, I mean, such as wickedness prompts, and free indulgence of the passions. But the king in the first place resorts to persuasion rather than decrees, and in the next place issues directions such as to enable a vessel, the living being I mean, to make life’s voyage successfully, piloted by the good pilot, who is right principle. Let the despot’s title therefore be ruler of war, the king’s prince. of peace, of Salem, and let him offer to the soul food full of joy and gladness ; for he brings bread and wine, things which Ammonites and Moabites refused to supply. to the seeing one, on which account they are excluded from the divine congregation and assembly. These characters, Ammonites deriving their nature from sense-perception their mother, and Moabites deriving theirs from mind their father, who hold that all things owe their coherence to these two things, mind and sense-perception, and take no thought of God, “ shall not enter,” says Moses, “into the congregation of the Lord, because they did not meet us with bread and water ” (Deut. xxiii. 3 f.) when we came out from the passions of Egypt.
Date: 20-50 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Hebrews 7:2
New Testament
1 Now this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, met Abraham as he was returning from defeating the kings and blessed him. 2 To him also Abraham apportioned a tithe of everything. His name first means king of righteousness, then king of Salem, that is, king of peace. 3 Without father, without mother, without genealogy, he has neither beginning of days nor end of life but is like the son of God, and he remains a priest for all time.
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Notes and References
... as ‘king of righteousness.’ The first part of the name ‘Melchizedek’ (melchi-) corresponds to the Hebrew word for ‘king’ (melek) with the first person singular suffix. The last part (-zedek) corresponds to the Hebrew word for ‘righteous’ (zedeq). The similar name Adoni-zedek (Joshua 10:1) may have meant ‘my king is Zedek,’ with ‘Zedek’ as the name of a deity, or ‘my king is righteous’ (Kobelski, Melchizedek, 55). People in the first century took the two parts of the name to be in a genitive relationship: ‘king of righteousness’ (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation 79; Josephus, Jewish War 6.438; Antiquities 1.180). Righteousness had messianic associations in some Old Testament texts (Isaiah 9:7; Jeremiah 23:5; 33:15), and Hebrews depicted the exalted Christ as a righteous king (Hebrews 1:8-9). “king of peace.” The Hebrew word ‘Salem,’ which is transliterated in the Septuagint, was originally a place-name. Hebrews equated it with the Hebrew word shalom, which means ‘peace’ (compare Philo, Allegorical Interpretation 79; Psalm 76:2 [75:3 LXX]) ...
Koester, Craig R.
Hebrews: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary
(pp. 342-343) Yale University Press, 2010
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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