“... On the other hand, Melchizedek and Adoni- zedek may have been Canaanite royal epithets. E. A. Speiser has argued that Melchizedek is the Canaanite equivalent of the Mesopotamian title s\ar me4s\arim, “the just king” (Speiser, 318 n. 24). This would suggest that Melchizedek is a royal title rather than a personal name. The use of mlk s@dq as a descriptive title is at- tested a few times in the Northwest Semitic world. A fourteenth-century B.C. letter addressed to the king of Egypt discovered at Ras Ibn Hani (KTU 2.81) contains several royal epithets applied to the *Pharaoh. Included in this salutatory list are such titles as mlk rb (“great king”) and mlk ms@rm (“king of Egypt”), as well as the phrase mlk s@dq (“just king”). The tenth-century B.C. inscription of Yeh[imilk, king of Byblos, claims that he is mlk s@dq wmlk ys\r, “a just and upright king.” Later in the fifth century B.C., the inscription of Yeh[awmilk, also king of Byblos, contains the phrase k mlk s@dq h), “for he is a just king.” ...”