מלך צביים, although the word: צביים is spelled as shown, it is read as if it had been spelled: .צבוים

ומלך בלע היא, the pronoun היא (feminine), shows that the word בלע refers to the name of the city, not the name of the king, (who is masculine).

הוא ים המלך, the word ים, “sea,” is masculine.

בהררם, the ending is similar to Exodus 6,7 בדברם, so that the meaning of our phrase is: “when they were ascending Mount Seir.”

עד איל פארן אשר על המדבר, the word על in this verse does not mean: “on, or above,” but: “beside,” as it does in Exodus 40,3, and in Genesis 24,30. The desert in question is the one the Israelites marched through for most of 40 years.

כדרלעמר, he is mentioned first at this point as he was the cause of the entire war.

ועמק השדים בארות, according to an aggadic commentary quoted by Rash,i the miracle that the king of Sodom escaped from this valley filled with bitumen wells which burns people, convinced the people now that Avram had indeed escaped from Nimrod’s furnace. According to a different interpretation, the word שדים is to be read with the dot on the left side of the letter ש, so that the meaning would be the same as the word שיד in Deuteronomy 27,2 the whitewash with which the stones taken out of the Jordan river were to be smeared as a base for writing on.

בארות בארות חמר, “pits full of sticky loam.” The letter ב has a vowel segol under it and the letter א the vowel chatoph segol, (shortened version.)

ויפלו שמה, They fell into them. They did not “fall” into them, as they were familiar with them, but they used them to hide in while trying to escape the pursuers. The construction is similar to Genesis 25,18 where Yishmael is described as על פני כל אחיו נפל. The loam was not wet, but could be used to help make bricks.

והוא יושב בסדום, “and he dwelled in Sodom;” note the singular mode; none of his relatives lived in Sodom. This accounted for his being taken captive alone. Alternate explanation: he entered the city now that he was afraid of being solitary against the warring nations.

ויבא הפליט, “the one who had escapedKedorleomer’s army arrived;” according to Rashi’scommentary this was the man who later on became Og, King of Bashan who had made a name for himself by having survived the deluge, hence the prefix ה before the word: פליט, escapee. He lived so long that eventually Moses killed him (Numbers 21,35) He was not interested in saving Avram, but intended to marry Sarah after Avram would have been killed in war. G-d retaliated by paying him back in kind. He granted him long life for warning Avram on the one hand, but He foiled his design, Avram becoming victorious, and Sarah predeceasing Avram. He was chagrined to live long enough to see millions of Avram’s descendants, before himself being killed by one of them. [None of these midrashim account for the Torah’s failure to report his having survived the deluge. Ed.] Granted, if this was a fact, Moses had reason to fear him and that is why G-d told him not to be afraid of him. (Numbers 21,34). The Talmud Zevachim, 113, raises the question of how Og managed to escape the deluge and suggests that though the waters were boiling hot, in the immediate vicinity of the ark they were cool miraculously so,so as not to destroy the ark and its inhabitants. Og took advantage of this and survived. [This means that he went without food and water for 365 days. Ed.] The expression: הפליט occurs also in Ezekiel 33,21, where it refers to someone who had escaped and survived the battle of Jerusalem who reported the fall of the city and the Temple to the prophet. The verse which omits identifying who this escapee was is not so unusual that we need to look for far fetched explanations. Our author cites similar “abbreviated” constructions in Genesis 48,1; Genesis 48,2; he claims that there are numerous others.

והוא שוכן באלוני ממרא, “and he lived at the time in Elon Mamre.” The tree so called stood in the town of Chevron, as we know from Genesis 13,18. An alternate exegesis: the words: “and he lived in Elon Mamre which is in Chevron,” refer to the home of the person described as הפליט, “the escapee.” This would explain why he came to tell Avram whose home was also in Elon Mamre all about what he had escaped from.

והם בעלי ברית אברם, “and they (Oner, Eshkol, and Mamre) being allies of Avram went with him [in this mission impossible, 318 against four armies! Ed.] Compare verse 24.

וירק את חניכיו, “the men who had been trained in warfare.”

עד דן, as far as Dan, the place was named such (the original “Dan” not having been born yet until at least 100 years later, Ed.] The place called “Dan” in the Book of Judges was called Leshem at the time of this battle (Compare Joshua 19,47).

ויכם וירדפם, “He defeated (killed) them and pursued them;” Rabbi Tanchum poses the rhetorical question how someone can pursue corpses? [Since the Torah first reports that these people had been smitten. Ed.] He answers that Avram killed the men whom G-d had pursued. G-d put the men to flight so that Avram could easily kill them.

אשר משמאל לדמשק, “which is located to the left of Damascus,” where Eliezer and his family hailed from. Onkelos translates the word דמשק as Eliezer; he meant that Eliezer’s family in that town assisted him and Avram in that task.

ויצא מלך סדום, the King of Sodom now emerged from the pits in which he had hidden. He is mentioned by name, as the whole war had revolved around him, he having been the one who had refused to pay taxes to Kedorleomer. (Genesis 14,15) He had been the ringleader of the five rebellious kings.

הוציא לחם ויין, “he produced (from his satchel) bread and wine;” the rules of syntax would have demanded that the verses 1718 should have been written in the following sequence: “The king of Sodom came out of hiding to meet Avram after he had defeated the 4 most powerful kings, and he said to Avram: “hand me over the human beings and keep the chattels for yourself.” (verse 22). Instead, the Torah interrupted with the arrival of Malki Tzedek and his blessing Avram. The reason that the Torah interrupted with verses 1821 was that it wanted to put Avraham’s refusing any offer from the King of Sodom into proper context. If the Torah had inserted the words of Avram, saying that he would not even accept a shoelace so that the King of Sodom could not say that he had personally contributed to Avram’s material wealth, the world would have wondered how Avram could have paid the wages of his soldiers. After reading that Avram had first given ten per cent of all the loot to Malki Tzedek who represented the only G-d, they would not ask such questions. They had also learned that Avram did not mind accepting bread and wine from Malki Tzedek who had acquired all which he possessed by morally acceptable means. They realised that Avram shied away not from material possessions as such, but only from material possessions not acquired by morally and ethically acceptable means. An alternate exegesis: Malki Tzedek produced bread and wine which had not been tithed in order to give Avram an opportunity to perform that commandment, as we will explain on verse 20.

ברוך אברם, “blessed be Avram;” he blessed Avram before blessing the Lord because Avram had gone to such length to imperil his life in order to rescue his nephew, Lot. Subsequently he blessed the Lord, Who had assisted Avram in his rescue mission and delivered his enemies into his hands.

קונה שמים וארץ, “(the Lord) Who owns heaven as well a earth.” Malki Tzedek (Shem,son of Noach) used this formulation as he had witnessed in his own lifetime how a world which had been a going concern had been destroyed and rebuilt.

ייתן לו, “he gave him;” Malki Tzedek gave Avram a tithe of everything. Our sages in Nedarim 32, interpret this verse as an allusion by the Torah to Malki Tzedek having forfeited his status of being G-d’s priest, and it being transferred to Avram, as he had committed the error of blessing a mortal human being, Avram, before blessing the immortal Lord. Avram himself had criticised Malki Tzedek for having mentioned him first in blessing both G-d and him. The latter accepted the reproof and treated Avram as the priest by tithing to him all that belonged to him. The Talmud cites a verse from Psalms: 110,4, as its source; there we read: נשבע ה' ולא ינחם אתה כהן לעולם על דברתי מלכי צדק, “The Lord has sworn and will not relent, You are a priest forever a rightful king by My decree.” [Rabbi Moshe Alshich explains there that G-d actually killed all the people Avram fought, as a priest who has killed does no longer qualify for priestly duties. Ed.]

הרימותי ידי, “I have raised my hand (in a solemn oath)” Avram states in reply to the King of Sodom’s offer [of what was not even his to offer Ed.] that he has already set aside his share for the Lord, as is stated when the Torah wrote: “he gave him a tithe from all of it.” He meant that beyond this he did not mean to keep anything. (as per Rashi).

אם מחוט, “if as much as a thread;” the “thread” mentioned here is a thread used as jewelry on one’s head, as stated by our sages in Shabbat 65, the “threads worn by the young girls on their heads were made of silk, and are used to tie their hair with them.”

שרוך נעל, similar threads or laces to act as decoration when closing one’s shoes. Avram meant, I will not accept expensive or even inexpensive items.

ואם אקח מכל אשר לך, “neither will I keep anything which (once) belonged to you.” Avram, in order not to offend,explained to the King of Sodom that when he left his father’s home G-d had assured him that He would make him wealthy. It is therefore no more than good manners for me to decline anything which would appear as if G-d’s promise had not been sufficient for me. When he would become wealthy, he wished to give the credit for this to G-d.

בלעדי, the letter י in this word is unnecessary, just as the letter י in the word: זולתי in Deuteronomy 1,36 is unnecessary. The verse means that Avram will take only as much of the loot as belongs to the troops whom he had hired to fight.