Lives of Scripture

Amraphel, king of Shinar, appears in Genesis 14 as one of a coalition of four eastern kings -- alongside Arioch of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer of Elam, and Tidal -- who had held five kings of the Jordan plain, including the king of Sodom, under tribute for twelve years. In the thirteenth year the five kings rebelled, and Amraphel's coalition marched out, defeating a series of regional peoples before routing the rebel kings in the Valley of Siddim (Genesis 14:1-10). The victors seized the goods and provisions of Sodom and Gomorrah and departed -- taking with them Lot, Abram's nephew, who was living in Sodom, along with his possessions (14:11-12). When a survivor reported this to Abram, he armed 318 trained men, pursued the coalition as far as Dan, and routed them by night, recovering Lot, the other captives, and the plundered goods (14:13-16). Amraphel himself has no further recorded words or actions; he functions in the narrative as one of the aggressors whose war becomes the occasion for Abram's decisive rescue and his subsequent encounter with Melchizedek, king of Salem, who blesses Abram in God's name (14:18-20).