And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he [was] the priest of the most high God.
Ver. 18. Melehizedek king of Salem.] Who this Melchizedek was is much controverted. Some would have him to be the Holy Ghost. Others, the Lord Christ in the habit of a king and priest. The Jerusalem Targum saith, Hu Shem Rabba : this was Shem the Great. And of the same opinion are not a few of the Hebrew doctors, and others. But what should Shem do in Canaan; which country fell not to him, but to his brother Ham? To this they answer - That by the instinct of the Holy Ghost, he left his own posterity now fallen away, for most part, to idolatry, and came to the land of Canaan, a type of heaven, and the place from whence peace and salvation should be preached to all people. If this were so, it might very well be that Amraphel, who was of Shem's lineage, and his fellow-soldiers, moved with reverence of this their great-grandfather Shem, might forbear to molest him at Salem, or invade his territories, when they wasted and smote all the neighbour nations. a But then, on the other side, if Melchizedek were Shem, 1. Why doth not Moses call him so, but change his name? 2. Why did not Abram, dwelling so near, visit him all this while, that was so near allied to him, and so highly respected by him, as it was meet? 3. Why did Melchizedek, the grandfather, take tithes of his nephew, to whom he should rather have given gifts and legacies? 2Co 12:14 Most likely, Melchizedek was a Canaanite of the Canaanites; yet a most righteous king and priest of the most High God, and so a pledge and firstfruits of the calling of the Gentiles to the knowledge and obedience of Jesus Christ, of whom he was a lively type. Heb 7:2
Brought forth bread and wine.] This he did as a king; as a priest he blessed Abram; which latter therefore the apostle pitcheth upon, Heb 7:1 as being to treat of Christ's priesthood. The Papists think to find footing here for their unbloody sacrifice in the Mass. Melchizedek, say they, as a priest offered bread and wine to God; for he was a priest of the living God. So they render it, or rather wrest this text, to make it speak what it never meant. Cadem Scripturarum faciunt ad materiam suam, they murder the Scriptures to serve their own purposes, saith Tertullian. b Where can they show us in all the Book of God, that the Hebrew word Hotsi here used, signifieth to offer? But anything serves turn that hath but a show of what they allege it for. A Sorbonist finding it written at the end of St Paul's Epistles, Missa est, &c., bragged he had found the Mass in his Bible! So another reading John 1:41, " Invenimus Messiam ," made the same conclusion, c A third, no whit wiser than the two former, speaking of these words I now write upon, Rex Salem panem et vinum protulit, fell into a large discourse of the nature of salt! d Agreeable whereunto Dr Poynes e writes, that it was foretold in the Old Testament that the Protestants were a malignant Church, alleging 2 Chronicles 24:19 Mittebatque Prophetas, ut reverterentur ad Dominum, quos Protestantes illi audire nolebant.
a Dr Prideaux Lect. de Melchls., p. 95.
b Tert. de Proescrip. advers. Haeret.
c Beehive of Rom. Church, chap. iii. fol. 93.
d Melancthon. Orat. de encom, eloquentiae.
e Pref. to his Book of the Sacraments.