Genesis 14:5

And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer,.... Not in the fourteenth year of their rebellion against him, as Jarchi, but from their becoming vassals to him: and the kings that [were] with him;

And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emims in Shaveh Kiriathaim, Smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim.

The kings that were with him, i.e. confederate with him for the recovery of his right, expecting the same assistance from him upon the like occasion. 1913 The Rephaims, a fierce and warlike people of Canaan. See . Or the giants, as this word is taken . Ashteroth Karnaim, a place in Basan called Ashteroth, 13:31. It is surnamed Carnaim, q.d. Two-horned, like a half moon, either from the situation and form of the place, or from the goddess Diana, or the moon, which usually was painted with two horns, whom they worshipped. The Emims, a people in Canaan of giant-like stature, ,11. Shaveh Kiriathaim; Kiriathaim is a noted city in Gilead, and Shaveh may be either the ancient name of that city, or the present name of the country adjoining and belonging to it.

Genesis 14:5 And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that [were] with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emims in Shaveh Kiriathaim,Ver. 5. Chedorlaomer.] King of Persia; he was commander in chief; and upon his sword might have been written, as was upon Agamemnon’ s, ουτοςμενφοβοςεστινανθρωπων, this is the common terror. Pausan.

(5) The Rephaims.—Described as an Amorite tribe (Amos 2:9) of great stature, settled in Bashan, where Moses conquered them (Joshua 13:12). We find them also on the other side of Jordan, in Mount Ephraim ( Joshua 17:15), on the western side of Jerusalem (Joshua 15:8; Joshua 18:16; 2 Samuel 5:18; 2 Samuel 5:22), and even among the Philistines (2 Samuel 21:16; 2 Samuel 21:18). In many of these places the word is wrongly translated giants. From this wide dispersion of them we may safely conclude that they belonged to the earlier settlers in the land and that only their rulers, like Og (Joshua 9:10), were Amorites. Ashteroth Karnaim.—The two-horned Astarte, the Phœnician Venus, identified by the Rephaim with the moon. Her worship had, no doubt, been introduced by the Amorites. This city was the capital of Og (Deuteronomy 1:4), and is called Be-Eshtera, “the house of Astarte,” in Joshua 21:27. Its remains have been found at Tell-Ashtereh, in the Hauran, about two leagues from the ancient Edrei. The Zuzim.—Called in Deuteronomy 2:20 Zamzummim, where they are identified with the Rephaim, of which stock they were an inferior branch. Their capital, Ham, has been identified with Hameitât, about six miles to the east of the lower part of the Dead Sea (Tristram, Land of Moab, p. 117). The Emims.—Of these also we read in Deuteronomy 2:10-11 : “The Emim . . . also were accounted Rephaim, as the Anakim.” In Shaveh Kiriathaim.—More probably, in the plain of Kiriathaim. This city, given to the tribe of Reuben (Numbers 32:37), was, upon the decay of the Israelites upon the east of Jordan, re-occupied by the Moabites (Jeremiah 48:1), who had taken it from the Emim.

Verse 5. Rephaims] A people of Canaan: Genesis 15:20. Ashteroth] A city of Basan, where Og afterwards reigned; Joshua 13:31. Zuzims] Nowhere else spoken of, unless they were the same with the Zamzummims, Deuteronomy 2:20, as some imagine. Emims] A people great and many in the days of Moses, and tall as the Anakim. They dwelt among the Moabites, by whom they were reputed giants; Deuteronomy 2:10-11. Shaveh Kiriathaim] Rather, as the margin, the plain of Kiriathaim, which was a city afterwards belonging to Sihon king of Heshbon; Joshua 13:19.

5. came Chedorlaomer] The king of Elam was strong enough to deal vigorously with the rebellion in his western dependencies. This and the two following verses describe the punitive expedition, with which Chedorlaomer and his vassal kings crushed the rebellion. Whether the kings led their forces in person, we are not able to say for certain. The description leaves it to be inferred. The Oriental style of chronicle identified successful generals with the name of the king who sent them on their campaign. The march of the punitive expedition must have been across the Euphrates at Carchemish, and then southward past Damascus. It overthrew the Rephaim, Zuzim, Emim, and Horites who, apparently, were peoples on the east side of Jordan, involved in the rebellion. The southernmost point of the march was reached at the head of the Gulf of Akabah. As it commanded an important trade route, it may have formed the chief objective of the march. Returning from that point, the expedition struck at the Amalekites in the wilderness to the south of Palestine, and then attacked the joint forces of the five cities of the Plain and overthrew them in the valley of Siddim. the Rephaim] or “sons of the Rapha.” The name given to the aborigines of Canaan, giant survivors of whom are mentioned in 2 Samuel 21:16-22. The name is specially applied, in Deuteronomy 3:11, to Og, the king of Bashan, whose territory corresponded with the country spoken of in this verse. Ashteroth-karnaim] Generally identified with Tell-‘Ashtara, in the plateau of Bashan, about 20 miles east of the sea of Galilee. Karnaim means “the two horns”; and the full name will therefore probably mean “the two-horned Astarte,” who, as the Goddess of the Moon, was represented with two horns. “Astarte of horns was that immemorial fortress and sanctuary which lay out upon the great plateau of Bashan towards Damascus; so obvious and cardinal a site that it appears in the sacred history both in the earliest recorded campaign in Abraham’s time and in one of the latest under the Maccabees. Genesis 14:5; 1Ma 5:26; 1Ma 5:43” (G. Adam Smith, The Twelve Prophets, vol. i. p. 176.) the Zuzim] Possibly the same as “the Zamzummim,” mentioned in Deuteronomy 2:20 as the aborigines who were dispossessed by the Ammonites. in Ham] Ham has been conjecturally identified with the old name of the Ammonite capital, mentioned in 2 Samuel 12:26, Rabbath Ammon. the Emim] Mentioned in Deuteronomy 2:10 as the name of the aborigines, “a people great and many and tall, as the Anakim,” dispossessed by the Moabites. The name means probably “the terrible ones.” in Shaveh-kiriathaim] or the plain of Kiriathaim. In Numbers 32:37 and Joshua 13:19 Kiriathaim is a town in Reuben: in Jeremiah 48:23 in Moab. It is generally identified with Kureyat, about 10 miles east of the Dead Sea and north of the river Arnon.

5. Smote the Rephaim in Ashteroth Karnaim — The word Rephaim is in the Hebrew plural, and designates an ancient people of gigantic stature, of whom Og, king of Bashan, is spoken of as the last remnant. Deuteronomy 3:11.