Genesis 14:15

15 und teilte sich, fiel des Nachts über sie mit seinen Knechten und schlug sie und jagte sie bis gen Hoba, das zur Linken der Stadt Damaskus liegt,

Genesis 14:15 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 14:15

And he divided himself against them, he and his servants by
night
Together with his confederates; and very probably their whole three was divided into four parts, under their four leaders; and this might be done in order to attack the four kings and their soldiers, who might be in four separate bodies; or to fall upon their camp in the four quarters of it, and to make a show of a greater army, thereby to intimidate the enemy: Abram seems to have understood the art of war, and the use of stratagems in it; and, as it might be night before he could come up to them, he took the advantage of that, and fell upon them unawares, when some were asleep in their beds, and others drunk, as Josephus ^F7 relates; and who also says, it was on the fifth night after Abram had knowledge of what had happened at Sodom: and smote them, and pursued them unto Hoba, which [is] on the left
hand of Damascus;
a famous city in Syria; it was in later times the metropolis of that country, ( Isaiah 7:8 ) ; and was most delightfully situated in a vale, (See Gill on Jeremiah 49:25); according to Josephus ^F8 it was built by Uz, the son of Aram and grandson of Shem, and some say

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FOOTNOTES:

F9 by Shem himself, and that it is to this day called Sem in the Saracene language, and lay between Palestine and Coelesyria; on the left hand of this city, or on the north of it, as all the Targums paraphrase it, lay a place called Hoba, and is completed to be eighty miles from Dan, from whence he pursued them hither, after he had discomfited them there.
F7 Antiqu. l. 1. c. 10. sect. 1.
F8 lbid. c. 6. sect. 4.
F9 Baumgarten. Peregrinatio, l. 3. c. 4. p. 111.

Genesis 14:15 In-Context

13 Da kam einer, der entronnen war, und sagte es Abram an, dem Ausländer, der da wohnte im Hain Mamres, des Amoriters, welcher ein Bruder war Eskols und Aners. Diese waren mit Abram im Bunde.

14 Als nun Abram hörte, daß sein Bruder gefangen war, wappnete er seine Knechte, dreihundertundachtzehn, in seinem Hause geboren, und jagte ihnen nach bis gen Dan

15 und teilte sich, fiel des Nachts über sie mit seinen Knechten und schlug sie und jagte sie bis gen Hoba, das zur Linken der Stadt Damaskus liegt,

16 und brachte alle Habe wieder, dazu auch Lot, seinen Bruder, mit seiner Habe, auch die Weiber und das Volk. {~}

17 Als er nun wiederkam von der Schlacht des Kedor-Laomor und der Könige mit ihm, ging ihm entgegen der König von Sodom in das Feld, das Königstal heißt.