The character Melchizedek has captured the imagination for centuries. Why? It seems "less is more" as they say. First let's examine Gensis 14:18,19 where he first appears in the OT stories. Genesis chapter 14 itself is an intersesting puzzle, not being attributable to E,J or P it seems to have arisen from another unknown source. The source seems to have been unfamiliar or unconcerned with details from the other sources because he has the Amalekites fighting before they existed and the city called "Dan" centuries before the conquest story. Just when this source wrote is another question. The chapter interupts the narrative from 13 to 15 rather clumsily (check it for yourself) , oblivious to the story complications it creates (Such as Lot being captured and taken from plundered and defeated Sodom needing rescue by warrior Abraham. Abraham greets an appreciative and respectable King of Sodom, yet in the next episode Lot still lives in Sodom, the worst city on earth, and needs rescue from God who destroys all the people.). Some have see in chapter 14 evidence of antiquity while others just the opposite. What is even more interesting and really my focus are the vss 18,19, 20? that themselves are interuptions/insertions into the chapter 14 narrative! This is where Melchizedek appears out of thin air.
The verses appear to be a snippet of a now lost separate legend, possibly an acient one, that were needing a home and the best the redactor could do was slip them in here. How do the vss read in most Bibles?
18 Then Melchizedek king of Salem [d] brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, 19 and he blessed Abram, saying,
"Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
Creator [e] of heaven and earth.
20 And blessed be [f] God Most High,
who delivered your enemies into your hand."
Then he gave him a tenth of everything.
The name Melchizedek means "(the god) Sedeq is King". Or possibly "my King is upright". The god Sedeq is well attested in names both OT and exabibical and deity list and so the likelyhood is that the name Melchizedek was a good Canaanite name honoring a popular deity who was known as a righteous dude. The next question is what is meant by 'king of Salem'. Certainly there were Kings who also served a Priests in Canaan, in fact is was not unusual, but is this how the phrase originally read?
It has been proposed and endorsed by a number of esteemed scholars that the phase is the result of a very simple haplography. That is the dropping of a letter where 2 of the same lay next to each other. Years ago W.F. Albright suggested the phrase originally read, "Melchizedek a king allied to him..." but a copyist made the error before the redactor of Genesis 14 inserted it, tho possibly this occurred later. Well anyway it will remain uncertain.
Mel. worships a god named El Elyon, usually translated as "god most high' unaware of the deity behind the epithet. El of course is a well known deity usually the chief or father of the gods of the Cannanite pantheon. Elyon is also attested as a deity name, yet the two are separated in extant texts. The 'Yahweh' in verse 22 is widely accepted as a late gloss to harmonize the text with the later Yahweh cult that could not imagine Abraham vowing to another god. It does not appear in the LXX, Peshita or Gen Apocraphon. However a similar epithet is used by very later writers such as the author of Daniel. Could they then be following the lead of this text? Who knows. Mel is a priest, this is significant for understanding the "bring out bread and wine" phrase. This is in all likelyhood a sacrement associated with his "blessing" Abraham. Some later writers imagined it was simply to refresh Abraham's army dispite the text saying that some time had transpired and the scene had changed.
The next part "Then he gave him a tenth of everything" . Who gave to who? The best grammatical conclusion is that Melchizedek gave to Abraham. This is because the subject of the preceeding verb is Mel. This makes sense if he was an allied king as the Albright reconstruction suggested.
Anyway what we have is alot of nothing. A passage of unknown heritage snipped from another unknown source. This is what I meant by less is more. The lack of details begged for later authors to fill in the gaps. Great speculation about Mels origins created legends that he had no genealogy, no parents. Of course this is really just because the episode is brief. The book of Hebrews is among volumes of apocalyptical speculation and elaborration on this character. The author of Hebrews seems unaware that Matt and Luke have provided a genealogy for Jesus, but that's another story.............