Bible Strands
Genesis 14:20
and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” Then Abram gave Melchizedek a tenth of everything.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Melchizedek speaks these words to Abram immediately following Abram's military victory over the allied kings.
The words — The Hebrew מִגֵּ֥ן (mi.gên) literally means "he has delivered," stating God's direct action of placing Abram's opponents into his hand. The verb וַ/יִּתֶּן (va.yitten) simply records Abram's subsequent action of giving a tenth of the plunder.
The thread — This tenth appears in Genesis 28:22 as a personal vow, Nehemiah 13:12 as a communal temple tithe, and Hebrews 7:4 as textual proof of Melchizedek's superiority.
Why it lands — The text records Abram's material response only after acknowledging God's deliverance, requiring the reader to treat divine provision as the factual basis for material accounting.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all.
Cross-references
- Genesis 28:22 And this stone I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that You give me I will surely give You a tenth.”
- Nehemiah 13:12 and all Judah brought a tenth of the grain, new wine, and oil into the storerooms.
- Hebrews 7:4 Consider how great Melchizedek was: Even the patriarch Abraham gave him a tenth of the plunder.
- Deuteronomy 14:28 At the end of every three years, bring a tenth of all your produce for that year and lay it up within your gates.
- Malachi 3:10 Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this,” says the LORD of Hosts. “See if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out for you blessing without measure.
- Genesis 24:27 saying, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of my master Abraham, who has not withheld His kindness and faithfulness from my master. As for me, the LORD has led me on the journey to the house of my master’s relatives.”
- Numbers 28:26 On the day of firstfruits, when you present an offering of new grain to the LORD during the Feast of Weeks, you are to hold a sacred assembly; you must not do any regular work.
- Deuteronomy 12:17 Within your gates you must not eat the tithe of your grain or new wine or oil, the firstborn of your herds or flocks, any of the offerings that you have vowed to give, or your freewill offerings or special gifts.
- Deuteronomy 14:23 And you are to eat a tenth of your grain, new wine, and oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks, in the presence of the LORD your God at the place He will choose as a dwelling for His Name, so that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always.
- Leviticus 27:30 Thus any tithe from the land, whether from the seed of the land or the fruit of the trees, belongs to the LORD; it is holy to the LORD.