Genesis 14:15

And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(15) Hobah . . . on the left hand of Damascus.—That is, to the north, as the Hebrews looked eastward in defining the quarters of the heaven. The victory had thus been followed up with great energy, the pursuit having lasted, according to Josephus, the whole of the next day and night after that on which the attack was made. At Hobah the mountains cease, and the great plain of Damascus begins, and further pursuit was therefore useless.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

14:13-16 Abram takes this opportunity to give a real proof of his being truly friendly to Lot. We ought to be ready to succour those in distress, especially relations and friends. And though others may have been wanting in their duty to us, yet we must not neglect our duty to them. Abram rescued the captives. As we have opportunity, we must do good to all.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Abram and his confederates found the enemy secure and at their ease, not expecting pursuit. They attack them on two quarters; Abram, probably, on the one, and his allies on the other; by night, defeat and pursue them unto Hobah. "On the left hand of Damascus." Hobah was on the north of Damascus. An Eastern, in fixing the points of the heavens, faces the rising sun, in which position the east is before him, the west behind, the south at the right hand, and the north at the left. Hobah is referred by the Jews to Jobar, a place northeast of Damascus. J. L. Porter suggests a place due north, called Burzeh, where there is a Muslim wely or saint's tomb, called Makam Ibrahim, the sanctuary of Abraham (Handbook, p. 492). This route, by the north of Damascus, illustrates the necessity of advancing far north to get round the desert intervening between Shinar and the cities of the plain.

Damascus, Dimishk, esh-Sham, is a very ancient city of Aram. The choice of the site was probably determined by the Abana (Barada) and Pharpar (Awaj), flowing, the one from Anti-Libanus, and the other from Mount Hermon, and fertilizing a circuit of thirty miles. Within this area arose a city which, amidst all the changes of dynasty that have come over it, has maintained its prosperity to the present day, when it has one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. It was originally occupied by the descendants of Aram, and may have been built, as Josephus informs us, by Uz his son.

Abram, with his allies, succeeded in defeating the enemy and recovering the property, with the prisoners, male and female, that had been carried away, and, among the rest, Lot, the object of his generous and gallant adventure.

Verse 7-24

Abram's reception on his return. "The king of Sodom." This is either Bera, if he survived the defeat, or, if not, his successor. "The dale of Shaveh, which is the King's dale." The word עמק ‛ēmeq is rendered here uniformly by the familiar term "dale." The dale of Shaveh is here explained by the "King's dale." This phrase occurs at a period long subsequent as the name of the valley in which Absalom reared his pillar 2 Samuel 18:18. There is nothing to hinder the identity of the place, which must, according to the latter passage, have been not far from Jerusalem. Josephus makes the distance two stadia, which accords with the situation of Absalom's tomb, though the building now so-called, in the valley of Jehoshaphat, seems to be of later origin. The identity of the King's dale with the valley cast of Jerusalem, through which the Kedron flows, corresponds very well with the present passage.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

15, 16. he divided himself … by night—This war between the petty princes of ancient Canaan is exactly the same as the frays and skirmishes between Arab chiefs in the present day. When a defeated party resolves to pursue the enemy, they wait till they are fast asleep; then, as they have no idea of posting sentinels, they rush upon them from different directions, strike down the tent poles—if there is any fight at all, it is the fray of a tumultuous mob—a panic commonly ensues, and the whole contest is ended with little or no loss on either side.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

He divided himself, i.e. his forces into several parties, that coming upon them from several quarters he might strike them with greater terror, whilst they thought his army far more numerous than it was.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

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 (g) 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 (h) it was built by Uz, the son of Aram and grandson of Shem, and some say (i) 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.

(g) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 10. sect. 1.((h) lbid. c. 6. sect. 4. (i) Baumgarten. Peregrinatio, l. 3. c. 4. p. 111.

Geneva Study Bible

And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. divided himself against them by night] Abram divides his forces into three bands, and from three different quarters delivers a simultaneous night attack. The same manoeuvre was adopted by Gideon (Jdg 7:20-22), when a small force similarly routed a large army. Cf. 1 Samuel 11:11. The surprise was complete. Chedorlaomer’s panic-stricken troops are chased for over 100 miles, and all the prisoners and booty recovered.

There is no mention of Abram’s confederates (see Genesis 14:13; Genesis 14:24). The credit of the victories lies with Abram and his household force.

unto Hobah] Probably a place about 50 miles north of Damascus. Skinner rightly points out that “it is idle to pretend that Abram’s victory was merely a surprise attack on the rearguard, and the recovery of part of the booty. A pursuit carried so far implies the rout of the main body of the enemy” (p. 267).

which is on the left hand of Damascus] For “left hand,” R.V. marg. has north. An Israelite always spoke as if he were facing eastward; and the north is, therefore, on his left hand; cf. Genesis 2:24.

Damascus, the capital of Syria (Heb. Damméseḳ = Assyr. Dimashḳi, = Dimashk esh-Shâm, i.e. “Damascus of Syria”), a famous city, mentioned in Egyptian inscriptions as early as the 16th century. On the fable of Abram’s capture of it, see note on Genesis 12:5.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - And he divided himself (i.e. his forces) against them, he and his servants (along with the troops of his allies), by night, and (falling on them unexpectedly from different quarters) smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah. A place Choba is mentioned in Judith 15:5 as that to which the Assyrians were pursued by the victorious Israelites. A village of the same name existed near Damascus in the time of Eusebius, and is "probably preserved in the village Hoba, mentioned by Troilo, a quarter of a mile to the north of Damascus" (Keil); or in that of Hobah, two miles outside the walls (Stanley, ' Syria and Palestine,' 414, k.), or in Burzeh, where there is a Moslem wady, or saint's tomb, called the sanctuary of Abraham (Porter's 'Handbook,' p. 492). Which is to the left of (i.e. to the north of, the spectator being supposed to look eastward) Damascus. The metropolis of Syria, on the river Chrysorrhoas, in a large and fertile plain at the foot of Antilibanus, the oldest existing city in the world, being possessed at the present day of 150,000 inhabitants. Genesis 14:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

A fugitive (lit., the fugitive; the article denotes the genus, Ewald, 277) brought intelligence of this to Abram the Hebrew (העברי, an immigrant from beyond the Euphrates). Abram is so called in distinction from Mamre and his two brothers, who were Amorites, and had made a defensive treaty with him. To rescue Lot, Abram ordered his trained slaves (חניכיו, i.e., practised in arms) born in the house (cf. Genesis 17:12), 318 men, to turn out (lit., to pour themselves out); and with these, and (as the supplementary remark in Genesis 14:24 shows) with his allies, he pursued the enemy as far as Dan, where "he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night," - i.e., he divided his men into companies, who fell upon the enemy by night from different sides - "smote them, and pursued them to Hobah, to the left (or north) of Damascus." Hobah has probably been preserved in the village of Noba, mentioned by Troilo, a quarter of a mile to the north of Damascus. So far as the situation of Dan is concerned, this passage proves that it cannot have been identical with Leshem or Laish in the valley of Beth Rehob, which the Danites conquered and named Dan (Judges 18:28-29; Joshua 19:47); for this Laish-Dan was on the central source of the Jordan, el Leddan in Tell el Kady, which does not lie in either of the two roads, leading from the vale of Siddim or of the Jordan to Damascus.

(Note: One runs below the Sea of Galilee past Fik and Nowa, almost in a straight line to Damascus; the other from Jacob's Bridge, below Lake Merom. But if the enemy, instead of returning with their booty to Thapsacus, on the Euphrates, by one of the direct roads leading from the Jordan past Damascus and Palmyra, had gone through the land of Canaan to the sources of the Jordan, they would undoubtedly, when defeated at Laish-Dan, have fled through the Wady et Teim and the Bekaa to Hamath, and not by Damascus at all (vid., Robinson, Bibl. Researches).)

This Dan belonged to Gilead (Deuteronomy 34:1), and is no doubt the same as the Dan-Jaan mentioned in 2 Samuel 24:6 in connection with Gilead, and to be sought for in northern Peraea to the south-west of Damascus.