Melchizedek's Covenant with Abraham: Biblical Theology and Gematria Analysis

most high. With the first blessing, operated by God Most High to Abraham, God Most High acquires possession, קנה qoneh, of Heaven and Earth; with the second blessing the action of God Most High is attested in having put Abraham's enemies into his hands. The two terms are therefore clear: with Abraham's victory, God Most High becomes the actual possessor of Heaven and Earth, because Abraham is his expression on Earth by virtue of the Covenant made; at the same time, Abraham's very victory is guaranteed by the terms of the Covenant because it will be God Most High who puts the enemies into Abraham's hands. In conclusion and confirmation of the Covenant reached, Abraham renders tithes to Melchizedek.¹²³ Tradition¹²⁴ wants this encounter to have taken place on Mount Tabor,¹²⁵ thus connecting the initiation conferred by Melchizedek to the event of the Transfiguration of Christ that occurred decades of centuries later. Considering how the episode of the Transfiguration coincides with the institution of the Christ-Word as the only way to the Father¹²⁶ and with the manifestation of the Body of Glory of Christ, we can deduce that what seminally was contained in the divine intervention operated by Melchizedek finds in the Transfiguration its effective fulfillment. Similarly, we note that the two species of bread and wine, which Melchizedek uses in celebrating the Covenant rite, will be clarified by Jesus Christ as being his body and his blood. It is therefore evident that the two events of the Last Supper and of the Crucifixion, which constitute another form of the same Covenant rite operated by Melchizedek, are therefore possible developments precisely by virtue of that first initiation of Abraham and Sarah on Mount Tabor. If indeed Abraham is blessed by God Most High, and is therefore a term of the Covenant rite, Jesus Christ in the Last Supper and in the Crucifixion acts as High Priest and the terms of the Covenant with God Most High are the Disciples and then Humanity. Melchizedek inserts in Abraham and Sarah the seeds¹²⁷ that will then be developed through a process of secular gestation and that will lead to the Baptism, Passion and Resurrection of the Messiah. We find indeed how by gematria¹²⁸ the name God Most High אלעליון El Elion, equal to $197$, that is equivalent to עמנואל Immanuel, name given first to the prophets and then to the Messiah himself.¹²⁹ That the Covenant with Abraham is explicated through the process of secular gestation that led to the incarnation of John the Baptist and to the Baptism of Jesus Christ is evident from the events explicated in the following chapter of Genesis. We note indeed that precisely the textual autonomy of the three verses, Gen. 14:18-20, makes their position particularly relevant. If the three verses are not functional to the narrative development of the story, their position in the text must have been chosen on the basis of theological criteria. In the following chapter, indeed, God explicates the terms of the Covenant indicating to Abraham "the stars of the sky",¹³⁰ illustrating how such Covenant would have invested his physical and spiritual descendance.¹³¹ The Most High, after his insertion in the lineage of Abraham through the rite of com...