Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight, is study #12 of Genesis, chapter 14 and we will begin by reading Genesis 14:7-12:

And they returned, and came to Enmishpat, which is Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites, that dwelt in Hazezontamar. And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar;) and they joined battle with them in the vale of Siddim; With Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings with five. And the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain. And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way. And they took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.

I will stop reading there. As we have been considering this passage, we have seen that the battle relates spiritually to the battle that occurred at the time of the end when the church age ended and judgment began at the house of God. Today we are looking at that point in history as a past event. Of course, when God had Moses write down these things in Genesis 14 it was an event that would take place far in the future. But from our vantage point of living on the earth in the Day of Judgment in those days after the Great Tribulation, it is now a past event and that helps us to see exactly what is in view when we look at these historical parables.

In this case, it is a battle of Satan and his forces against the corporate church, which used to have God as its protector. They used to have God as the one who would ward off the “fowls of the heaven,” but that was no longer true when God turned them over to the hand of Satan. He gave them up to be judged and that is the situation here, as we have the forces of the enemy coming against these city states that identify, spiritually, with the corporate church and, yet, God is not on either side. God is fighting against Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim and Zoar. Zoar represents the elect that happened to be within the corporate church when God delivered it up. The Lord would take care of that remnant later when He commanded His people to come out of the churches, but at this point it is all wrath. It is all judgment.

It says in Genesis 14:7:

And they returned, and came to Enmishpat…

The word “Enmishpat” is #5880 in Strong’s Concordance and it literally means “fountain of judgment.” The word “fountain” is a word that might identify with water, but, in this case, it is all connected to the wrath of God and judgment. We will see later how this identifies with the “slimepits” in the vale of Siddim. The battle is taking place in Enmishpat, which is Kadesh. We will not get in to what “Kadesh” means, except to say that it is identical to “sodomite” and that which is translated as “unclean.” Spiritually, God is indicating that this is not a wholesome battle or a “holy war” of any kind. It is similar to the king of the south and the king of the north in Daniel, chapter 11 where both kings did wickedly.

Again, it says in Genesis 14:7-8:

And they returned, and came to Enmishpat, which is Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites, that dwelt in Hazezontamar. And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar;) and they joined battle with them in the vale of Siddim;

We saw similar language in verse 3, where it said, “All these were joined together in the vale of Siddim, which is the salt sea.” When we looked at that verse, we mentioned that God was relating the vale of Siddim to the salt sea and “salt” has to do with judgment. So, it was said to be at the salt sea and in Enmishpat, the “fountain of judgment,” and this was the place where they joined battle together.

When we look up the Hebrew word that is translated as “joined battle” in verse 8, we find it is translated as “put in array” regarding battles in a couple of significant places. One place is in 1Samuel 4:1-2:

And the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now Israel went out against the Philistines to battle, and pitched beside Ebenezer: and the Philistines pitched in Aphek. And the Philistines put themselves in array against Israel: and when they joined battle, Israel was smitten before the Philistines: and they slew of the army in the field about four thousand men.

In this case, the Philistines (that were always the enemies of Israel and would identify with the forces of Satan) are fighting against Israel, but at this point in history God was fighting against Israel because of their unfaithfulness and rebellion against His Word. In this battle the Israelites lost the battle and they had brought the ark of the covenant to the battle, almost superstitiously trying to use the ark like an idol. It was as if they brought something that represented God, then God would be with them, but God permitted the Philistines to take the ark and defeat Israel in the battle. It was a terrible day in Israel. Their army lost the war and the ark of the covenant was taken captive by the heathen nation of Philistine. It was the time when Eli’s sons were slain and upon hearing the news Eli fell over backwards and broke his neck (and died). To have a broken neck was an indicator of being under the wrath of God. In addition, a wife of one of the sons of Eli had a child and she named him Ichabod, which meant that the glory had departed from Israel. Spiritually, everything about that day pointed to the time of judgment beginning at the house of God during the Great Tribulation period at the end of the world. So, the Philistines were “set in array” or they joined battle with Israel, but God was not with Israel.

It was very similar to the historical situation we have in Genesis, chapter 14, with two forces coming together in battle, but God was with neither one. God was not fighting against the enemies and supporting those that had identification with Him.

Another place this same word is used is in Jeremiah, chapter 6 in a similar type of spiritual teaching. It says in Jeremiah 6:22-23:

Thus saith JEHOVAH, Behold, a people cometh from the north country, and a great nation shall be raised from the sides of the earth. They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea; and they ride upon horses, set in array as men for war against thee, O daughter of Zion.

Babylon joined battle against Judah and it was the same spiritual picture as when the Philistines came against Israel and the ark was captured. It is also the same spiritual picture we have in Genesis 14. It is a picture of God giving up His people and turning them over to the hands of the enemy for punishment, as the enemies act as servants of God in caring out the punishment the Lord had determined.

So, the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and their allies “joined battle” in the vale of Siddim. Then it says in Genesis 14:9:

With Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings with five.

As we have already discussed, these four kings identify with the “four beasts,” which describes Satan’s rule during the Great Tribulation period.

Then it says in Genesis 14:10:

And the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain.

They did battle in this valley of Siddim and there happened to be slimepits in the valley by the salt sea and maybe that partly explains why slimepits were found there. I do not know. When we look at the word “slimepits,” we notice it contains the word “slime” and that word is Strong’s #2564 and it is found three times. It is also found in Exodus 2:3:

And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink.

The other place this word is found is in Genesis 11:3:

And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.

This is the word that is found in our verse in Genesis 14, verse 10, where the battle is taking place near the salt sea. It is also identified with the “fountain of judgment” and it is full of slimepits. The slime that daubed the ark to float or to make brick would be exactly as we would understand it – a slimy, miry substance that one could sink into.

The English word “slimepits” consists of the word “slime” and the word “pit,” which is Strong’s #875. It is used twice so it is “slime-pit-pit.” And this word translated as “pit” is translated that way about four times, but the same word is translated as “well” twenty-nine times. For instance, it is the word used in Genesis 21:19:

And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink.

The word “well” is the word translated as “pit.” Twenty-nine times it is translated as well and it is used often in the Book of Genesis. We understand a well is a deep hole in the ground. You have to dig down deeply in the ground to find the water beneath. They would dig a hole in the ground and it filled with water and it would become a well of water. Remember, the word “Enmishpat” means “fountain of judgment” and a fountain is a similar idea to a well because fountains also produce water. So, here in the valley of Siddim or the valley of the land, they find it is full of slimepits or “slime-pit-pit.” The same Hebrew word is doubled and God does this more often than we might realize in the Bible. For instance, earlier in the Book of Genesis the Lord said to Adam that if he ate of the tree, “Thou shalt surely die,” the word “die” was doubled, “Thou shalt die-die.” That is why it was translated, “Thou shalt surely die,” because it was made more definite and when a word is doubled it adds strong emphasis to what God has said. It was a certain death, if you would eat of the tree of the forbidden fruit. And, here, it is doubled regarding the word “pit” to indicate it is deep hole or trench and if it were not for the word slime, we would say it was a “well” doubled by God because He used the word twice. But because we also have the word “slime,” we do not view it as being a well of water. You would not find slime in a well of water. This same Hebrew word translated as “pit” or “well” is also translated as “pit” in Psalm 69, a Messianic Psalm because there are parts of this Psalm that identify with the Lord Jesus Christ going to the cross. It says in Psalm 69:14:

Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters. Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.

It is the same word translated as “pit” in Genesis 14. So, we have a few different figures. There is “mire,” as in sinking in mire; there is an image of drowning in deep water and the waterflood overflowing. They are all figures of the same thing (coming under the wrath of God), so the pit has to do with being under the wrath of God. Christ experienced the wrath of God at the foundation of the world when He paid for sin and then He experienced the wrath of God at the cross when He demonstrated that payment for sin, so the idea of being in a “pit” can be used this way.

We also find this word translated as “mire” in Jeremiah 38:6-7:

Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the son of Hammelech, that was in the court of the prison: and they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire: so Jeremiah sunk in the mire.

Here we can see the same idea as in Psalm 69 which mentioned the pit. In Jeremiah 38 it was an historical occurrence and there was no water in view. It would have been a muddy, miry bottom in this dungeon, which was just a hole in the ground or a pit and they cast Jeremiah into it. It was so muddy and lacked solidness, so he began to sink like “quicksand” into the mire.

This is the idea in our verse in Genesis 14 where it says the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits. It is language that reveals that there were “wells” or “pits” but they were “wells without water.” They were full of slime and you would sink in them, just as the picture of Christ sinking in the mire. That was the typology God used to point to being under the wrath of God. It also pointed to the fact that there was no mercy – there was no “water of the gospel” that could deliver anyone in this battle that took place. That is the truth of the situation when God began judgment upon the house of God. At that time, God loosed Satan and turned over the corporate church to him, including every church and congregation in the world. They were served up to be judged and to be destroyed spiritually by the forces of Satan, Gog and Magog. There was no gospel water from May 21, 1988 through 2,300 evening mornings when there was virtually no one saved in the world and there were (absolutely) no one saved in any church or congregation in the world. There was no salvation taking place because the Holy Spirit had departed and given them up for judgment.

Again, the churches are the scene of the spiritual battle and the churches were the locations where previously there could be found fountains of living water or wells of water springing up, as the Word of God went forth via the corporate church. Individuals would have been drawn by the Word of God through the various denominations and congregations and God would have saved His elect remnant. They would have drunk from these fountains or wells of water, but no longer. The churches were the place of the spiritual battle and they were full of slimepits. There is nothing but miry clay that people are sinking in and there is no “water.” We see that here in in Genesis 14, verse 10. The language emphasizes very strongly what God did when He removed the candlestick and took away the light of the Gospel from the churches and congregations of the world.