Genesis 14:15

15 He split up his men to attack them at night. He defeated them, pursuing them all the way to Hobah, which is north of Damascus.

Genesis 14:15 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 14:15

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 ^F7 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 ^F8 it was built by Uz, the son of Aram and grandson of Shem, and some say

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FOOTNOTES:

F9 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.
F7 Antiqu. l. 1. c. 10. sect. 1.
F8 lbid. c. 6. sect. 4.
F9 Baumgarten. Peregrinatio, l. 3. c. 4. p. 111.

Genesis 14:15 In-Context

13 Then a soldier who had escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew what had happened. He was living next to the oak trees belonging to Mamre the Amorite, a brother of Eshcol and Aner. (These men were Abram's allies.)

14 When Abram heard that his nephew had been captured, he armed his 318 trained men, born in his own household, and pursued the four kings all the way to Dan.

15 He split up his men to attack them at night. He defeated them, pursuing them all the way to Hobah, which is north of Damascus.

16 He brought back everything they had, including women and soldiers. He also brought back his relative Lot and his possessions.

17 After Abram came back from defeating Chedorlaomer and his allies, the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the Shaveh Valley (that is, the King's Valley).