Genesis 14:15

15 During the night he and his servants divided his forces against them, then attacked and pursued them all the way to Hovah, north of Dammesek.

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 Someone who had escaped came and told Avram the Hebrew, who was living by the oaks of Mamre the Emori, brother of Eshkol and brother of 'Aner; all of them allies of Avram.

14 When Avram heard that his nephew had been taken captive, he led out his trained men, who had been born in his house, 318 of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.

15 During the night he and his servants divided his forces against them, then attacked and pursued them all the way to Hovah, north of Dammesek.

16 He recovered all the goods and brought back his nephew Lot with his goods, together with the women and the other people.

17 After his return from slaughtering K'dorla'omer and the kings with him, the king of S'dom went out to meet him in the Shaveh Valley, also known as the King's Valley.