Genèse 14:15

15 Il divisa sa troupe, pour les attaquer de nuit, lui et ses serviteurs; il les battit, et les poursuivit jusqu'à Choba, qui est à la gauche de Damas.

Genèse 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.

Genèse 14:15 In-Context

13 Un fuyard vint l'annoncer à Abram, l'Hébreu; celui-ci habitait parmi les chênes de Mamré, l'Amoréen, frère d'Eschcol et frère d'Aner, qui avaient fait alliance avec Abram.

14 Dès qu'Abram eut appris que son frère avait été fait prisonnier, il arma trois cent dix-huit de ses plus braves serviteurs, nés dans sa maison, et il poursuivit les rois jusqu'à Dan.

15 Il divisa sa troupe, pour les attaquer de nuit, lui et ses serviteurs; il les battit, et les poursuivit jusqu'à Choba, qui est à la gauche de Damas.

16 Il ramena toutes les richesses; il ramena aussi Lot, son frère, avec ses biens, ainsi que les femmes et le peuple.

17 Après qu'Abram fut revenu vainqueur de Kedorlaomer et des rois qui étaient avec lui, le roi de Sodome sortit à sa rencontre dans la vallée de Schavé, qui est la vallée du roi.