Genesis 14:15

WEB

He divided himself against them by night, he and his servants, and struck them, and pursued them to Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus.

KJV

And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus.

Commentary

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 (g) 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, Isa 7:8 ; and was most delightfully situated in a vale; see Gill on Jer 49:25 ; according to Josephus (h) it was built by Uz, the son of Aram and grandson of Shem, and some say (i) 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. (g) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 10. sect. 1. (h) lbid. c. 6. sect. 4. (i) Baumgarten. Peregrinatio, l. 3. c. 4. p. 111.