That I will not take from a thread even to a shoe thong, and that I will not take anything that is yours, lest you should say, I have made Abram rich:
All Commentaries on Genesis 14:23 Go To Genesis 14
John Chrysostom
AD 407
The patriarch’s contempt for material wealth was intense. Why is it with an oath that he rejects the offer in the words “I will raise my hand to swear before God the most high, who created heaven and earth”? He wants to give the king of Sodom two lessons. First, he is above the gifts offered by him; and this gives evidence of great wisdom. He is ready to prove an instructor for him in reverence, as if to teach him in so many words: I am calling to witness the Creator of all that I will take nothing of yours, so that you may come to know the God over all and not regard as gods the things shaped by human hands. This One in fact is the maker of heaven and earth, who indeed determined the course of this war and was the cause of victory. So don’t expect me to be ready to take anything you’ve offered me. It was not, you see, for a reward that I wreaked vengeance. Instead, in the first instance it was out of love for my nephew, and then from the very nature of a good man that I should wrest from the clutches of barbarians people wrongfully abducted.
