Great Son Of Many Peoples

And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations... Genesis 14:1

With this verse taken out of its story, we have a bunch of names adrift with their little titles. Is Shinar a big place with lots of people? Is Chedorlaomer named for loving a type of cheese? And who is this Tidal and how many nations is he king over? As names often have a meaning in the old scriptures, Tidal is 'great son', and goyim, translated as 'of nations' also means 'of many peoples'. So this man is said to be the great son of many peoples. That's interesting, you might say with a bit of the ol' sarcasm, but why study the Bible that deeply? Is this not just part of the setting of a story that will soon involve Abraham?

For one reason, we are there. Not literally of course, but with each name of a leader in the histories comes a group of people like you and me. Goy or Gentile or the pejorative 'dogs', we are there in the pages of Bible history. Not kings and great sons, but common people who may get to see a man such as Abraham or a woman such as Sarah go by, walking with God. While the Bible is packed with prophecy, and we would like to study that and get some advance knowledge of tomorrow, we also study the histories and see what Tidal may have done that we can learn from. However, as with many names of old, Tidal may appear once or twice and never be heard from again. At which time ol' Tidal makes a mockery of my big point and, well, how many times does your name appear in Bible history? For those of you named after Biblical persons, maybe quite a bit!

But, God loves Tidal too, and I hope that ancient king believes in the Son of God,

Bucky