Certainly, there were wars before the days of Abram, but they weren’t recorded in the Bible. The earth was filled with violence prior to the Genesis Flood (Genesis 6:11), but the record in chapter fourteen of the Book of Genesis contains the first record, in scripture, that describes a particular war that had taken place. The account not only mentions the kingdoms involved in the war, but also their kings and the places, where battles had taken place. It was four kings/kingdoms against five, and it appears the kings/kingdoms were allied with one another, rather than one empire coming against the other.
The land of Canaan, or later called the Promised Land, was situated between two great commercial markets, one in Mesopotamia and the other in Egypt. The land was a trading route, and great wealth could be obtained, through tariffs placed upon goods passing through the land to and from the two great markets. Not only so, but whoever controlled this land bridge between the two great markets (later empires) had a virtual monopoly upon world trade. Interestingly, the same is true today. By controlling the trade routes, the stronger king could control how much commerce went on, and which country benefitted most. In other words, he who controlled this little land-bridge controlled the world’s economy.
Four cities/kingdoms in Mesopotamia made war with five cities/kingdoms in the Land of Canaan, also called the five cities of the plain. The five cities (Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim and Bela/Zoar) were located in the valley of Siddim, which is the Dead Sea, and they had served Chedorlamer for twelve years. He was the king of Elam, and the five vassal kings of the Land of Canaan rebelled against him in the thirteenth year, seeking to shake off the shackles of an unwanted and perhaps demanding agreement/treaty between themselves and Mesopotamia (Genesis 14:1-4).
Chedorlamer was allied with three other kings of Mesopotamia. A year had passed, since the rebellion in the west, but the kings in Mesopotamia were busy gathering their armies and planning their campaign against the five cities of the plain (Genesis 14:5). It is difficult to determine how the battles arose, because scholars aren’t in agreement, as to whether the cities were located north or south of the Dead Sea. In any event, the campaign seems to have taken shape by first eliminating any help the five cities of the plain might receive from sympathetic family-nations nearby. They first subdued the Rephaims, the Zuzims, the Emims, the Horites and the Elparan. After this, they “returned” to Kadesh and defeated the people in the land, later occupied by the Amalekites, they attacked the Amorites (Genesis 14:6-7). When this part of the campaign was completed and successful, they turned to the valley of Siddim, which is the Dead Sea, where the five cities were located.
The five kings went out to meet the four kings from Mesopotamia, and the five were defeated and fled from the battle. The valley of Siddim was full of slime pits, which no doubt contributed to their defeat. An interesting indication in the text is that the salt sea is the valley of Siddim (Genesis 14:2). This may indicate that before the Lord destroyed the five cities in the plain, there wasn’t a salt sea. Rather, it was a vale that was full of slime pits. No matter what the point was in the text’s mention of the valley and the slime pits, the five kings were defeated there, and Chedorlaomer carried away all the valuables and whatever supplies Sodom and Gomorrah had on hand. Moreover, Lot was living in the city of Sodom at this time, and he and others were taken captive by the victors, intending to make them slaves in Mesopotamia (Genesis 14:8-12).
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