person
Birsha
בִּרְשַׁע
Birsha was the king of Gomorrah when Chedorlaomer and his allies invaded the region.
- verses
- 1
- first named
- Genesis 14:2
- last named
- Genesis 14:2
- period
- the Patriarchs
- tribe
- Canaan
Description
Who was Birsha?
Birsha was the king of Gomorrah during the time of Abraham (Gen. 14:2). He was one of the five kings of the cities of the plain who rebelled against Chedorlaomer, the king of Elam, after serving him for twelve years. In response, Chedorlaomer and his allies invaded the region, defeating the kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Bela (Zoar) in the Valley of Siddim. The invaders seized the goods and food of Sodom and Gomorrah, and took captives, including Abraham's nephew Lot. This event prompted Abraham to mount a rescue mission, where he successfully defeated Chedorlaomer and his allies, freeing Lot and recovering the stolen goods (Gen. 14:13-16). The mention of Birsha as the king of Gomorrah provides historical context to the biblical narrative and highlights the political dynamics of the region during Abraham's time.
Relations
Direct connections
Every entity the graph places in a stated relation with this one, grouped by the kind of link. Each relation is authored once and its inverse derived, so both ends always agree. Rows marked “registry” come from the identity spine rather than from a verse, and a row marked “which bearer is the source’s decision” is one where the name could have meant more than one person. The last group is not a relation at all — it counts the events two entities stand in together.
Stands in the same events as
- Amorites1 event
- Kadesh1 event
- Rephaim1 event
- Engedi1 event
- Chedorlaomer1 event
- Siddim Valley1 event
- Ashteroth-karnaim1 event
- Bera1 event
- Shemeber1 event
- Shinab1 event
Places
Where this happens
The places the claims about this person reach, drawn where the gazetteer locates them. A point is where a row puts them and never where tradition does; no line joins two points, because the rows state where and not in what order.
The pattern
Where Birsha is named
Every book of the corpus in the order it is read, each as wide as the chapters it holds. A bar is the verses of that book which write the name, and the flat stretches are as much of the answer as the bars.
1 verse across 1 of 66 books; 65 write the name nowhere. Named in Genesis (1).
Read it
Where to read it
Every verse of the text carried here that names this entity — one, across 1 book.
Onward
Where this page goes
Nothing in the graph stands one hop from this entity yet. These are the best-connected entities of the same type, so the page still ends somewhere. Descriptions by STEPBible TIPNR.
Sources