וַיִּשְׁמַ֣ע אַבְרָ֔ם כִּ֥י נִשְׁבָּ֖ה אָחִ֑יו וַיָּ֨רֶק אֶת־חֲנִיכָ֜יו יְלִידֵ֣י בֵית֗וֹ שְׁמֹנָ֤ה עָשָׂר֙ וּשְׁלֹ֣שׁ מֵא֔וֹת וַיִּרְדֹּ֖ף עַד־דָּֽן׃
Ketika Abram mendengar bahwa saudaranya telah ditawan, ia mempersenjatai orang-orang terlatihnya, yang lahir di rumahnya, tiga ratus delapan belas orang, lalu mengejar mereka sampai ke Dan.
Rashi
וירק Its meaning is as the Targum takes it: “he girded”. Similar are (Leviticus 24:33) “And I will gird myself (והריקותי) with the sword against you", and (Exodus 15:9) “I will gird on (אריק) my sword”, and (Psalms 35:3) “Gird thyself (הרק) with the spear and battle axe”.
Da'at Zekenim
וירק את חניכיו, “he mobilised all those whom he had trained;” Avraham told all these men that they were about to go to war and if someone was afraid for his life due to sins he had committed, he was free to go back home. (Compare Deuteronomy 20,8) When they heard this, they all decided to return to their homes, with the exception of his loyal servant Eliezer. G–d told Avraham not to worry and to let them go home, as He would empower Eliezer to possesss as much power as all these men had possessed combined. The numerical value of the letters in the name אליעזר total 318, and that is why the Torah described his ”army” as consisting of 318 men. (Compare Talmud, tractate Nedarim, folio 31) In addition, we have two interpretations of the Talmud scholars Rav and Sh’muel, respectively, the former saying that the word וירק in our verse refers to “pouring words of Torah into these potential soldiers, whereas Sh’muel says that he overcame their fears by giving them large quantities of gold. (same folio in the Talmud) His objective was to instill in these men the will to save as many lives as possible, not to fight for the sake of the loot they might capture by killing fellow human beings. [This editor has some difficulty with the explanations offered, as in verse 24 of our chapter Avraham insists that the men who had fought with him receive their share of the loot. Ed.]