KING'S DALE (.1nri ; re8ioy rap Bao3Xlcov ; regilr). In only two passages of Scripture is this place mentioned, and from neither of them can we get any information as to its posi tion. When Abraham was returning with the spoil of Sodom, the king of Sodom went out to meet him 'at the valley of Shaveh, which is the king's a'ale' (Gen. xiv. 17) ; and in the narrative of the death of Absalom, the incidental remark is in serted by the historian—' Now Absalom in his lifetime had reared up for himself a pillar which is in the king's dale' (2 Sant. xviii. 18).
We have no direct indication of the geogra phical position of the king's dale either in the Bible or any ancient author. Some have sup posed that it is identical with the valley of Jeho shaphat or Kidron ; and that the well-known monument, now called the tomb of Absalom, is the pillar raised by that prince (Benjamin of Tudela, in Early Travels in Palestine, p. Raumer, Pal., p. 303 ; Barclay, City of Great King, p. 92). The style of the monument, which is of the later Roman age, makes this theory impos sible ; and the name given to the valley, Emek (p= .*.nn ; ;Iv), proves that a plain' or broad valley' was meant, and not a ravine like the Kid ron. Others locate the king's dale at Beersheba, others at Lebanon (Reland, Pal., p. 357), others
near the Jordan (Stanley, Lectures on the yewish Church, p. 44). But if we identify Salem with Jerusalem, then doubtless the lting's dale was close to that city ; and it seems highly probable besides that Absalom should have raised his memorial pillar in the vicinity of the capital (Krafft, .Die Abographie Yerusalems, p. 88). Josephus says that Absalom's marble pillar in the king's dale was two furlongs distant from Jerusalem (Aniig. vii. to. 3). Let it be observed also that the other name of the king's dale, Shaveh (V), signifies a level place,' a plain.' Now in the immediate neigh bourhood of Jerusalem there is one place, and only one, which appears to answer to these indica tions, and it is the Plain of Rephaim. lt is on the direct route from the north to Hebron ; a practi cable road leads down from it through the wilder. ness to the shore of the Dead Sea ; and it is so close to Jerusalem that Melchisedec, from the heights of Zion, could both see and bear the joyous meeting of the princes of Sodom with tbe victorious band of Abraham, and the reclaimed captives (cf. Kurtz, Hirt. of the Old Covenant, i. 218 ; Wilson, Lands of the Bible, i. 488 ; Kalisch on Gen. xiv, 17).—J. L. P.