SIDDIM, TliE VALE OF (nitvrt png ; cpdpa7S '17 caurch, and KoiNar ; vallis silifestris).
In the article SALT SEA the vale of Siddim has been noticed. In this place it may be well to group together the leading statements made re garding it in Scripture history, and to combine with them the results of recent scientific research in the region in which it must have been situated.
The word Siddim appears to be from the root to be straight or level.' The singular 1 or n't, would thus signify a level field ;' and the phrase Emek Siddim (tol.fr, pl.), the valley of fields.' So it is rendered substantially in the Targums, and in the version of Saadias j4i). The authors of the Septuagint pro bably thought that the clause which is the Salt Sea, was explanatory of the word Siddim, which they therefore rendered launii. Or perhaps they may have read. wv-in instead of t."-ILTI ; and eauxi, may be an error for dXcruc6s-,-- dXo-6517s, ` wooded ;' a view which is corroborated by the Vulgate, which has silvestris ; and by the reading of Symmachus and Theodotion, dimiDv. Ka lisch gives another explanation : 'Emek ha-Sida'im is a valley filled with rocks and pits (v. ro), causing obstructions and obstacles (comp. Lc, and ; Aquil. KoAciaL 1-4111 reporeSimy).
The word rendered vale ' is in Hebrew Emek, which means a low or sunk tract of land. It was probably a section of the Arabah somewhat lower than the rest ; perhaps resembling the plain of Sabkah at the southern end of the Dead Sea. It was full of bitumen-pits ;' or, as the Hebrew idiom expresses it, it was wells wells of bitumen' (rriNn nitc). They are so numerous as to stud its whole surface (ver. to). It was the battle-field in which the king of Sodom and his allies were van quished. It seems probable, though it is not stated, that Sodom and Gomorrah were situated in the vale. Be this as it may, the vale was in cluded in the general destruction when the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord in heaven ' (xix. 24).
But the most remarkable fact regarding the vale of Siddim is that stated in ver. 3—'1? is the Salt Sea' (4cm Nri). The meaning of these words cannot be mistaken ; and it has already been shown that we have no more ground for questioning their genuineness than for questioning the genuineness of any other passage in Genesis. There is abun dant evidence that the book as it now stands was the production of Moses. He may have embodied in it authentic documents handed down from a re moter age, arranging and supplementing them as he deemed necessary. But his additions would be as authoritative as the documents themselves. Until we can prove from clear evidence that the clause was interpolated by an uninspired writer, we must regard it as an integral part of the Mosaic record, and we must believe that the vale of Siddim was submerged.
The most careful explorations of recent travellers have not brought to light a single fact calculated to overthrow this view. On the contrary, the fol lowing results of scientific research go far to estab lish it. At the present day there are no bitumen pits in the plains around the Dead Sea, and time could not have effaced them had they remained above water. It has been ascertained, from masses of bitumen frequently thrown to the surface, that there must be wells of bitumen in the bed of the sea towards its southern end. Traces of what ap pears to have been 'a shower of sulphur' have been discovered recently on the south-west shore ; and with it are layers and lumps of bitumen calcined by heat [SALT SEA]. The section of the Dead Sea south of el-Lisan has been found to be very shallow, only a few feet, and in places only a few inches of water covering a flat slimy plain—whereas the whole northern section is a deep and regularly-formed basin.
These facts would seem at least to suggest that that section of the Dead Sea which is south of the peninsula covers the region which was called in Lot's time the vale of Siddim2—J. L. P.