Vale of Siddim
Vale of Siddim - valley of the broad plains, "which is the salt sea" (Gen. 14:3,
8, 10), between Engedi and the cities of the plain, at the south
end of the
Dead Sea. It was "full of slime-pits" (R.V., "bitumen
pits"). Here
Chedorlaomer and the confederate kings overthrew
the kings of
Sodom and the cities of the plain. God afterwards,
on account of their wickedness, "overthrew those cities, and all
the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities;" and the smoke
of their destruction "went up as the smoke of a furnace"
(19:24-28), and was visible from Mamre, where
Abraham dwelt.
Some, however, contend that the "cities of the plain" were
somewhere at the north of the Dead Sea. (See Sodom.)
Reference