Bible Location
3 cross references · Modern-day map available
The Vale of Siddim was the plain associated with the cities of Sodom, Gomorrah, and their neighbors before destruction. It is important because it is the setting of the early war of Genesis 14 and the geography of the cities of the plain. First appears in Gen 14:3.1
Coordinates
31.24, 35.52
First appears
Gen 14:3
AI summary: Siddim matters because it joins early patriarchal conflict with the later memory of catastrophic judgment. Genesis places kings and battles there before the same region becomes associated with the destruction of the cities of the plain. The cross references present the Vale of Siddim as a plain of alliance, war, and ruin.1
Latitude
31.24
Longitude
35.52
Bible references
3
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.) 3
Source note: this 1893 dictionary language reflects its period and may be culturally insensitive or outdated. It is presented as historical source material, not as ai-BIBLE’s language, interpretation, or endorsement.
AI-assisted summary prepared for ai-BIBLE and stored as page content, based on dictionary material, place metadata, and linked Bible cross references.
Alistair de Blacquiere-Clarkson, “ai-BIBLE Bible Names JSON Factsheet Aggregating Material from Smith’s Bible Dictionary & Hitcocks’s New and Complete Analysis of the Bible.” ai-BIBLE electronic edition, version 1.0.
M.G.Easton, Illustrated Bible Dictionary, ai-BIBLE electronic edition, version 1.0.
Robert Rouse, “Theographic Bible Information,” Theographic-Bible-Metadata, 2020, https://github.com/robertrouse/theographic-bible-metadata.