place
Siddim Valley
שִׂדִּים+H6010Q
The Valley of Siddim, located near the Dead Sea, was the site of a battle between the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and the kings of Elam and their allies (Gen. 14:3, 8, 10).
- verses
- 3
- first named
- Genesis 14:3
- last named
- Genesis 14:10
- feature
- valley
- coordinates
- 31.21°N · 35.45°E
south of the Lisan (OpenBible)
The gazetteer records one identification, and no competing one.
Description
Siddim Valley in the text
The Valley of Siddim, also known as the Valley of the Dead Sea (Gen. 14:3), was a low-lying area situated near the southern end of the Dead Sea. It is mentioned in the context of the battle between the four kings of the east, led by Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, and the five kings of the cities of the plain, including the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 14:8-10).
The Valley of Siddim is described as being full of tar pits (Gen. 14:10), which played a significant role in the battle's outcome. When the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some of their men fell into these tar pits, while the rest escaped to the hills. This allowed the eastern kings to seize the goods and provisions of Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as capture Lot, Abraham's nephew, who was living in Sodom (Gen. 14:11-12).
The exact location of the Valley of Siddim is uncertain, as the geography of the region has undergone significant changes since biblical times. Some scholars believe that it may have been located in the area now covered by the southern basin of the Dead Sea, which is much shallower than the northern basin. Others propose that it could have been situated in the nearby plain, south of the Dead Sea.
The mention of the Valley of Siddim in the Bible is significant, as it sets the stage for Abraham's rescue of Lot and his subsequent encounter with Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High (Gen. 14:13-20). This event demonstrates Abraham's faith, courage, and loyalty to his family, as well as his reverence for Melchizedek, a figure who foreshadows the priesthood of Christ (Heb. 7:1-10).
Relations
Direct connections
Every entity the graph places in a stated relation with this one, grouped by the kind of link. Each relation is authored once and its inverse derived, so both ends always agree. Rows marked “registry” come from the identity spine rather than from a verse, and a row marked “which bearer is the source’s decision” is one where the name could have meant more than one person. The last group is not a relation at all — it counts the events two entities stand in together.
Stands in the same events as
- Amorites1 event
- Kadesh1 event
- Rephaim1 event
- Engedi1 event
- Chedorlaomer1 event
- Ashteroth-karnaim1 event
- Bera1 event
- Birsha1 event
- Shemeber1 event
- Shinab1 event
The pattern
Where Siddim Valley is named
Every book of the corpus in the order it is read, each as wide as the chapters it holds. A bar is the verses of that book which write the name, and the flat stretches are as much of the answer as the bars.
3 verses across 1 of 66 books; 65 write the name nowhere. Named in Genesis (3).
Read it
Where to read it
Every verse of the text carried here that names this entity — 3, across 1 book.
Onward
Where this page goes
Nothing in the graph stands one hop from this entity yet. These are the best-connected entities of the same type, so the page still ends somewhere. Descriptions by STEPBible TIPNR.
Sources