Abram at the Battle of the Kings: When Was the Dead Sea the Valley of Siddim?

Using historical geography and geology to uncover the setting of a pre-Israelite story.

APA Style

Click to copy

"Abram at the Battle of the Kings: When Was the Dead Sea the Valley of Siddim?" (n.d.). TheTorah.com. Retrieved October 30, 2026, from https://www.thetorah.com/article/abram-at-the-battle-of-the-kings-when-was-the-dead-sea-the-valley-of-siddim

SBL Style

Click to copy

"Abram at the Battle of the Kings: When Was the Dead Sea the Valley of Siddim?." TheTorah.com. Accessed October 30, 2026. https://www.thetorah.com/article/abram-at-the-battle-of-the-kings-when-was-the-dead-sea-the-valley-of-siddim.

David Ben-Gad HaCohen
Abram at the Battle of the Kings: When Was the Dead Sea the Valley of Siddim?

Aerial view of sinkholes near the Dead Sea.

“ובשעת מתן תורה כבר נכתב כל ספר בראשית עד ענין מתן תורה”
– ר’ זאב וולף איינהורן
“When the Torah was given, all of Genesis up to the story of the giving of the Torah itself had already been written.” – Ze’ev Wolf Einhorn (Maharzu; d. 1862)[1]

The Historical Setting of the Battle of the Kings

Genesis 14 tells an unusual tale of a battle between four kings from outside the Levant and five city-states situated on the south-eastern side of the Dead Sea. The four invading kings defeat the five local city-states in battle, and take their people and kings as captives. Abram then defeats the invading army, and the people from the five city-states are set free.

Historically speaking, the story’s setting is problematic. The five cities named in this story, Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Bela (or Zoar), likely refer to the five ancient sites in the area, known by the modern Arabic names, Bab edh-Dhra, Numeira, Safi, Feifa, and Khanazir.[2] These five city-states were destroyed and/or abandoned towards the end of the Early Bronze Age (3300-2000 BCE) and never reoccupied. But the story is set in the time of Abram, who, following the Bible’s chronology, would have live the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1550 BCE). How are we to make sense of this?

Final Form vs. Core Tradition

The final form of the story as we have it now in Genesis was composed much later than any of these periods. Based on literary and historical analysis, biblical scholars date its composition at the earliest to the Assyrian Period (8th -7th cent. B.C.E.), and likely to the Neobabylonian (early 6th cent.) or even Persian periods (late 6th– mid-4th cent.).[3] The literary analysis, however, deals only with the final form of the story as we have it, and fails to consider a possible older core.

The geographical data spread throughout the chapter changes the picture entirely and strongly implies the existence of a very ancient kernel. A look at this data may allow us to understand how Early Bronze city states made it into a story with a Middle Bronze protagonist.

A Sea that Was Once a Valley

The battle between the foreign coalition of four kings against the local coalition of five kings takes place at the Valley of Siddim (14:3, 8), which is identified as the Dead Sea (14:3).

בראשית יד:ג כָּל אֵלֶּה חָבְרוּ אֶל עֵמֶק הַשִּׂדִּים הוּא יָם הַמֶּלַח.
Gen 14:3 All the latter joined forces at the Valley of Siddim, that is, the Dead Sea.[4]

The last words are a gloss suggesting that the area once known as the Valley of Siddim, and described as a dry valley where armies may engage in a battle, was later flooded, and by the time of the glossator, was under water and part of the Dead Sea. This describes a historically accurate phenomenon.

The Dead Sea: Geographical Overview

The Dead Sea has two basins. Between the two basins sits the Lisan Peninsula, on the west of which (east of Masada) sits a ford called the Lynch Straight,[5] which sits at 1,319 feet below sea level. The northern basin is very deep, with an average depth of 600 feet below the straight. The southern basin, however, is quite shallow, with an average depth of only 9 feet below the straight.

In a wet period, when the precipitation-evaporation ratio is positive (i.e., the sea gains more water than it loses), the sea level rises above -1,319 feet, flooding the southern basin and making it part of the Dead Sea. During such a period, the Lynch Straight is a ford, connecting the two basins.

In a dry period when the precipitation-evaporation ratio is negative (i.e., the sea loses more water than it gains), the sea level drops below -1,319 feet, the Lynch Straight dries out, and the two basins become entirely separated (as occurred in modern times).[6] As the dry period continues, the southern basin disappears entirely and becomes a dry plain.

Sinkholes

Another geographical clue that clinches the identification of the Valley of Siddim with the southern basin of the Dead Sea is the evidence from sinkholes. In 1987, about ten years after the Dead Sea level dropped below -1,319 feet, a series of sinkholes started to develop on the western shore of the Dead Sea in the area that had just dried out.[7]These are mentioned in v. 10:

בראשית יד:יוְעֵמֶק הַשִׂדִּים בֶּאֱרֹת בֶּאֱרֹת חֵמָר וַיָּנֻסוּ מֶלֶךְ סְדֹם וַעֲמֹרָה וַיִּפְּלוּ שָׁמָּה…
Gen 14:10 Now the Valley of Siddim was dotted with ḥaimarpits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, in their flight, threw themselves into them…

Ḥaimar is usually translated as bitumen, but should be translated as clay or slime. Although bitumen springs can be found not far from this area in Naḥal Ḥaimar (west of the southern basin of the Dead Sea), I do not know of any bitumen pits anywhere into which one can fall. Thus, this verse is almost certainly describing the sinkhole pits with a slimy bottom that form on the Dead Sea’s southern basin when it dries.

Fluctuations in Ancient Times

Our verse, identifying the Valley of Siddim with the Dead Sea, reflects a glossator or storyteller living in a period when the southern basin existed as part of the sea, but telling a story set in a time when the basin was dry. Various geological features help us determine the geology of the Dead Sea, and thus help us understand the story better:

  • Ancient seamarks on the western shore of the Dead Sea.[8]
  • Geological drilling in the southern basin of the sea.[9]
  • Detailed study of changes in the salt caves of Mt. Sodom.[10]

Taken together, the evidence has enabled researches to draw the following chronology of the fluctuation of the Dead Sea level:

3rd millennium – Flooded: During the third millennium B.C.E., the southern basin was flooded and five Canaanite centers flourished on its south-eastern shore.

End of 3rd mill. – Dry: Towards the end of the third millennium, the sea level dropped drastically and the southern basin dried. This was the period in which the Akkadian culture in Mesopotamia collapsed and the Early Bronze urban centers in Israel, including the five city-states near the Dead Sea, were destroyed and/or abandoned.[11]

2nd mill. – Flooded: During the first three quarters of the second millennium B.C.E., the sea level rose again. At this stage, many urban centers were rebuilt, but not the five Dead Sea city states from the 3rd millennium.

End of 2nd mill. to mid 1st mill. – Dry: During the last quarter of the second millennium, the precipitation-evaporation ratio dropped,[12] and this dry period continued through the first half of the first millennium B.C.E. The southern basin remained dry throughout this period.

Latter half of 1st mill. – Flooded: The second half of the first millennium was a moderately wet period, and the sea level slowly rose above the -1,319 line, but only flooding the southern basin towards the end of the second century B.C.E.

Isolating the Relevant Period of the Glossator

Only one of the three wet periods described above can fit the tradition found in the Torah. The first wet period in the third millennia is too early, since the former dry period (end of 4th millennium) had no cities, so that such a story about a battle with five local city-states could not have been told. The third wet period really only begins in the second century B.C.E., when the southern basin was again full. It is thus, too late, since by this time the Torah was more or less finished, and our verse had certainly been written.[13]

The only relevant wet period is the one that occurred during the first three quarters of the second millennium. Only then could a glossator or storyteller living in a wet period, looking back at a dry period in the late third millennium, gloss the term “the Valley of Siddim,” with “that is, the Dead Sea” (14:3). Nevertheless, a problem remains. As we noted above, the five city-states were no longer in existence during this dry period (end of third millennium).[14]So, how do we explain a battle in the Valley of Siddim with five city states that were no longer in existence?

Possible Scenarios for the Creation of the Story

A number of explanations can be offered. It is possible that the story was inspired by the tells.[15] An ancient storyteller, living in a dry period, did not know that when the city-states existed, the valley was actually underwater. As the story was transmitted through the ages and inherited by storytellers in the wet period, a gloss was added, identifying the valley with (the southern basin of) the Dead Sea.

Another possibility is that the story is set during a transition period towards the end of the third millennium B.C.E., in which the southern basin had dried, but the area had not yet been completely abandoned. By this time the economy of the area would have collapsed and one can imagine the locals turning to brigandry, robbing caravans on the international trade route that goes through the eastern Jordanian hills,[16] thus provoking a response from larger powers to establish order.[17]

Reworking a Non-Israelite Saga

If the glossator was living in the second millennium B.C.E., this suggests that the core of the story predates the Israelites, and that the involvement of Abram in the story is a later Israelite adaptation.[18] This helps explain the unusual character of chapter 14.

Biblical scholars have long noted the incongruity of chapter 14 with the rest of the Abram cycle. For example, Abram is never described elsewhere as a warrior with an army, able to do battle against the combined forces of multiple nations.[19] More significantly for our purposes is the fact that the story doesn’t even get to Abram and Lot until v. 12. By that point the story is over, making the Lot-Abram connection an artificial graft.

The narrative arc in vv. 1-11 is of an invasion of four kings and their armies who conquer the Transjordan, including the five city-states, and take their people captive. Since this area was abandoned during the time of the storyteller, the defeat of the five cities and the capture of their population was likely the end of the story, which explained how this once populated area now sits in ruins. It is only the later Israelite storytellers, borrowing this tradition from their non-Israelite neighbors, who recast the story by inserting Abram into it, and making him a local savior, returning the captive population to their homes while demanding nothing in return.

Aeneas and Abraham

This broad reconstruction, where a late-coming nation inserts itself into momentous stories of the past of which it is not a part, is a well-known pattern in antiquity. For example, Virgil’sAeneid makes the character Aeneas, who participated in the Trojan War on the side of Troy in Homer’s Iliad, into the ancestor of Rome, thus allowing the Romans to claim their part in the ancient story of the battle of Troy told in Homer.

Similarly, by incorporating the ancient story of the battle in the Valley of Siddim into the account of Abram’s life, and giving him a leading role as the hero, the Israelite storyteller places his own people on center stage in an important historiographic event in the region.

View Footnotes

Published 2016-11-10

  1. Commentary on Shemot Rabbah 5:25.

  2. See, W.E. Rast, “Bab edh-Dhra,” ABD I, pp. 559–561; R.T. Schaub, “Safi,” ABD V, pp. 895–896; B. MacDonald, “East of the Jordan”, Territories and Sites of the Hebrew Scriptures (ASOR 6), Boston 2000, pp. 54–58; J. Corbet, “Searching for Sodom and Gomorrah,” BAR, E-Features May/June 2009,http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2008/04/The-Discovery-of-the-Sin-Cities-of-Sodom-and-Gomorrah.aspx#Article (with a map of the cities).

  3. J. Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven: Yale University 1975), pp. 120, 299, 305; J.A. Emerton, “Some Problems in Genesis xiv,” VTSup. 41 (1990), pp. 73–102; M.C. Astour, “Chedorlaomer,” ABD I, pp. 893–895.

  4. This is one of four glosses in the text. The other three are:

    • In v. 2, the city of Bela is identified as Zoar. This may not really be a gloss, however, since it seem possible that this phrase is a scribal error and that the original text read “and king Bela of Zoar” (ובלע מלך צער).
    • In v. 7, Ein Mishpat is identified as Kadesh.
    • In v. 17 Emek Shave is identified as Emek HaMelech.

    The heavy glossing of the geographical terms here shows us that the story is much older than the glossator and that he has a very specific picture in mind of the physical location being described, strongly implying that he had a tradition about the earlier names of these places.

  5. The Strait was named after Lieutenant William Francis Lynch, the commander of the US expedition to the Jordan River and the Dead Sea in 1848.

  6. During the summer of 1976, twelve kilometers from the Lynch Strait to the south dried out, connecting the Lisan Peninsula on the east with the western shore of the sea, south of Masada, and disconnecting the two basins entirely. Today the southern basin is covered by a series of desalination pools belonging to the Dead Sea Works. The pools are flooded by Dead Sea water, artificially pumped from the northern basin.

  7. A. Frumkin and E. Raz, “Collapse and subsidence associated with salt karstification along the Dead Sea,” Carbonates and Evaporites 16 (2001): 117–130.

  8. C. Klein, “Morphological Evidence of Lake Level Changes, Western Shore of the Dead Sea,” Israel Journal of Earth-Sciences 31 (1982), pp. 67–94. Every natural change in the level of the sea marks a world climatic change.

  9. C. Migowski et al., “Holocene Climate Variability and Cultural Evolution in the Near East from the Dead Sea Sedimentary Record,” Quaternary Research 66 (2006), pp. 421–431.

  10. Amos Frumkin, the prominent researcher of the salt caves, published many article on that topic. For a list see: A. Frumkin and Y. Elitzur, “Historical Dead Sea level Fluctuations Calibrated with Geological and Archaeological Evidence,” Quaternary Research 57 (2002): 334–342 [342].

  11. D. Neev and K.O. Emery, The Destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, and Jericho. Geological, Climatological, and Archaeological Background (Oxford: Oxford University 1995), 117; N. Getzov, Y. Paz and R. Gophna, Shifting Urban landscapes during the Early Bronze Age in the Land of Israel (Tel Aviv : Ramot Publishing House-Tel Aviv University 2001); Migowski et al., 425, 427.

  12. There is evidence for a loss of crops that caused hunger and immigration of nomads into the inhabited area during the last quarter of the second millennium B.C.E. The socio-economical pressure caused the collapse of the Babylonian and Assyrian empires, see: J. Neumann and S. Parpola “Climatic Change and the Eleventh–Tenth-Century Eclipse of Assyria and Babylonia,” JNES 46/3 (1987): 161–182. Yurco claims that it was caused by climatic change, a result of 19 years of continues volcanic eruption (1159–1140 B.C.E), see: Frank J. Yurco, “End of the Late Bronze Age and Other Crisis Periods: A Volcanic Cause,” inGold of Praise: Studies on Ancient Egypt in Honor of Edward F. Wente (eds. Emily Teeter and John Larson; SAOC 58; 1999), pp. 455–461.

  13. The gloss “that is, the Dead Sea” is extant in all known textual witnesses.

  14. To put it another way, when the city-states by the Dead Sea flourished, the southern basin was flooded; there was no Valley of Siddim to serve as a battlefield and no sinkholes for kings to fall into. In the period when the Valley of Siddim existed (second millennium), and could serve as a battlefield complete with sinkholes, these city-states were long gone.

  15. This is how many scholars explain the appearance of Early Bronze age cities such as Ai, Jericho, and Yarmuth in the Joshua conquest account, set in the Iron Age.

  16. This route is known today (and was known in the Assyrian period) as the King’s Highway.

  17. The identity of the four kings is less clear.

    • Elam refers to an area just west of Persia, in modern day Iran. The proto-Elamite period started in ca. 3200 B.C.E. and extended into the 6th B.C.E.
    • Shinar is the geographical name of the valley between the rivers, and can refer to anything from Sumer to Babylonia, historically speaking.
    • Elasar is unidentified.
    • Goyim, meaning “nations,” seems like a place-holder for a lost name.

  18. If it seems impossible that a story set in the late 3rd millennium and originating among Canaanite storytellers in the mid-2nd millennium could have been picked up and reused by Israelites in the mid-1st millennium, the history of the Gilgamesh Epic makes a useful comparison. The Gilgamesh epic is set in the early third millennium, and the first written stories about him of which we are aware come from the late third millennium. These stories developed and were retold all the way through the first millennium B.C.E., and versions of the story were certainly familiar to the Israelite authors of Genesis.

  19. For a discussion of this point, see, Yochanan Muffs, “Abraham the Noble Warrior,”Journal of Jewish Studies 33 (1982): 81-108.