central parts it is wholly desolate, the clay soil being often flooded by the Dead Sea, and even the

watercourses which traverse it being impregnated with the salt which encrusts the district. It is

otherwise as regards the southern part of the valley, and especially the eastern, which is covered

with vegetation, and where we still trace the sites of ancient towns.* Here indeed we have an

oasis that formed the ancient boundary between Edom and Moab.

* Comp. here also Tristram, Land of Moab, chapters iii. and iv. passim.

In this "salt valley" had Joab, or rather Abishai, his brother, defeated Edom in the time of David (2

Samuel 8:13; 1 Chronicles 18:12, etc.), and here again did the Edomite army encounter the host of

Amaziah. Although we know not the precise spot where the battle was fought, we may well

suppose that it was in the southern part of the valley. The Edomites were within their own

territory; their retreat would not be difficult, and, owing to the surrounding heights, comparatively

safe. On the other hand, if the Judaean army had been beaten, it is not easy to imagine how any

considerable remnant could have es caped, either by crossing the treacherous "valley," or by

skirting it. Nevertheless the Edomite army was defeated, with a slaughter of 10,000 men, and the

capture of other ten thousand.*

* We regard these as "round numbers."

The account in the Book of Kings (2 Kings 14:7) adds that the victorious Jewish army marched on

to Sela, or Petra, where, according to 2 Chronicles 25:12, the wretched prisoners were "cast down

from the height of Sela." Needless objection has been taken to the transport of prisoners over what

is sometimes described as so long and difficult a journey.

Chiefly for this reason,* the localization of the "Valley of Salt" has also been called in question.

But if we suppose the battlefield to have been the southern part of the valley, these objections are

removed.** And obviously it would be the policy of the victorious army to penetrate into the

heart of the conquered country, take its capital,*** and by an act of terrible vengeance to strike

terror into the people.

* The other objectio ns are weak.

** According to Badeker, the whole journey from Jebel Usdum to Petra occupies only from 18 to

20 hours; and if from this we subtract about four and a half hours to the chalk cliffs which bound

"the valley," we have little more than thirteen hours to travel, of which only two or three could

really be called difficult. Besides, the Arabah south of the chalk cliffs bears marks of having been,

when Ezion Geber stood, the road of communication from the Gulf of Akabah into Jewish

*** Sela was less than forty miles from the Dead Sea.

It must have been a marvelous sight which met the Jewish host as they descended from the east

into that surpassingly grand defile which opens into the so-called Wady Musa - the "Valley of

Moses "* - the sit e of the ancient, Sela, "rock " - better known by its later name of Petra. The

"cleft," or Sik, which formed the only access to it, passes between perpendicular rocks of red

sandstone, rising to a height of from 100 to 300 feet.

* For the origin of the n ame, and indeed for a detailed account of Petra, we must refer to the

special literature on the subject, only specially naming Badeker's Handbook, and the late Dean

Stanley's Sinai and Palestine. Upon the description of the latter (pp. 86-90) our brief account is

based. Comp. also Palmer, Desert of the Exodus, vol. Ii. chap. viii.