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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Valley of the King
  • Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2011 10:08:52 -0500 (EST)


Where is the “Valley of the King” -- (MQ H-MLK -- that is referenced at
Genesis 14: 17, which is also called the Valley Shaveh/(MQ $WH? [As
discussed
below, if the enigmatic word $WH is a Hurrian word meaning “great”, then
that latter phrase means “Great Valley”.] It sure sounds like an awfully
important valley. Per Gesenius, (MQ means “a low tract of land of wide
extent…
, fit for corn land (Job 39: 10; Psal. 65: 14; Cant. 2: 1), and suited for
battlefields (Job 39: 21)”. Here this broad, true valley/(MQ is given two
proper names, so it should be a prominent, real valley.

Most long books on Genesis say nothing whatsoever about the identity or
location of (MQ H-MLK. [E.g., Gerhard von Rad, “Genesis”; E.A. Speiser, “
Anchor Bible Genesis”; Robert Alter, “Genesis”.] If a comment is made, it
is
usually similar to what Bruce K. Waltke says in “Genesis” at p. 233: “
Shaveh. Apart from the narrator’s explanation, the meaning would be
uncertain.
The King’s Valley is probably close to Jerusalem (2 Sam. 18: 18).”
However, in my opinion, the “king”/MLK in Absalom’s day at II Samuel would
have
been his father, King David. (MQ H-MLK there is probably a Hebrew nickname
for the Rephaim Valley southwest of Jerusalem, where King David is reported
to have won two tremendous military victories over the Philistines, hence
the 1st millennium century BCE Hebrew nickname “Valley of the King [David]”.
If so, then that reference at II Samuel 18: 18 obviously has nothing
whatsoever to do with “Valley Shaveh, that is, Valley of the King” in Abram’s
day.

Gordon J. Wenham is somewhat more helpful in “Genesis 1-15”, when he
states at p. 315: “‘The vale of Shaveh’: the meaning of Shaveh is
uncertain.
It may be simply ‘valley’ (cf. v 5), or it may be ‘ruler’ (cf. A.A.
Wieder, JBL 84 (1965) 161), as the root apparently means ‘to rule’ in
Ugaritic.
If the latter is correct, then the gloss ‘the King’s Vale’ is an apt Hebrew
translation of an earlier Hebrew term. ‘A king’s vale’ is mentioned in 2
Sam 18: 18…. Whether the same King’s Vale is meant here is unclear….”

I don’t know if anyone cares to know what Targum Onkelos has to say in
mistranslating Genesis 14: 17 into Aramaic, but here it is: “the cleared out
plain, that is the Hippodrome of the King.”

In a word, university scholars do not have any idea whatsoever where the “
Valley of the King” at Genesis 14: 17 is located.

Prof. Wenham’s comment is helpful, however, in suggesting that $WH may be a
foreign word that means “ruler”, with “Valley Shaveh” thus being another
way of saying “Valley of the King”. There’s no west Semitic word like that
that I know of, but it’s right there in Hurrian: $aw- means “great” in
Hurrian. So the reference likely is to “Great Valley, that is, Valley of the
King”.

Oddly, no university scholar has ever a-s-k-e-d if, historically, there
actually was a Valley of the King in Canaan in the Bronze Age. There was
one, and only one, and it was in the Late Bronze Age: the Beth Shean Valley.

Genesis 41: 46 explicitly says that “Pharaoh”/PR(H is a “king”/MLK, and
the only valley/(MQ in Canaan directly controlled by a true king in the
Bronze
Age, that is, by the king/MLK of Egypt -- hence being (MQ H-MLK/“Valley of
the King” -- was the Beth Shean Valley, per the rare Egyptian garrison that,
uniquely in Canaan, functioned for 300 years at Beth Shean:

“The mound of Tel Beth-Shean…towers steeply above the Beth-Shean Valley….
The tell's location is strategically incomparable: the northern and
southern sides are defended by deep ravines, through which the Harod (Wadi
Jalud)
and Asi Rivers flow, until they converge to the east of the mound. The site
commands the main road descending from the Jezreel and Harod Valleys to the
Beth-Shean Valley, which was a segment of the international highway that,
even today, connects Israel's northern coastal plain with Transjordan. To the
east of the mound, in the Beth-Shean Valley, this latitudinal road
intersects with the important longitudinal thoroughfare which traverses the
Jordan
Valley. From here, it continues north to the Huleh Valley and the Lebanese
Bek'a. These strategic advantages, as well as the abundant water and fertile
lands nearby, made Beth-Shean an attractive site for settlement from earliest
times. …One of the major questions which we faced [in doing archaeological
digs at Beth Shean] was why did the Egyptians of the New Kingdom chose
Beth-Shean as a garrison town? It appears that the answer is related to the
status of the town in the previous period. For during the Middle Bronze Age
II,
occupation on the mound was not extensive, and apparently the town was not
fortified by the typical massive ramparts or glacis. Thus, it appears that
during the New Kingdom, the Egyptians chose to establish their administrative
and military center in the north of the country at a site of strategic
importance, but nevertheless played only a secondary role in the pattern of
Canaanite settlement in the region. …During a period of over 300 years of the
Egyptian New Kingdom, Beth-Shean served as the center of Egyptian Pharaonic
rule in northern Land of Israel.”
_http://www.rehov.org/project/tel_beth_shean.htm_
(http://www.rehov.org/project/tel_beth_shean.htm)

The one and only “Valley of the King” in Bronze Age Canaan [that is, a “
valley”/(MQ tightly controlled by Pharaoh as Egypt’s “king”/MLK, the only
true king who operated in Canaan in the Bronze Age] historically was the Beth
Shean Valley. Note how that locale fits Genesis 14: 17 perfectly, as Abram
is coming back to Canaan from the Damascus area, and so he would go right by
Beth Shean. Moreover, presumably one meaning of “Sodom” is a play on the
word “Siddim”, meaning “good fields”, thus referencing the finest fields
in all of Canaan: the magnificent fields of the Jezreel Valley, including at
Beth Shean.

Note that the Beth Shean Valley, referred to by the Patriarchs as (MQ $WH,
HW) (MQ H-MLK, is a broad, true valley par excellence. (MQ [which is used
twice in the above phrase] in Biblical Hebrew means “a broad, true valley”,
such as (MQ )YLWN at Joshua 10: 12: the Ayalon Valley. Or to say the very
same thing the Patriarchal way: (MQ XBRWN at Genesis 37: 14.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois



  • [b-hebrew] Valley of the King, JimStinehart, 12/15/2011

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