King's Dale

From BibleEncyclopedia.Net

dāl (עמק המּלך, ‛ēmeḳ hamelekh) :

Mentioned only in Genesis 14:17; 2 Samuel 18:18, the name given to “the valley of Shaveh,” near the Dead Sea, where the king of Sodom] met Abram. Some have identified it with the southern part of the valley of Jehoshaphat, where Absalom reared his family monument (2 Samuel 18:18).

(1) “Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself the pillar, which is in the king's dale” (2 Samuel 18:18). According to Josephus (Ant., VII, x, 3) this was a marble pillar, which he calls Absalom's hand” and it was two furlongs from Jerusalem. Warren suggests that this dale was identical with the King's Garden (which see), which he places at the open valley formed at the junction of the Tyropoen with the Kidron (see Jerusalem). The so-called Absalom's Pillar, which the Jews still pelt with stones in reprobation of Absalom's disobedience, and which a comparatively recent tradition associates with 2 Samuel 18:18, is a very much later structure, belonging to the Greco-Roman period, but showing Egyptian influence.

(2) King's Vale (Genesis 14:17; the King James Version dale).

See King's Vale; Vale; Valley.