Salt Sea
( Josh. 3:16 ). See DEAD SEA .
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Matthew George Easton
Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Third Edition (1897) · 3,964 entries on site
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Sea, The
(Heb. yam), signifies (1) “the gathering together of the waters,” the ocean ( Gen. 1:10 ); (2) a river, as the Nile ( Isa. 19:5 ), the Euphrates ( Isa. 21:1 ; Jer. 51:36 ); (3) the Red Sea ( Ex. 14:16 , 27 ; 15:4, etc.); (4) the Mediterranean ( Ex. 23:31 ; Num. 34:6 , 7 ; Josh. 15:47 ; Ps. 80:11 , etc.); (5) the “sea of Galilee,” an inland fresh-water lake, and (6) the Dead Sea or “salt sea” ( Gen. 14:3 ; Num. 34:3 , 12 , etc.). The word “sea” is used symbolically in Isa. 60:5 , where it probably means the nations around the Mediterranean. In Dan. 7:3 , Rev. 13:1 it may mean the tumultuous changes among the nations of the earth.
Siddim, Vale of
Valley of the broad plains, “which is the salt sea” ( Gen. 14:3 , 8 , 10 ), between Engedi and the cities of the plain, at the south end of the Dead Sea. It was “full of slime-pits” (R.V., “bitumen pits”). Here Chedorlaomer and the confederate kings overthrew the kings of Sodom and the cities of the plain. God afterwards, on account of their wickedness, “overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities;” and the smoke of their destruction “went up as the smoke of a furnace” (19:24-28), and was visible from Mamre, where Abraham dwelt. Some, however, contend that the “cities of the plain” were somewhere at the north of the Dead Sea. (See SODOM .)