Tent Work in Palestine — Part 182

Although no ruins were found by the Survey party, and, as I have urged above, were not to be expected, yet there are names in the district, applying to portions of the ground, which seem to me to have a possible connection with those of Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim.

The great spring of 'Ain Feshkhah is a probable site for one of the Cities of the Plain, and the great bluff not far south of it is called Tubk 'Amrîyeh, and the neighbouring valley Wâdy 'Amrîyeh. This word is radically identical with the Hebrew Gomorrah, or Amorah as it is spelt in one passage (Gen. x. 19), meaning, according to some authorities, "depression,” according to others "cultivation.” It is possible then that the name of Gomorrah is preserved in this modern district title.

Admah means "red earth,” a description which would hardly apply to the ground near the Dead Sea. A "city Adam” is noticed in the Book of Joshua, and the name Ed Dâmieh applies to the neighbourhood of the Jordan ford east of the S[)u]rtubeh, about twenty-three miles up the valley. It has always seemed to me possible that Adam and Admah were one and the same; for the Ciccar or "plain” extended yet higher up the Jordan Valley, and included Succoth (Tell Der'alah) within its limits (2 Chron. iv. 17).

Zeboim means "hyenas,” and is identical with the Arabic _Dub'a_. Now the cliff just above the plain, near the site of Roman Jericho, is called Shakh ed Dub'a, "lair of the Hyena;” but the title is Hebrew, not Arabic:--Shakh being a word not found in the Arabic dictionaries. Might not Zeboim, I would ask, have stood here?

Sodom alone remains without a suggestion, and of this word we find no trace west of Jordan. I may note, however, that the word Siddim is apparently the same with the Arabic _Sidd_, which is used in a peculiar sense by the Arabs of the Jordan Valley as meaning "cliffs” or banks of marl, such as exist along the southern edge of the plains of Jericho, the ordinary meaning being a "dam” or obstruction. Thus the Vale of Siddim might well, so far as its name is concerned, have been situated in the vicinity of the northern shores of the Dead Sea.

Such are the only suggestions I am able to offer on this interesting question. To discover the sites of these cities, on the north shores of the Dead Sea, will, I feel convinced, be impossible, unless springs of fresh water be also there discovered, which are not to be found on the Survey sheets.