66
ABRAHAM,
region that extended to the Mediterranean. 1 In the course of one of these expeditions, Chedorlaomer had established his authority in the plain of Jordan, and maintained it for twelve years. His ohject, doubtless, was to keep open communications with the rival kingdom of Egypt, the great route to which country crossed the Arabah towards the neighbourhood of Pentapolis. It was of consequence in the eyes of these Elamite invaders that the petty kingdoms along this road should own their supremacy. Whether the five cities were situated at the north or south of the Dead Sea, they lay in the way of armies marching from Damascus to Egypt, and had it in their power to impede or to assist the troops that passed their limits. When Lot took up his residence in the plain, the Sodomites owned the suzerainty of the Elamite monarch ; but at the end of the period mentioned above, the five kings of Pentapolis, having entered into a mutual alliance, revolted, and refused to pay the customary tribute. But punishment soon overtook them. Chedor)aomer, with his three tributary kings, marched against them. Taking the usual rol!te from the Euphrates to Syria, he and his allies fell first on the Rephaim in Basan (Gen. xiv. 5), one of the aboriginal tribes of the country, whose capital, Astaroth (hod. Tell 'Asherah), was about four miles from Edrei ; thence, turning south, they attacked the Zuzim who dwelt between the Amon and Jabbok, and the Ernim d Kiriathairn, in Moab. The Horites, or cave.dwellers of Petra and Mount Seir, next felt their arms; then turning northward by Kadesh, they overran the land of the Arnalekites and Amorites, and thus arrived at the Cities of the Plain, whose punishment they had reserved to the last. Then the five kings met the four iri the vale of Sid dim, "the salt valley," as the LXX. call it. It was probably situated at the south end of the Dead Sea, and a late traveller• has drawn attention to the Arabic word sidd, which the dwellers in the Jordan valley apply to the cliffs or banks of marl which exist in the neighbourhood. The older explanation makes Siddim the plural of the Hebrew word sadeh, "a plain." Here they made their stancj, ~xpecting that the pits of bitumen with which the place abounded would prove a protection to them and a snare to the enemy, whose cavalry and chariots would be seriously impeded .• Schrader, pp. go, 91. • C. R. Conder, '' Tent Work,'' p. 208.