Therefore, according to Hebrew and Arabic authorities, the ’Arabah and Ghôr form one line from the Lebanon to the Red Sea.
2. The Book of Job takes cognisance of the
river Jordan, and describes river scenery in the land of Edom, i.e., south of the Dead Sea.
3. No lake existed in that locality before the catastrophe of Sodom, although a river may have traversed it. This I deduce from the march of the army of Chedorlaomer, shortly previous to that catastrophe, (Gen. xiv.) After the taking of Seir and Paran, he crossed the valley to Hazezon-Tamar, which is Engedi, (2 Chron. xx. 2,) and the confederates were met by the kings of the plain in the vale of Siddim. And I have heretofore shown that this is utterly impossible to be done with the present lake in the way. The words, therefore, of Gen. xiv. 3 obviously signify, as given in the Latin Vulgate and in Luther’s German, “the vale of Siddim, which is now the Salt Sea.”
The inference from all these points is, that between the time of Chedorlaomer and Moses, some tellural convulsions took place which impeded the course of the river towards the Dead Sea, and thereby formed the present lake. There is no mention of a river in the lower ’Arabah during the wanderings of the Israelites under the leading of Moses.
It is another matter to discuss whether the overthrow of the guilty cities of Sodom and Gomorrah is connected with that convulsion of nature, with or without miracle, which formed the depression of the great valley; yet it is remarkable that the deepest part of the lake is at the spot which
tradition has always pointed out for the site of those cities, and nigh to the salt mountain, which still bears the name of Sodom.
To this spot the slopes both ways tend, and there they meet. Calculating the whole line of depression, as Petermann does, at 190 miles, the slope from the north, i.e., from the “Bridge of the daughters of Jacob,” near Safed, is comparatively gradual for 140 miles; and that from the south, i.e., from the elevation in the southern ’Arabah, where the level meets again from the north, is more precipitous for 50 miles. Action and reaction being equal in natural effects, the rapid declivity in the shorter distance is equal to the more gradual declivity in the longer measure.
But that centre of seismal action is taken for the site of Sodom—hence the site of the destruction of Sodom and the starting point of earthquake are the same. The record of the destruction is, therefore, the record of some dreadful convulsion capable of stopping the Jordan, so as to form a lake there; and the only adequate cause in nature assigned by geologists for such a depression, is earthquake accompanied by volcanic action.
While on the subject of possible depression of the Jordan bed, I may mention an indication which I have often pointed out to others, namely, the remarkable ledge traceable along the face of the Moab mountains at a considerable height, as seen from the neighbourhood of Jerusalem.