Siddim

The Vale of Siddim is the valley in which the five kings of the plain are routed by Chedorlaomer's coalition in Genesis 14. The text places it in the Salt Sea region and describes the ground itself as treacherous — full of bitumen pits — turning the battlefield into a trap for the fleeing kings of Sodom and Gomorrah.

A Valley by the Salt Sea

The first mention identifies the location: "All these joined together in the valley of Siddim (the same is the Salt Sea)" (Gen 14:3). Whatever the exact topography, the narrator anchors the vale to the Salt Sea — the southern Dead Sea region — as the gathering point for the rebellion of the five city-kings against the eastern overlord.

The Battle of the Five Kings

When Chedorlaomer's force arrives, the coalition forms up: "And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar); and they set the battle in array against them in the valley of Siddim" (Gen 14:8). Five Pentapolis kings deploy together against four eastern kings — and the Vale of Siddim is the chosen ground.

The Bitumen-Pit Rout

The defeat turns on the terrain itself: "Now the valley of Siddim was full of bitumen pits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and they fell there, and those who remained fled to the mountain" (Gen 14:10). The same pits that may have given the vale its strategic look become the means of the rout: the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fall into the bitumen pits while the survivors break for the hills. The defeat at Siddim is what triggers Lot's capture and Abram's pursuit in the rest of the chapter.