In addition to being an attraction for leisure and medicinal tourism, the Dead Sea Jordan was the location for a number of significant biblical events. The Bible refers to it as the Sea of the Araba, the Salt Sea, and the Eastern Sea (Deuteronomy 3: 17; Joshua 3: 16; Numbers 34: 12; Ezekiel 47: 18).
The Arabah desert, or “wilderness”, of the Bible is the arid basin between the Dead Sea Jordan and the Gulf of Aqaba today known as Wadi Araba.
Of particular importance is the wide plain along Jordan’s southeast Dead Sea Jordan coast known today as the Southern Ghor. Known in the Bible as the Valley of Salt ”undoubtedly because of the natural salt formations which form along the water’s edge” it is where David “slew 18,000 Edomites” (2 Samuel 7:29).
This wide plain is also where Abraham and Lot divided their herds and people, going their separate ways after the journey from Egypt.
While Abraham journeyed into Canaan, “Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east” (Genesis 13: 11).The Bible then says that “Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom” (Genesis 13: 12). The Southern Ghor may thus be associated with one of the most dramatic stories in the Bible, that of Sodom and Gomorrah.
While conclusive proof has not yet been found, some scholars see Bab al-Dhra’ and Numeira as good candidates for the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah, destroyed by God because of their wickedness (Genesis 19).
The other biblical “cities of the plain”, Admah, Zeboiim and Bela (or Zoar) may still be waiting to be rediscovered under the ruins of Early Bronze Age towns as Feifa, Safi, Khneizirah, and other places throughout the biblical Valley of Salt.
