dal, `emeq hamelekh) : (1) "Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself the pillar, which is in the king's dale" (2 Samuel 18:18). According to Josephus (Ant., VII, x, 3) this was a marble pillar, which he calls Absalom's hand" and it wa two furlongs from Jerusalem. Warren suggests that this dale was identical with the KING'S GARDEN (which see), which he places at the open valley formed at the junction of the Tyropoen with the Kidron (see JERUSALEM, 1 ). The so-called Absalom's Pillar, which the Jews still pelt with stones in reprobation of Absalom's disobedience, and which a comparatively recent tradition associates with 2 Samuel 18:18, is a very much later structure, belonging to the Greco-Roman period, but showing Egyptian influence. (2) King's Vale (Genesis 14:17; the King James Version dale).

See KING'S VALE ; VALE, VALLEY .

E. W. G. Masterman

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

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