Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

DEAD SEA

The large salt lake located at the southern end of the Jordan River. The Sea is bounded by the cliffs of Moab on the east and the bluffs of Judah on the west. It has the distinction of being the lowest inland body of water on the face of the earth. The surface is ca. 394 m. (1292 ft.) below sea level, and in places it reaches a depth of 396 m. (1300 ft.). It is 80 km. (50 mi.) long and at its widest 18 km. (11 mi.) across. The Dead Sea receives 6 million tons of water daily from the Jordan. There is no outlet for the sea, but until recently the level remained fairly constant because of the evaporation off the surface of the Sea due to the excessive heat from the sun. The evaporation is the cause for the high concentration of salts in the Sea, 25 percent (cf. ca. 3 percent for the ocean and ca. 5 percent for the Great Salt Lake).

The name Dead Sea does not appear in the Hebrew Bible or the Greek NT. It was first used by Pausanias (thalassa nekra; Descr. Gr. 5 [1.7.4-5]) and followed by other Greek and Latin authors. Several different names are used in the Bible (yām hammelaḥ, Salt Sea: Gen. 14:3; yām haʿărāḇâ, Sea of Arabah: Deut. 3:17; Josh. 3:16; hayyām haqqaḏmônî, Eastern Sea: Ezek. 47:18; Joel 2:20). Josephus (Ag. Ap. 1.22; Ant. 1.9) called it Lake Asphaltitis (asphaltitis limnas) because of the chunks of bitumen or asphalt floating in the southern end of the Sea. In Arabic it is called Bahr Lut, “Sea of Lot.”

The name Dead Sea is apropos, for there seems to be no animal or plant life in the Sea. Among the salts magnesium, sodium, calcium, and potassium are held in solution; the other salts crystallize and sink to the bottom. A large quantity of the salts comes from the Jordan River.

Along the western side are important sites: in the north, Qumran; midway, En-gedi; and in the south, Masada. Among the several streams that empty into the Sea on the eastern side are the Arnon, midway, and in the south, the Zered. Three-fourths along the eastern side is the Lisan (“Tongue”), a peninsula extending into the Sea.

Since ca. 1960 the Dead Sea has become smaller and shallower due to the increased use of water from the Jordan River system for irrigation and for household consumption in towns and cities. Also, Israel has operated a chemical plant at the southern end to extract the salts from the sea water by means of large evaporation vats. Today the Lisan is connected by dry land to the eastern shore.

Bibliography. D. Baly, The Geography of the Bible, rev. ed. (New York, 1974); A. E. Day, “Geology of the Dead Sea,” BSac 81 (1924): 254-70; W. Irwin, “The Salts of the Dead Sea and the Jordan,” Geographical Journal 61 (1923): 428-40; E. Robinson, Biblical Researches in Palestine 1 (1856, repr. Jerusalem, 1970).

Lawrence A. Sinclair

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

DEAD SEA

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)