Shaveh
Sha'veh (Heb. Shaveh', שָׁוֵה, plain; Sept. Σαυῆ v.r. Σαυήν and Σαβύ; Vulg. Save), a name found thus alone in Ge 14:17 only, as that of a place where the king of Sodom met Abraham. It occurs also in the name Shavehkiriathaim (q. v). The Samar. Codex inserts the article, השוה; but the Samaritan Version has מפנה. The Targum of Onkelos gives the same equivalent, but with a curious addition, "the plain of Mefana, which is the king's place "of racing," recalling the ἱππόδρομος so strangely inserted by the Sept. in Ge 48:7. It is one of those archaic names with which this venerable chapter abounds — such as Bela, En-mishpat, Ham, Hazezontamart — so archaic that many of them have been elucidated by the insertion of their more modern equivalents in the body of the document by a later but still very ancient hand. If the signification of Shaveh be "valley," as both Gesenius and Furst assert, then its extreme antiquity is involved in the very expression "the Emekshaveh," which shows that the word had ceased to be intelligible to the writer, who added to it a modern word of the same meaning with itself. It is equivalent to such names as "Puente de Alcantara," "the Greesen Steps," etc., where the one part of the name is a mere repetition or translation of the other, and which cannot exist till the meaning of the older term is obsolete. In the present case the explanation does not throw any very definite light upon the locality of Shaveh: "The valley of Shaveh, that is the valley of the king" (14:17). True, the "valley of the king" is mentioned again in 2Sa 18:18 as the site of a pillar set up by Absalom; but this passage again conveys no clear indication of its position, and it is by no means certain that the two passages refer to the same spot. The extreme obscurity in which the whole account of Abraham's route from Damascus is involved has already been noticed under SALEM. A notion has long been prevalent that the pillar of Absalom is the well known pyramidal structure which forms the northern member of the group of monuments at the western foot of Olivet. This is apparently first mentioned by Benjamin of Tudela (A.D. 1160), and next by Maundeville (1323), and is perhaps originally founded on the statement of Josephus (Ant. 7, 10, 3) that Absalom erected (ἕστηκε) a column (στήλη) of marble (λίθου μαρμαρίνον) at a distance of two stadia from Jerusalem. But neither the spot nor the structure of the so called "Absalom's tomb" agrees either with this description or with the terms of 2Sa 18:18. The "valley of the king" was an Emek — that is, a broad, open valley, having few or no features in common with the deep, rugged ravine of the Kedron, unless, perhaps, in its lower part. SEE VALLEY. The pillar of Absalom — which went by the name of "Absalor's hand" — was set up, erected (יָצֶב), according to Josephus, in marble, while the lower existing part of the monument (which alone has any pretension to great antiquity) is a monolith not erected, but excavated out of the ordinary limestone of the hill, and almost exactly similar to the so called "tomb of Zechariah," the second from it on the south. Yet even this cannot claim any very great age, since its Ionic capitals and the ornaments of the frieze speak with unfaltering voice of Roman art. Nevertheless, in the absence of any better indication, we are perhaps warranted in holding this traditionary location. SEE KINGS DALE.
