DALE, KING'S

(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 was 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). 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.

E. W. G. Masterman

GARDEN, THE KING'S

Mention is made of "the king's garden" in 2 Kings 25:4 Jeremiah 39:4; Jeremiah 52:7 (fundamentally the same passage), in connection with the flight of Zedekiah from Jerusalem; and again in Nehemiah 3:15. The last passage shows that the "garden" was at the pool of Siloah (the Revised Version (British and American) "Shelah"), at the mouth of Tyropeon, near the "fountain gate." This would seem to be "the gate between the two walls which was by the king's garden" of the passages in 2 Kings and Jeremiah (compare 2 Chronicles 32:5). On the topography, see JERUSALEM; also Robinson, Palestine, II, 142. Arnold (in Herzog) thinks the garden is probably identical with "the garden of Uzza" of 2 Kings 21:18, 26.

James Orr

KING'S GARDEN

gan-ha-melekh): In Nehemiah 3:15, mention is made of "the pool of Shelah by the king's garden"; in 2 Kings 25:4 Jeremiah 52:7, "All the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king's garden"; see also Jeremiah 39:4. The "king's winepresses" (Zechariah 14:10), which must have been to the extreme South of the city, were clearly in this neighborhood. The references all point to the one situation in Jerusalem where it is possible for gardens to flourish all the year round, namely, the part of the Kidron valley below the Tyropoeon which is watered by the overflow from the Pool of Siloam (see SILOAM). Here the vegetable gardens of the peasants of Siloam present an aspect of green freshness unknown elsewhere in Jerusalem.

E. W. G. Masterman

KING'S MOTHER

The queen-dowager occupied a very important position at the court of the kings of Israel, e.g. Bathsheba (1 Kings 2:19); Maacah (1 Kings 15:13); Athaliah (2 Chronicles 22:2); and Nehushta (2 Kings 24:8 Jeremiah 13:18).

See QUEEN; QUEEN MOTHER.

KING'S POOL

berekhath hamelekh): This is possibly the Pool of Siloam (Nehemiah 2:14), and may have been so named as being near to the "king's garden."

KING'S VALE

(`emeq ha-melekh; Septuagint in Genesis reads to pedion ("the plain") basileos, in 2 Sam, he koilas ("valley") tou basileos; the King James Version King's Dale): The place where the king of Sodom met Abram (Genesis 14:17), and the situation of Absalom's monument (2 Samuel 18:18). It was identical with the Vale of Shaveh, and was evidently near Salem, the city of Melchizedek (Genesis 14:17). If SALEM (which see) is Jerusalem, then Absalom's pillar was also near that city, Josephus writes (Ant., VII, x, 3), "Absalom had erected for himself a marble pillar in the king's dale, two furlongs (stadia) from Jerusalem, which he named Absalom's Hand." In all probability this "pillar" was a rough upright stone-a matstsebhah-but its site is lost. The traditional Greek-Egyptian tomb of perhaps 100-200 years B.C. which has been hewn out of the rock on the eastern side of the Kidron valley is manifestly misnamed "Absalom's pillar," and the Kidron ravine (nachal) cannot be the King's Vale (`emeq).

E. W. G. Masterman

SHEKEL OF THE KING'S WEIGHT, ROYAL SHEKEL

('ebhen ha-melekh, "stone (i.e. weight) of the king"): The shekel by which Absalom's hair was weighed (2 Samuel 14:26), probably the light shekel of 130 grains.

See WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

KING'S DALE

See DALE, KING'S.