Salem
Salem is an ancient city mentioned in both the Old and New Testaments, located in the region of Judea in modern-day Israel. Known today as Jerusalem. It appears across 4 verses in Scripture.
Biblical History
Salem, meaning "peace," first appears in Genesis 14:18 as the city ruled by the mysterious Melchizedek, "king of Salem" and "priest of God Most High," who brought bread and wine to bless Abraham after his victory over the four kings. This brief but theologically rich encounter introduces a royal priesthood that predates the Levitical order. Psalm 76:2 confirms Salem's identification with Jerusalem: "His tent is in Salem, his dwelling place in Zion." The author of Hebrews draws deeply on this connection, presenting Jesus as "a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek" (Hebrews 5:6; 6:20; 7:1-17), making Salem's king a prefiguration of Christ who unites the offices of king and priest. The very name Salem, with its root in "shalom" (peace), points prophetically to the Prince of Peace who would reign from the same city. Salem thus represents one of Scripture's most profound typological threads, connecting Abraham's era to the messianic hope and binding the earliest biblical narratives to the New Testament's highest Christology.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
Salem is universally identified with Jerusalem, whose earliest known name was Uru-salim ("city of peace"), attested in Egyptian Execration Texts from the nineteenth century BC and the fourteenth-century BC Amarna Letters. Archaeological excavations in the City of David, the oldest part of Jerusalem, have uncovered remains from the Middle Bronze Age consistent with a fortified settlement during Abraham's time. The Gihon Spring, which supplied the ancient city with water, shows evidence of Bronze Age fortifications. These discoveries confirm that Jerusalem was an established and significant urban center well before David's conquest. The identification of Salem with Jerusalem has been accepted by Jewish, Christian, and scholarly traditions since antiquity, supported by both Psalm 76:2 and extensive archaeological evidence.
Verse Appearances (4)
References
- Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
- OpenBible.info (n.d.) Bible Geocoding. Available at: https://www.openbible.info/geo/. [CC BY 4.0]
- Bagnall, R. et al. (eds.) (n.d.) Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. Available at: https://pleiades.stoa.org. [CC BY 3.0]
- Wikidata contributors (n.d.) Wikidata. Available at: https://www.wikidata.org. [CC0]
- Lawrence, D. et al. (2025) Villages to Empires: a settlement dataset for the Southern Levant. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732. [CC BY 4.0]
- Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]