Valley of Shaveh
Valley of Shaveh is a location mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Judea in modern-day Israel. Known today as intersection of Kidron Valley and Valley of Hinnom. It appears across 1 verse in Scripture.
Biblical History
The Valley of Shaveh appears only once in Scripture, in Genesis 14:17, where it is also called the King's Valley. It was here that the king of Sodom went out to meet Abram after his remarkable rescue of Lot and his defeat of the four kings led by Chedorlaomer. This brief but momentous encounter set the stage for the celebrated meeting with Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High, who blessed Abram and received a tithe of the spoils. The valley's designation as the King's Valley suggests it served as a ceremonial or diplomatic meeting place near Jerusalem. A second reference to the King's Valley appears in 2 Samuel 18:18, where Absalom is said to have erected a monument to himself there during his lifetime. This association with both the patriarch Abram and the ill-fated prince Absalom gives the valley a layered significance in the biblical narrative, a place of both divine blessing and human vanity. Its location near Jerusalem, likely at the convergence of the Kidron and Hinnom valleys, positioned it at the gateway to the holy city.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
The Valley of Shaveh is commonly identified with the area near the confluence of the Kidron Valley and the Valley of Hinnom, just south and east of ancient Jerusalem. This identification is supported by the reference to it as the King's Valley and the proximity of Absalom's monument, traditionally located in the Kidron Valley. The region has been extensively studied, with the Kidron yielding burial tombs and rock-cut monuments from the Iron Age and Second Temple period. The so-called Tomb of Absalom, a first-century BCE monument in the Kidron, preserves an ancient tradition associating the valley with the biblical narrative, even if it postdates the events described.
Verse Appearances (1)
Gen
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]