All these were joined together. — Were united in a confederacy, and so formed a pentapolis, or group of five allied towns, like the Philistine league with its five lords (1 Samuel 6:16-18).
The vale of Siddim. — Mr. Conder (Tent-work, ii. 16) says that the name Sidd is still given by the Arabs to the cliffs or banks of marl which run along the southern edge of the plain of Jericho; and with this agrees Aben-Ezra’s explanation, who derives the word from the Hebrew sid, chalk. Mr. Conder searched throughout the Ciccar for traces of the ruined cities, but in vain; and “the gradual rise of the level of the plain, caused by the constant washing down of the soft marl from the western hills, would effectually,” he thinks, “cover over any such ruins.” He found, however, copious springs of water upon the north-western side of the lake, and considers that the five cities were in their neighbourhood.
Which is the salt sea. — From these words commentators have rashly concluded that the vale of Sodom was swallowed up by the Dead Sea; but not only is no such convulsion of nature mentioned in Genesis 19, but Abram is described as seeing the Ciccar-land not submerged, but smoking like a furnace (Genesis 19:28). Probably “the vale of Siddim” was the name of the whole district in which these sidds, or bluffs, are situated, and which extend round all the northern shores of the lake. Mr. Conder, after tracing the lines of former beaches, which show that the Dead Sea has long been shrinking in extent, tells us (Tent-work, ii. 43) that geologists hold that it had reached its present condition long before the days of Abram. It still, indeed, covered a much larger space, for the rains at that time were far more copious in Palestine than at present; but it no longer extended over the whole Arabah, as, by the evidence of these beaches, was once the case.
The Horites. — Cave-men, the aboriginal inhabitants of Mount Seir, subsequently conquered by the Edomites (Deuteronomy 2:12; Deuteronomy 2:22). The miserable condition of these earth-men is described in Job 30:3-8.
El-paran. — This forest of oaks (or terebinths) was on the edge of the great wilderness, and reached to within three days’ journey of Sinai (Numbers 10:12; Numbers 10:33).