The valley running between Jerusalem's Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives, then south toward the Dead Sea — the city's eastern boundary and, repeatedly, the place reforming kings dump what they tear down: Asa burns his mother's idol here (1 Kings 15:13), Josiah has the vessels of Baal and Asherah and the Topheth's ashes scattered and burned in it (2 Kings 23:4-12), and Jeremiah 31:40 names it as the far edge of a Jerusalem finally declared holy and permanent. David crosses it barefoot and weeping, fleeing Absalom (2 Samuel 15:23, forthcoming on this shelf); centuries later Jesus crosses the same valley leaving the upper room for Gethsemane (John 18:1, forthcoming). It is normally a dry wadi, running with water only in the winter rains.