Yam ha-melach, the Salt Sea — the Dead Sea, and the corner post at both ends of Canaan’s southern and eastern lines. Numbers 34:3 starts the border at its southern end, and v12 brings the whole circuit back down the Jordan to finish there — so the chapter closes its outline on the water it opened on, and signs off saviv, ‘round about’. ⚠ It is the lowest exposed surface on the planet, roughly 430 m below sea level, and several times as saline as ordinary seawater, which is the plain fact behind both the Hebrew name and the English one. ⚠ Genesis 14:3, already on these pages, is where the Bible first names it, identifying it with the vale of Siddim where the kings fought.