Plain’ is, on the whole, preferable to ‘valley.’
PLAIN 893
4. 722 (properly a round, e.g. of metal, ἐν. a ‘talent,’ or of bread, t.e. a loaf or round cake), used specifically of the ‘round,’ or as we should probably say, the ‘oval,’ of Jordan, the (approxi- mately) oval or oblong basin into which the depression (el-Ghér) through which the Jordan flows expands, as it approaches the N. end of the Dead Sea: it must also, if the ‘cities of the kikkar’ are rightly placed at the S. end of the Dead Sea, have included the Dead Sea itself.* The expressions used are ‘the kikkar of Jordan,’ Gn 134, 1K 7% (=2Ch 4"), and ‘the Atkkar’ alone, Gn 131 1917. 35. 28, 29, Dt 348 (cited above), 28 18%. The word occurs also, perhaps in the same sense, in Neh 3”; but probably in a more general sense in 12° (see Comm. : AV ‘the plain country’). In RV always ‘Plain’ (usually with a capital P). Cf. SP 284, 287, 488; HGHL 505f. No doubt this is the region meant by ἡ περίχωρος τοῦ ᾿Ιορδάνου in Mt 3°; for LXX renders 152 by ἡ περίχωρος in Gn and 2 Ch (ἡ π. τοῦ Ἰορδάνου in Gn 13"), and by τὰ περίχωρα in Dt.
5. twp ἃ smooth and level tract of country (from 1’: ‘to be level’): the general meaning of the word appears well from Ps 26” 27" (‘a path of evenness’), 143° (RVm), also from 1K 9055 35 (where it is opposed to the ‘hills’), Is 40‘ RVm (‘level’; || 7773), Zee 47, With the art., this word is used specifically of the elevated pletean, or table-land, of Reuben or Moab, E. of the Dead Sea, Dt 3 48, Jos 13% 16-17-21 208, Jer 48% 21 (in the prophecy on Moab), 2 Ch 26% AV and RV in all these passages render ‘ plain,’ except Dt 4%, Jer 4851 ‘plain country,’ and 2Ch 26 AV ‘plains,’ RV has sometimes the Ene. “Οὐ, table land,
6. 732y, steppe (in poetry, Is 35! δ 408, Jer 178 al.), with the art., as a proper name, 7327, the ‘Arabah, the name given to the gravelly, sandy, and gener- ally unfertile floor of the valley through which the Jordan runs, and which extends southwards to the Gulf of ‘Akabah (see ARABAH ; and HGHL 483 f.), now called el-Ghér (the Hollow, or Depression), in AV nearly always ‘the plain,’ in RV ‘the Ardbah,’ Dt 1-7 28 (here of the same valley, S. of the Dead Sea, now el-Ardbah), 317. 17+ 449. 49 1180 (AV ‘the champaign’), Jos 3'® 814 (see Dillm.) 1]2-16 10]. 3.8.8 181818 (AV ‘Arabah,’ RV ‘the Arabah’), 1S 23%, 2S 2” 47 15%, 2K 14% 958 (=Jer 39*=52"), Ezk 478 (AV ‘the desert’), Am 64 (AV ‘the wilderness’), Zec 14%, RV (fig. of a level; MT, however, as Baer shows, points both here and in Is 33° without the art., i.e. ‘like a ste pe) ; see also Is 339 RVm.
e same word, in the plural, oceurs also in the two expressions, ‘the plains—better steppes, or desert φαγί. οἵ Moab,’ Nu 921 968: & 3113. 8348. 49. 50 351 36%, Dt 34) (see Driver), v.8, Jos 13°", and ‘of Jericho,’ Jos 4% 5!, 2 K 255 (Jer 39° 52%), of the parts of the same depression, on the opposite sides of the Jordan, in the latitude of Jericho. In the case of the plur., RV retains the rendering ‘ plains’: in 2S 15% 1716 (‘plains of the wilderness’), how- ever, it follows the Kethibh (ninay for nizqy), and renders ‘ fords’ (with marg. ‘ plains’). There may not be a precise English equivalent ; but ‘ plains,’ it should be remembered, does not at all express the distinctive idea of the Hebrew word (bare, desolate, and unfertile soil; οἵ. HGH 483, 485).
7. nbowin (from Say to be low), the dowland, the techni designation of the low hills and flat valley land stretching down towards the Mediter- ranean Sea in the W. and S.W. of Judah. This term is in AV rendered ‘plain’ only in Jer 17%, Ob ®, Zec 77; ‘low plains’ in 1 Ch 27%, 2Ch 97; ‘vale’ in Dt 1’, Jos 10°, 1 K 107, 2Ch 1", Jer
* Cf. under Lot, pp. 150, 151.
Δ Here, as also 4#>, Jos 816 1236, 9 Καὶ 1435, the ‘Sea of th Arabah,’ t.¢. the Dead Sea; cf. Ezk 478, Am 614
894 PLAIN
33"; ‘ valley(s)’ in Jos 9! 117 15:16 128 158, Jg 1°, Jer $24; ‘low country’ in 2 Ch 26! 9818; in RV it is rendered aniformiy ‘lowland.’ The reference in all these passages 1s the same, except in Jos 11* 1%, where the context shows that a locality further to the N. must be intended, probably a group of similar low hills, between Carmel and the high central range of Samaria (HGHL 49 and 203n.). The LXX represents ab=v7 mostly by ἡ πεδινή (cf. 1 Mac 3"), but by ἡ Σεῴηλα in Jer 324, 3318, Ob”, 2 Ch 26, which also occurs in 1 Mac 12% (AV ‘Sephela,’ RV ‘the plain country’). ὃ
The region Sumncnly known as ‘the Shephélah must have been a fairly definite one: in Jos 15%“ it forms a distinct district of Judah (side by side with the ‘ Negeb,’ v.™, the ‘hill Sonny Viens and the ‘wilderness,’ ν. 5), and 39 (40) Judahite cities contained in it are enumerated, those at