(9.) The Valley of the Hyenas (d-irbsn 1J), a ra- vine in the tribe of Benjamin (1 Sam. xiii, 18). See Zeboi.m.
Other ravines, such as the valley of vision (Isa. xxii, 1, 5), of slaughter (Jer. vii, 32; xix, 6), are fanciful names, and still more tropical, the valley of the shadow of death (Psa. xxiii, 4).
4. Ndchal (bn3, from bpS, to receive, or perhaps to flow ; Sept. (papayS. or xnfJidpP'^vQ ; A. V. often " brook," "river," "stream") is the word which exactly answers to the Arabic wady. It expresses, as no single English word can, the bed of a stream (often wide and shelving and like a " valley" in character, which in the rainy season may be nearly filled by a foaming torrent, though for the greater part of the year dry), and the stream it- self, which after the subsidence of the rains has shrunk to insignificant dimensions. Many of the wadies of Syria, owing to the demolition of the wood which for- merly shaded the country and prevented too rapid evaporation after rain, are now entirely and constant- ly dry. See ItiVER. As Palestine is now emphatical- ly a land of wadies, so this Heb. term is of very fre- quent occurrence in the Bible. Stanley {Palest, ap- pend.) enumerates fifteen of these water-courses or torrent-beds : those of Gerar, of Eshcol, of Zered, of Ar- non, of Jabbok, of Kanah, of Kishon, of Besor, of Sorek, of Kidron, of Gaash, of Cherith, of Gad (2 Sam. xxiv, 5), of Shittim, and of Egypt (Numb, xxxiv, 5; Josh, xv, 4, 47; 1 Kings viii, 65; 2 Kings xxiv, 7; 2 Chron. vii, 8; Isa. xxvii, 12). This last could not be distinguished by a mere English reader from the " river of Egypt," namely, the Nile, although in the original an entirely different word is used. This name ndchal is also ap- plied to the course of the Gihon (2 Chron. xxxiii, 14), and such wadies are often mentioned in the book of Job and elsewhere as characteristic of Arabia; Canaan it- self is said to be a land of them (Deut. viii, 7). See Brook.
5. Hash-Shephddh (nbs'i'tl; Sept.ro 7rf^(0i',»y7rf5(v/;) is the only case in which the employment of the term "valley" is reallj' unfortunate. The district to which alone this distinctive Heb. name is applied in the Bible has no resemblance whatever to a valley, but is a broad swelling tract of many hundred miles in area, which sweeps gently down from the mountains of Judah to-
VALLEY-GATE
704
VAMIS
wards the INIediterraneaii. It is rendered " the vale" in Dent, i, 7; Josh, x, 40; 1 Kings x, 27; 2 Chroii. i, 1.5; Jer. xxxiii, 13; and '"the valley" or "valleys" in Josh. ix, 1; xi, 2, IG; xii, 8; xv, 33; Judg. i, 9; Jer. xxxii, 44. See SiiEi'iiiiLAii.
6. In the New Test, there is little notice taken of the external features of Canaan. In Luke vi, 17 we read of onr Lord standing in "the jjlaiii,'" nnro^ 7ra"(i'(>c (but this sliouKl rather be " a level place") ; and in iii, o we meet with " valley," <pi'ipay^, for X^5, get/, in Isa. xl, 4.
Valley-gate (X''i't!> ■'"l^; Sept. // td'X/; rr;c <pa- pnyyog), an entrance at the north-west end of Jerusa- lem (Neh. ii, 13; iii, 13; camp. 2 Chron. xxvi,9; xxxiii, 14); probably corresponding to the present Jaffa (iate (Keil, Comiiient. on Xe/i. ad loc). See JiiRLSAi.EM.
Valliere, Louisk, Duchesse de hi, one of the maids of honor to the duchess of Orleans (Henrietta of Eng- land), born in tlie province of Touraine in 1G44. She became mistress to Louis XIV in 1661, and loved him sincerely, though not for his royal title. She was so much asliamed of iier equivocal situation that she en- tered a convent, from wliich she was talien forcibly by the king in 1670. and entered again by joining the Car- melite Order in 1674 as iScfur Lonine de la M Ueracorde (Sister Louise of Mercy). She died at the Paris Car- melite Convent in 1710. She wrote Letters and Refec- tions on the Mercy of God^ She has been a favt)rite theme with poets and painters. 'I'he Mary Magdalene Renouncing the World, painted by Le Briui as an altar- piece for the convent in which she made her profession, has been considered a portrait of her. Others consider The Penitent Magdalen in the Miniich (iallery as more likely to be her portrait. A very good picture of the Soeur Louise de la Mkeracorde may be seen in the Brit- ish Museum. See Jameson [Mrs.], Legends of the Monas- tic Orders, p. 427.
Vallischolares (scholars of the valley), an order of Roniisli monks collected by the scholares, or four pro- fessors of theology of Paris. They were (irst called scho- htres, but afterwards, retiring to a valley of Campania (1234), their name was changed to that by which they are now known. Tliis society was tirst governed by the rule of St, Augustine, but it is now united with the Canons Regular of St. Genevieve (q. v.). See Mosheim, Jlist. of the Church, bk. iii, cent, xiii, pt. ii, ch. ii.
Vallombrosa (shady valley), a former Benedictine monasterv in a valley of the Apeiniines, eighteen miles from Florence, founded in 1039 by (iiovanni (iualberto (q. v.). The present buildings were erected in 1638, but the establishment was suppressed in 1869 by the Italian government, and the buildings converted into a royal school of forestry.