The text proceeds to narrate. “But those [waters] which were lower descended into the Sea of the Wilderness — which is now called the Dead [Sea] — until they wholly failed.” The sense is indeed the same in the Hebrew, but proposed otherwise, thus: “And the descending [waters], into the Sea of the Bascherabah [יָם הָעֲרָבָה, “the sea of the Arabah/plain”], the Sea of Salt, failed — they were cut off.” And the Latin explains the manner in which they had failed — namely, by descending into that sea. But the Hebrew does not reject that manner, and yet can also admit another. For example: if [those waters] which were wont to descend into the sea had been either now consumed by wind, or swallowed by a gaping of the earth, or drained off in some other way. But since, if any of these latter [things] had happened, [it] would have been worth recording, that former manner only is to be retained — namely, that the waters failed by descending, as the Latin expounded, and [as did] the 70: τὸ καταβαῖνον ὕδωρ κατέβη εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν [to katabainon hydōr katebē eis tēn thalassan, “the descending water went down into the sea”] — with the Expositors especially, and all the Rabbis, agreeing. They failed, therefore, and in the briefest time, while with rapid course into that sea — partly by the usual [course], partly also, on account of the greater quantity of the flooding waters, by an unusual and swifter [course] — they are carried off: from the land itself, from their own whole channel, and from the place of crossing as far as the sea itself, [they] were utterly cut off and taken away — so that, from that place where the upper waters began to swell, a little after, in that whole lower channel of the Jordan, [one] could scarcely find a single droplet. For the verb “to cut off” [excidere] imports both the swiftness of removal (as [in] Job 6 v. 17, Heb.) and completeness and perfection — especially since [there] is still joined to it, in the Hebrew, another verb, by which finishing and perfection is signified. Therefore the Latin said [that] the waters “wholly failed”; and the 70: εἰς τὸ τέλος ἐκλιπών [eis to telos eklipōn, “failing unto the end”] — that is, “unto the end,” or “unto perfection itself,” or “perfectly and completely.”
[It] remains that a few [things] be said about this sea. And, first, [it] is to be known [that], for “the Sea of the Wilderness,” in the Hebrew [there] is a word set above [superscript], which the 70 thought was to be retained by them, calling [it] τὴν θάλασσαν ἀραβά [tēn thalassan araba, “the sea of the Arabah”]—
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Secondly, [it is to be known that] this [name] signifies either Arabia, or a plain, or a wilderness. Yet here [it] is by no one whom I have seen rendered “the Sea of Arabia” — although [the sea] reaches to the borders [χώρα] of Arabia, which, as St. Jerome (in [his book] On Places) advises, is Segor [Zoar], as he shows (bk. 4 ch. 27); [and although] Josephus and Borchard teach clearly [that] Arabia is set off distinct from Judea by this [sea]. But by the Chaldee and by Masius [it is rendered] “the Sea of the Plain” — because, namely, [it] is situated in that plain which, while Sodom yet stood, was most delightful (Gen. 13 v. 10); [and] by Symmachus, ἡ θάλασσα τῆς ἀοικήτου [hē thalassa tēs aoikētou], that is, “the sea of the uninhabitable land”; and by our [interpreter], following him, “the Sea of the Wilderness [Solitude]” — because [it] was near the desert of Sin (Num. 34), as Abulensis will [have it]; or because, through the sulphurous fires of the Sodomites, [that region] which had been a certain paradise — [both] the plain and the whole land — was now most barren, most fetid, most poisonous [virosissima], and therefore utterly deserted and solitary. And [this] can be seen in [the entry] Araba, [in] St. Jerome, On Places. Thirdly. Why is it also called the “Sea of Salt”? Are not all seas salt, according to Aristotle (Meteorology 2 ch. 2) — so that they are on that account called salum, nay, even sel [salt]? For thus [says] the Poet [Virgil] of the Aeneads (bk. 1):
“Gladly they gave sail, and rushed [through] the foam of salt with [their] bronze [prows].” [Aeneid 1]
And bk. 10: “…they cut the plains of salt with [their] bronze.” [Aeneid 10] And bk. 5: “Then the hoarse rocks, from afar, resounded with the ceaseless salt-[spray].” [Aeneid 5] So also among the Greeks [it is] ἅλς [hals, “salt / sea”], whence to us — by the changing of the rough breathing into an S — [come] sal [salt] and salum [the open sea], and in salo [the sea], insula [an island]. [It] is indeed so. But because, before the nature of all other seas, this [one] is salt, therefore before the rest it also takes its name from the salt; and [it is called] ἁλμυρώδης, πικρά, δὲ ἄγονος λίμνη [halmyrōdēs, pikra, de agonos limnē, “a briny, bitter, and barren lake”] in Josephus, in the cited place; [and] (Num. 34) “the most salt sea.” But the cause of this is the very same which raised up this sea in the same place: the divine vengeance upon the Sodomites. For [there] was a rain not only of sulphur, but also of salt, by which those wicked lands were burned up — as Moses shows (Deut. 29 v. 25). And hence too [there are] “salt-pits,” about which [see] Zephaniah 2 v. 9 [“the salt valley”]; about which heresy (19th, in the Osseni) St. Epiphanius [writes]; nay, and even that salt statue of Lot’s wife — about which, as also about that whole calamity, I have said many [things], from sacred and profane [sources], [on] Gen. 19. But this appellation “of Salt” the Interpreter here changed into another, also most usual, and added [that it was] in his own time commonly called “the Dead Sea.” The cause of which [is] not only that its water is, as it were, torpid, and does not flow; but rather [that], as [was] said above from Josephus, it produces no fish, no animals whatsoever — nay, if any fish should even swim into it from the Jordan, [or] if any birds should chance to fly over from the land, it kills them (as [is] handed down of Avernus) by a certain sulphurous pestilence and by its remarkable stench. “Impiety,” says Tertullian (in the book On the Pall [De Pallio] ch. 2), “deserved showers of fire. Thus far both Sodom and Gomorrah are naught, and ash [is] everything: and the nearness of the sea, together with the soil, drinks in death.” Aristotle (bk. 2 On Plants ch. 2): “In the Dead Sea,” he says, “naturally neither is an animal drowned, nor is [any] begotten, because in it there is dryness.” Nay, not even apples and fruits, in which [there] is anything of life and of human use, grow in those places — as, in the same passage, Josephus relates, and from him the venerable Bede (on 2 Peter ch. 2), St. Augustine (bk. 21 of the City [of God] ch. 5), Cassian—
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—[Cassian] (Conference 16 ch. 1), Philo (bk. 2 On the Life of Moses), Tertullian (in the poem On Jonah), and others cited on Gen. ch. 19. [It] will not be beside the point here to hear Borchard: “The patriarch of Jerusalem writes,” he says, “who has often visited that place, [that] that sea always sends up smoke and a mist after the manner of an infernal furnace; whence that whole valley — which was once, on account of its fruitfulness and delightfulness, called illustrious — has been rendered barren and useless for the space of half a day’s journey, so that it puts forth scarcely any growth for the space of five leagues, except near the city of Jericho, where the gardens are watered from the fountain of Elisha. On the right and left of this sea, barren and arid mountains are seen. For wherever the vapour rising from that sea is driven, there the growing things of the earth die, no otherwise than if they had been touched by frost. In which the strict judgment of God is set before our eyes — [God] who does not cease, even to the present day, so severely to punish those great sins of the Sodomites. Nor do I write here anything but what I have seen.” It is also called the “Glacial [Frozen] sea,” in Dionysius [Periegetes], in his Periegesis, [and] “the Dead” — but for a far other cause; namely: ἄλλοι δ᾽ αὖ καὶ νεκρὸν ἐφήμισαν [alloi d’ au kai nekron ephēmisan, “and others again named [it] ‘dead’”], namely πόντον [“sea”] &c., ὄντα ἀμαυρῷ ἠελίῳ [onta amaurō hēeliō, “being [dead] with a dim sun”] — “for slowly does the fire [of the sun] shine upon that salt-[sea], and [it] is ever thickened with shadowy clouds.” Which [verses] Priscian thus renders:
“Dead [it is] to others, this deep, because it enjoys the least light of the sun. For slowly does it receive the risen rays: it is pressed by thick clouds, and weighed down with storms.”
But our [sea], of which this discussion [is], is also everywhere called Asphaltites lacus [the Asphaltite Lake] — that is, “the bituminous.” And Josephus gives the cause, in the place often noted: that huge clods of concreted and black bitumen are wont to float on it, which have to be dissolved by the menstrual blood of women, that the use of them may be [had]. Moreover, [it] is distant from Jerusalem 300 stadia, as Josephus says (bk. 15 ch. 9) — that is, 9 German miles and 12 stadia. Its length is 580 stadia, its breadth 150 (bk. 4 of the [Jewish] War ch. 27), the same Josephus. To Borchard, the length is 5 days’ journeys, the breadth 5 leagues. Let one last [author] be heard, Tacitus (bk. 5 of the Histories): “A lake,” he says, “of immense circuit, in the likeness of a sea, more corrupt in taste, pestilent to the neighbouring inhabitants by the heaviness of its odour; [it] is neither driven by wind, nor does it endure fish, or the birds accustomed to waters. The uncertain waves bear up [things] cast upon [them] as [upon] a solid [floor]: the skilled and the unskilled in swimming are alike buoyed up. At a fixed [time] of the year it casts forth bitumen; the practice of gathering which, as [with] the other arts, experience has taught. [The bitumen is] a liquor by its own nature, and, [when] vinegar is sprinkled [on it], congeals, [and] floats. This [is] taken by hand; those to whom that care [belongs] draw [it] into the top of the boat. Thence, with no one helping, [it] flows in and loads [the boat], until you cut [it] off. Nor can you cut [it] off with bronze or iron. It flees blood, and a garment stained with the blood by which women are freed [purged] each month. Thus the ancient authors. But those acquainted with the places relate [that] the masses, waving [floating] with bitumen, are driven, and drawn by hand to the shore; then, when by the vapour of the earth [and] the force of the sun they have dried, [they are] split with axes and wedges, like beams or rocks. Not far thence [are] plains, which they say were once fertile and inhabited by great cities, [and] were burned up by a stroke of lightning: and [that] traces remain, and a land scorched in appearance, [which] has lost its fruit-bearing power. For all [things], whether springing up of their own accord or sown by hand — whether they grew up to the grass-blade or to the flower, or into their wonted appearance — turn black and empty, and vanish, as it were, into ash. [I,] as [I would grant] the Jewish [cities once famous]…” [Histories 5.6–7]—
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—[I would grant that] the cities once burned with heavenly fire; [and] that, the place being so affected, the land is infected, the air poured over [it] corrupted, and that thereby the produce of the crops and of autumn rots, I judge — the soil and the sky alike being heavy [noxious].” [Histories 5.7] These [things] of that Gentile [Tacitus are] agreeable both to the narration of our [writers] and to the nature of things.