Salem

peace, commonly supposed to be another name of Jerusalem ( Genesis 14:18 ; Psalms 76:2 ; Hebrews 7:1 Hebrews 7:2 ).

complete or perfect peace

(peace ).

1. The place of which Melchizedek was king. ( Genesis 14:18 ; Hebrews 7:1 Hebrews 7:2 ) No satisfactory identification of it is perhaps possible. Two main opinions have been current from the earliest ages of interpretation: (1). That of the Jewish commentators, who affirm that Salem is Jerusalem, on the ground that Jerusalem is so called in ( Psalms 76:2 ) Nearly all Jewish commentators hold this opinion. (2). Jerome, however, states that the Salem of Melchizedek was not Jerusalem, but a town eight Roman miles south of Scythopolis, and gives its then name as Salumias, and identifies it with Salem, where John baptized.
2. ( Psalms 76:2 ) it is agreed on all hands that Salem is here employed for Jerusalem.

SALEM (1)

sa'-lem (shalem; Salem):

The name of the city of which Melchizedek was king (Genesis 14:18; Hebrews 7:1,2; compare Psalms 76:2).

1. Identification and Meaning:

To all appearance it lay near "the Vale of Shaveh," described as "the King's Vale." The general opinion among the Jews was that Salem was the same as Jerusalem, as stated by Josephus (Ant., I, x, 2), who adds (VII, iii, 2) that it was known as Solyma (Saluma, variants, according to Whiston, Salem and Hierosolyma) in the time of Abraham. It was also reported that the city and its temple were called Solyma by Homer, and he adds that the name in Hebrew means "security." This identification with Jerusalem was accepted by Onkelos and all the Targums, as well as by the early Christians. The Samaritans have always identified Salem with Salim, East of Nablus, but Jewish and Christian tradition is more likely to be correct, supported, as it is, by Psalms 76:2.

2. Testimony of Tell el-Amarna Tablets:

The testimony of the Tell el-Amarna Letters is apparently negative. Knudtzon's number 287 mentions "the land" and "the lands of Urusalim," twice with the prefix for "city"; number 289 likewise has this prefix twice; and number 290 refers to "the city" or "a city of the land Urusalim called Bit-Ninip" Tablets (Beth-Anusat (?)). As there is no prefix of any kind before the element salim, it is not probable that this is the name of either a man (the city's founder) or a god (like the Assyrian Sulmanu). The form in Sennacherib's inscriptions (compare Taylor Cylinder, III, 50), Ursalimmu, gives the whole as a single word in the nominative, the double "m" implying that the "i" was long. As the Assyrians pronounced "s" as "sh", it is likely that the Urusalimites did the same, hence, the Hebrew yerushalaim, with "sh".

See JERUSALEM.

T. G. Pinches

SALEM (2)

(Salamos; the King James Version Salum):

An ancestor of Ezra (1 Esdras 8:1) = "Shallum" in Ezra 7:2 = "Salemas" in 2 Esdras 1:1.