Then came an event upon which the cuneiform records of Babylonia are beginning to cast light. Chedor-laomer, king of Elam, and the vassal kings Amraphel of Shinar, Arioch of Ellasar, and Tid’al of ‘nations,’ marched against the five Canaanitish princes of the Vale of Siddim at the northern end of the Dead Sea, bent upon obtaining possession of the naphtha springs that abounded there, and the produce of which had already made its way to Babylonia. No resistance was made to the invader; it is clear, in fact, that the invasion was no new thing, and that the rest of Canaan was already subject to the lords of the East. For ‘twelve years’ the five Canaanitish kings ‘served Chedor-laomer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled.’ Once more, therefore, the forces of Elam and Babylonia moved westward. The revolt, it would appear, had spread to other parts of the ‘land of the Amorites,’ and the invading army marched southward along the eastern side of the Jordan. First, the Rephaim were overthrown at Ashteroth-Karnaim, in ‘the field of Bashan,’ as it was termed in the days of the Tel el-Amarna tablets; then followed the turn of the Zuzim in the future land of Ammon, and of the Emim in what was to be the land of Moab; and after smiting the Horites of Mount Seir, the invaders penetrated into the wilderness of Paran, fell upon the desert sanctuary of Kadesh, now called ’Ain el-Qadîs, and returned northward along the western shore of the Dead Sea. They had thus partially followed in the footsteps of an earlier Chaldæan king, Naram-Sin, who centuries before had made his way to the Sinaitic Peninsula, and there gained possession of the coveted copper-mines. The native princes in the Vale of Siddim were no match for the foe. A battle was fought which ended disastrously for the Canaanitish troops. The kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were slain, their men were driven into the naphtha-pits of which the plain was full, or else fled to the mountains. Their cities fell into the hands of the conquerors, who carried away both captives and spoil. But Abram heard that among the captives was his ‘brother’ Lot. Thereupon he started in pursuit of the Chaldæan army, with his three hundred and eighteen armed followers and the forces of his Amorite allies. The victorious army was overtaken near Damascus, and its rear surprised in a night attack. The captives and spoil were recovered, and brought back in triumph to the south of Canaan. Here at the ‘King’s Dale,’ just outside the walls of Jerusalem, the new king of Sodom went to welcome him; and Melchizedek, the priest-king of Jerusalem, blessed the conqueror in the name of ‘the Most High God.’