SHITTIM . 1 . The name of the last encampment of the Israelites, on the east of the Jordan opposite Jericho. There the Israelites began to intermarry with Moabites ( Numbers 25:1 ff.), and from there Joshua sent out the spies to Jericho ( Joshua 2:1; Joshua 3:1 ). The name means ‘acacias,’ and the place is called in Numbers 33:49 Abel-shittim , or ‘Meadow of acacias.’ Josephus ( Ant. IV. viii. 1, v. i. 1) identifies the place with Abila , which he says is 7 1 / 2 Roman miles east of the Jordan, and which Jerome says was 6 miles east of it. Several modern scholars identify Abila with Khirbet Kefrên at the entrance of the Wady Kefrên , at the base of the mountains of Moab.
2 . Joel’s reference to the ‘Valley of Shittim’ ( Joel 3:18 ) must refer to some valley leading from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea (cf. Ezekiel 47:1 ff.) perhaps the ‘Valley of the brook Kidron,’ the modern Wady en-Nâr . It is certainly not the same as No. 1, although confused with it by Ochser ( JE [Note: Jewish Encyclopedia.] xi. 297 f.). The reference to Shittim in Micah 6:5 ‘from Shittim to Gilgal’ is geographically unintelligible, and is rightly thought by many scholars to be a gloss.
George A. Barton.