IOSAPHAT, Valley of
The name of the narrow valley, also CEDRO (v.), east of Jerusalem, between the city and the Mount of Olives; properly the stretch running between the Sitti Marjam Gate and Bir Aijjub. It is dotted with tombs. According to a widely held opinion among Christians, Jews, and Muslims, this valley should be the scene of the Last Judgment. From as early as the 4th century A.D., the memory of the Judgment drew penitents and contemplatives to the valley, who built numerous monasteries there. Even today, many Jews wish to be buried there, to be near the place where the Judgment will occur, and nearby, on the west side, of the Temple walls, stretches the Muslim cemetery. However, this belief must be considered unfounded, although supported even by St. Jerome himself (In Joel, 3, 2 sgg.: PL 979-85).
The only passage in Holy Scripture where mention is made of the Valley of I. with reference to a judgment of Jahweh is Joel 3, 2.12.14: “I will gather all nations, I will bring them down to the valley of I., and there I will enter into judgment with them... Let the nations rise up and go up to the valley of I.; for there I will sit to judge all the neighboring nations... What a crowd, what a crowd in the valley of decision!” But this refers to a punitive judgment of the neighboring peoples who have done evil to Israel. Above all, the identification of the “valley of I.” of Joel with the present valley that bears its name does not hold. This valley is never called “valley of I.” in Holy Scripture, but is referred to as the torrent of the Cedron (II Sam. 15, 23; II Reg. 2, 37; Ier. 31, 40; Io. 18, 1): it is little more than the bed of a torrent, and hardly accords with the text of Joel, which supposes (emeg, “broad valley”) a spacious valley, capable of holding the peoples. The expression of Joel, “valley of I.,” must have not a topographical, but a symbolic and metaphorical sense, based on the etymology of the name (Yehôsôphat = “Jahweh judges”): the place where Jahweh will judge, will pronounce the decision” (Joel 3, 14). Hence St. Cyril of Alexandria defines such a belief, prevalent especially among the Jews, as “a fable of old women” (PG 71, 38-39).
The identification of the “valley of I.” with the Valley of the Cedron is already attested by Eusebius, around A.D. 330 (Onomasticon, 273, 89), and by the Itinerarium Burdigalense, A.D. 333, the apocryphal Transitus B. Mariae Virginis (ed. C. Tischendorf, p. 118), etc. Some believe that the name derives from the tomb of King Iosaphat, which is still shown here (even St. Bede, who visited Jerusalem in 720, alludes to it): but the supposed tomb is legendary, since, as we read in I Reg. 22, 51, Iosaphat was buried in the “city of David,” which is the hill to the south-east of Jerusalem.
According to F.-M. Abel, the key to the explanation lies in Neh. 3, 30, where the Vulgate reads porta iudiciali, one of the gates in the new wall of the city built after the return from exile (Heb. fa'ar ham-miphâdâh, from pâqadh = “to visit,” which can also mean “to exercise judgment”): the Latin translator, even before St. Jerome, took the term in this second sense, and translated it as porta iudiciali, gate of judgment. The name extended to the valley below: “valley of judgment,” or of the “Judgment of Jahweh,” hence “valley of I.” It was then easy to refer the well-known passage of the prophet Joel to this place.