What is the Valley of Succoth in the Bible?

Canaanite city on the east of the Jordan, allotted to the tribe of Gad. Here Jacob built a house for himself and booths for his cattle. The elders of the city were punished by Gideon for not helping him when he was faint in pursuing the Midianites. Gen. 33:17; Joshua 13:27; Judges 8:5-16; 1 Kings 7:46; 2 Chr. 4:17; Ps. 60:6; Ps. 108:7. Identified by some with Tell Darala, 32 12' N, 35 38' E.

Deliverance for Israel will mean their eventual possession of the land according to God's speaking in His holiness. His holy government has accomplished its proper results, and He rejoices to distribute every part of the land to His people according to His pure grace and holiness. First, He divides Shechem (v. 6). Shechem figured greatly in the history of Abraham. Its meaning is "shoulder," speaking of the bearing of responsibility. It was the first place of Abraham's dwelling when in the land of Canaan (Gen. 12:6), and indicates the willingness of Israel in the millennium to be subject to God, a necessary result of the Abrahamic covenant. Shechem was on the west side of Jordan, while the valley of Succoth was on the east side. Its meaning is "booths," reminding us of the feast of tabernacles, when Israel was to dwell in booths (Lev. 23:33-42), typical of their secure dwelling in the millennium without material means of protection. Thus, Israel on both sides the Jordan will be greatly blessed by God's apportioning them their inheritance.

Possession of the land is at once anticipated. "God has spoken in His holiness: I will rejoice; I will divide Shechem; and mete out the valley of Succoth." God has spoken in His holiness: in His grace to them surely, but grace has brought them into true-hearted subjection to Him; so that it is in holiness He can act for them. Israel is in fact now to be the proclaimer of divine holiness to the ends of the earth. But divine favor towards Israel is inseparably connected with their possession of the land; at once therefore they anticipate this. They are going to divide Shechem on the west of Jordan, and the valley of Succoth on the east side: to take possession of both sides of the river. Only these two places are named; but these imply that all the rest is theirs. Shechem and Succoth do not indeed at first sight seem like representative places, especially the latter, and yet in some sense they must be: there must be some special suitability in them to express the divine thought as to this repossession of what they had lost before. They are not again to lose it; and notice, to begin with, that they are now in the track of their father Abraham. Jacob's name connects itself with both places; but his record in connection with them is one of failure, and has no pleasant memory attaching to it. In Abraham's case it is far otherwise. Shechem is the first place in which he rests after reaching the land, and there it is that he has the first promise of the land itself. Shechem means "shoulder," which Issachar afterwards (like the nation hitherto) "bowed, to bear, and became a servant for tribute," imposed by masters which he had preferred to God. Abraham bows his shoulder to God at the oak Moreh, ("instructor,") to learn of Him; and to find blessing at His hand. Shechem stands thus for the spirit of obedience, as it was in fact afterward the place at which Israel heard the law, with its blessings and curses, proclaimed when they entered the land under Joshua. The history soon showed indeed that they knew not the meaning of it; but when they enter the land under the new covenant, it will be with the law written upon their heart. The spirit of obedience will now therefore be fully theirs; so that they will for the first time be able to take complete possession of (or "divide") Shechem. How could their tenure of the land under the "new covenant," and in fulfillment (for the first time really) of the promise given to Abraham there, be better expressed?

But what of the "valley of Succoth"? There seems no reference here to the history at all: there is no notice of it except in that part of Jacob's which seems to be failure throughout. On the other hand, the types speak with the clearest and most beautiful significance. Succoth means "booths" or "tabernacles"; and it is the word used for that "feast of tabernacles" which is the last of Israel's sacred year, and which, as the commemoration of their wilderness wanderings as ended, by those now in the land, carries them on in figure to those millennial days in which their longer wanderings as strangers among the Gentiles shall be over forever, and their final rest be come. Thus Succoth follows Shechem here in a most beautiful manner, and the two together establish the prophetic meaning of the psalm conclusively.

“God has spoken in His holiness: I will exult, I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth” (Ps. 60:6). Shechem and Succoth remind us of how Israel's history began with Jacob, their father (Gen. 33:17-20). These are the first places where he settled when he returned to the land of promise after wandering in a strange land. So it will one day be for the remnant of Israel surrounding the true David and regaining possession of their land as they follow Him.

This unites itself, moreover, with the present verse in a very striking way: for of what does "the valley of Succoth" speak, but of the past, as looked back upon from the full blessing reached? Succoth, the "booths," refers to the wilderness-history which is for them now ended; and in these they lived, as it were their life there over again. Their Succoths were, in short, a kind of Gilead for them.

The land given to Gad was north of that of Reuben, including the territory of Jazer (evidently just north of Heshbon) and continuing north to include Succoth which was near the Jordan River. Jordan was again the west border of Gad, and the east border is once more apparently indistinct. In this territory and the meaning of the names of cities there is without doubt spiritual instruction to be found if we were diligent and discerning enough to find it.

"And Esau returned that day on his way to Seir. And Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built him a house, and for his cattle he made booths. Therefore the name of the place was called Succoth (Booths). And Jacob came [in] peace [to the] city Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Padan-Aram, and encamped before the city. And he bought an allotment of the field where he had spread his tent, at the hand of Hamor's sons, father of Shechem, for a hundred kesitahs; (lambs). And he set up there an altar, and called it El-Elohe-Israel" (vers. 16-20).

Esau returned the same day to his own place, the scene hostile to Israel, and hateful to God, all the more because of the near relationship which drew down His deepening abhorrence. For vengeance belongs to Jehovah who will not permit unauthorised and guilty man to take it in hand. Jacob evasively journeys to Succoth, which should be marked east of the Jordan,* though there was a place so named west of that river, as elsewhere too Ex. 12:37, Num. 33:5-6). But the Succoth of Jacob's dwelling was the place given to the Gadites (Joshua 13:27) and made memorable by the princes who refused bread to Gideon and his three hundred, and were threshed for their baseness with the thorns of the wilderness and briers.

*Burckhardt identified this Succoth, or Sukkot as he calls it from the Arabic. Dr. Robinson and Van de Velde speak of the western place called Sakut which ought not to be confounded with the eastern. Jerome (Quaest. in Gen. 33:16) had long before made the just discrimination.

Gideon with his 300 men pursued Zeba and Zalmunna, kings of Midian, becoming weary after a long day's conflict. Crossing the Jordan, they came to Succoth, a city of Israel, and there asked for bread for the army (v. 5). Certainly they were entitled to this, for they were fighting Israel's battles. But the leaders of the city, haughtily refused, saying, in effect, that if they had already defeated Zeba and Zalmunna they might have reason to expect food from Succoth (v. 6).

In bodily weakness, he asks the men of Succoth and of Peniel for food. They were Israelites, and those who were to share in the victory, but oh! the shame of the answer that the men of Succoth and Peniel give. What a contradiction to their names. Midian, you remember, is the world and its power, and Succoth means "tents;" it is a pilgrim word; and surely men who dwelt in tents ought to be perfectly willing to help to overthrow the power of the world. And Peniel means "the face of God." Men, who are looking upon the face of God, surely would be ready to give all assistance to take captive the kings of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna. How their conduct gives the lie to their names. But both of them reply, "Are these men in thy hands, that we should tell thee."

The closing psalm of this Michtam series fills very plainly its place as a fifth psalm. It speaks on the one hand of disciplinary dealings of God with His people under which they have suffered, and on the other, of God turning again to be with them; after the discipline has done its work. Again, it is a Deuteronomic psalm, as contemplating restored Israel, like the Israel of the wilderness of old, just ready to enter upon her inheritance in the land, to "divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth." This also shows, as we saw in the last one, how far beyond the immediate occasion which prompted them; these prophetic psalms reach. To "divide Shechem" supposes a new occupancy of the land, such as could not, one would say, at all connect with the Syro-Edomitish war to which the title refers; and such inapplicable things in an inspired composition may well have been permitted expressly to prevent the thought of the immediate application being the whole or the main thing. And this is the case probably with all prophecies. The Spirit of God makes the object which is immediately in view to stand for some object connected with that final consummation, to which as a matter of hope or warning He is constantly directing our attention, — on which all prophetic lines converge. Thus it is that Peter gives us as of primary importance his noted canon of hermeneutics, that "no prophecy of the Scripture is of private" — literally, "its own" — "interpretation." To detach it from the general body of the prophetic Scripture is necessarily to misread it, and pervert it from its proper place and use.