SNOW (שֶׁ֫לֶג֒, H8920; χιών, G5946). Although frequently mentioned as a symbol of refreshment or purity in the Bible (e.g. Exod 4:6; Isa 1:18), snow appears in the actual record only once: the brief reference in 2 Samuel 23:20 to Benaiah’s encounter with a lion. Mention in this context presumably indicates that the event was exceptional, not only as a feat of arms but also as a fact of climate, for although snow does fall from time to time in winter on the Judaean hills, the lion’s home would be in the Jordan valley, where snow is unknown. G. Adam Smith (1966) comments on Benaiah’s exploit: “the beast had strayed up from Jordan, and been caught in a snowstorm. Where else could lions and snow come together?” (p. 63).

Snow, then, is by no means unknown in Judaea; Jerusalem has a mean Jan. temperature of 48^oF., with a daily range of some 13^o. But the two areas where snowfalls are both heavy and regular are: (1) on the Lebanese mountains in the N, where Mt. Hermon rises to 9100 ft. and snow patches lie throughout the year. It was the distant view of these snows from the hot Galilean trench that prompted so much Biblical imagery; (2) on the mountains of Edom, E of the Jordan, where the land rises to over 5000 ft. (Amman in Jordan has a Jan. mean temperature of 40^oF., and a daily range in that month of 7-8^o.) For many Israelites, therefore, snow was better known to them as a distant prospect than as an actuality.