Valley of Baca
Valley of Baca (“Valley of the Baka”) is mentioned in the Book of Psalms Chapter 84, in the following passage:
Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them. Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools. They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.
The original Hebrew phrase for the Valley of Baca is מק הבכא, emeq ha-Baka. A literal translation is “Valley of the Baka”, although the ancient Greek translation assumed a similar-sounding word בכה “crying” and translated ἐν τῇ κοιλάδι τοῦ κλαυθμῶνος “valley of mourning”. The same Hebrew word בכא is associated with a famous battle in 2 Samuel 5:23-24 in the Valley of Rephaim, about 4-7 kilometers southwest of the present day Old City of Jerusalem. David is advised to engage the Philistines in battle when he hears the sound of marching in the Baka trees (translated “mulberry trees” in the King James Version, although the specific tree to which בכא refers is not known—many modern translations suggest “balsam tree”).