“Valley of Acacia Trees.” The Hebrew word for the acacia tree is “shittim,” and many English versions leave the Hebrew untranslated. However, in this context understanding that this is a valley named because of its abundance of acacia trees is important and points to its geographical location. Acacia trees grow in very dry and therefore relatively infertile soil, and that kind of soil is found in Israel in the Arabah, the land that bordered the Dead Sea and northward up the Jordan Valley for some 40 miles. So the river described in Joel 3:18 is also mentioned in Ezekiel 47:1-12 and Zechariah 14:8.