THE

JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA.

THE history of the Jordan cannot be viewed without a consideration of the physical peculiarities which mark its relation to Palestine and to the world, and which must here be once for all noticed in detail.

Rivers in their

It is a characteristic of all the four rivers of the Lebanon, that they are almost precluded by the circumstances The Four of their rise from attaining their natural outlet in the sea. To compare their position with that of rivers courses. and mountains on a far larger scale, it is as if the Amazon and Orinoco after being confined within the lines of the Andes, were either lost in the Pampas without reaching the Atlantic, or by a violent turn in their course escaped into the Pacific. The Orontes and Leontes both flow parallel to the Mediterranean, for the greater part of their channels, shut out from it by the high wall of Lebanon. At the last moment, as it were, of their existence, they make a sudden turn westward, and descend into the sea. The Orontes finds its outlet by

1 See Chapters II. and XII. This peculiarity of the rivers is well stated in Anderson's Geological Description in the

Official Report of Lynch's Expedition, pp. 80, 81.

2 The modern name of the Orontes,

doubling back upon itself, so that its course for the last thirty miles is parallel to the great body of its own stream. The Leontes, though with a less rapid change, has to force its way through the narrow pass produced by the sudden offshoot which Anti-Libanus throws out westward, as if with the very object of preventing its escape. The Barada alone issues into what would have been the natural exit for all-the plain of Syria, on the way to the Indian Ocean. But the basin-like character of that plain, combined with the effect of the burning waste beyond, stops short its career in wide marshy lakes, a day's journey beyond the city of Damascus.

the Jordan.

The Jordan combines in itself the peculiarities which The peculi belong to the other three. Rising in the fork of arities of the two ranges of Anti-Libanus, it first runs by necessity within these two enclosing walls, parallel to the Mediterranean from north to south, as the Orontes from south to north. Its streams-for in this stage it can hardly be called a single river-are first received into the high lake of Merom, which might seem destined to absorb its waters, as in the case just mentioned of the river of Damascus. But two causes prolong its existence, first the continual supply which its own stream and that lake itself receive from the adjacent springs in the limestone cliffs of Lebanon, secondly, and in a more remarkable degree, the depression in the valley which begins here, and opens a course for the river to descend in its collected volume, and with increased rapidity downwards for three hundred feet into the Sea of Galilee. Again it might seem to have met with its end, but again it plunges through twenty-seven rapids, through a fall of a thousand feet,' through what is the lowest and final stage of its course. Like the Leontes and Orontes, it would now seem intent on making every effort to escape, darting first to the right, then to the left, then to the right again, and thus descending so deviously

El Aazy-"the rebellious," is said to be derived partly from its flowing contrary to all the other streams, and partly from its wild and rapid current, which tears away all the bridges that men attempt to

throw over it (Schwarz, p. 57).

The only known instance of a greater fall is the Sacramento river in California.

and capriciously as to present the unparalleled spectacle of a course only sixty miles' in actual length, increased to two hundred by the infinite multiplication of its windings. But unlike the northern rivers of the Lebanon, the Jordan is doubly and trebly confined as well within its own successive terraces, as within the two high mountain-walls which accompany it on either side with undeviating regularity till they see it fall into its lowest depth in the Dead Sea. From this, its last receptacle, the Jordan emerges no more.

It has thus three distinct stages-the first ending in the Lake of Merom, the second in the Sea of Galilee, and the third in the Dead Sea. The two earlier stages will be noticed as we ascend its course. The third stage, on which we now enter-the "great plain" of the later Jews; the "Aulôn" or "channel" of the Greek geographers; the " Ghor" or " sunken plain" of the modern Arabs-as it is the one in which the peculiar characteristics of the region are most signally exhibited, so it is the only one in which the river itself is connected with the Sacred history.

The singular relations of the Jordan to the rest of the world were unknown to the Israelites. But its strange results as affecting their own country were familiar to them as to us; and must have heightened in every age the charm which hangs over the mysterious valley. They must have been struck at all times by its great depression, to the depth of no less than three thousand feet below the mountains of Judæa, which is marked by the never-failing notice of the "going up" from, or the "going down" to its level, in the numerous allusions to the journeys up and down those high mountain-passes, from the first invasion of Joshua to the last journey of our Lord. They must have known habitually, what to us is known only through two adventurous expeditions-the swift descent of the stream as it leaves the Sea of Galilee,-from which in all

1 Official Report of Lynch, pp. 30, 149, 205. "The Jordan is the crookedest river what is," is the homely but forcible expression of the English Expedition (Geogr. Journ. xviii. 113), for the same characteristic which Pliny (H. N. v. 15) describes more rhetorically "amnis, quatenus locorum situs patitur, ambitiosus."

This feature of the Jordan is well caught in a quaint allusion in Giles Fletcher's poem, "Christ's Death and Triumph.”

2 For the name "The great plain," see Josephus, Bell. Jud. IV. viii. 2. For the "Aulôn" and the "Ghor," see Ritter; Jordan, 481.

probability is derived the one' name by which it is called in the Old Testament, "the Jordan" or "the Descender?" They must have been struck, too, by the innumerable windings which in this descent it carves for itself in its deep bed-" a gigantic green serpent" as seen from the adjacent heights threading its tortuous way through its tropical jungle. They knew well the beauty and richness of this mazy line of forest, "the pride' of the Jordan," the haunt of the lions, who from the neighbouring Desert sheltered themselves in the reedy covert. They carefully marked in their geographical vocabulary the singular contrast so well described by Josephus, between the naked Desert on the one hand, and on the other hand the rich vegetation along the winding banks of the river, and in the circles. produced by its tributary streams. Throughout the several narratives of the Old Testament the distinction is always observed between the inhabited "round" or "circles of the Jordan, and the uninhabited "Desert"" through which it flows.

599

It is never called the "river" or "brook," or any other name than its own, "The Jordan." See Appendix.

2 A striking illustration is contained in Joshua iii. 16, where the word for the 'coming down" of the waters of the Jordan is the same as that used in the singular for the river itself. Abulfeda and the old Arabic writers call it El Ordann. The Arabs near Tel ElKhady call it Ed-Dan. But as a general rule its ancient name is represented by "Sheriah," "the watering-place," or "Sheriat el-Khebir," "the great watering-place," to distinguish it from "Sheriat el-Mandhur," the Hieromax. (Newbold, in Journal As. Soc. xvi. 12.)

3 The Hebrew word "Gaon," is rightly translated "pride" in Zech. xi. 3, and wrongly, "swelling," in Jer. xii. 5; xlix. 19; 1. 44; usually in connection with the lions. Reland (p. 274) quotes a good description of the Jordan from Phocas, the pilgrim of the 12th century, which shows that up to that time the jungle was still so regarded. "In the twisting and winding streams of the Jordan (ἐν ταῖς τοῦ Ἰορδάνου ἑλικοείδεσι καὶ ἀγγυλοστρόφοις ῥοαῖς) as is likely, there are certain portions of the lands, next to the river, marked off, with a

vast mass of reeds growing in them. In these, herds of lions are wont to dwell." No lions are now seen, but boars and tigers (leopards ?) are described (Molyneux, p. 118).

4 Josephus, Bell. Jud. IV. viii. 2.

5 Ciccar and Geliloth. These two curious terms (in the English version rendered "plain" or "region,") though occasionally with a wider application, usually denote the Jordan-valley-applied respectively to its lower and upper stage. It is tempting to derive this usage (with Reland, p. 274) from the windings of the stream; and it is not at any rate impossible that this may have suggested or confirmed the invariable use of ciccar for the circular oasis of Jericho and the five cities. In later times no doubt the words were taken merely as provincial terms for "region," and as such were translated both in the LXX and in the New Testament, epix@pos, "the surrounding neighbourhood. See Appendix.

6 The word for the Desert-plain of the Jordan is almost always arabah, or araboth, being the continuation of the appellation now confined exclusively to the Desert-valley south of the Dead Sea. See Appendix.

And, lastly, it must have been impossible to overlook the singularity of the river, not merely in its ordinary aspect, but in the more eccentric phenomena which more or less powerfully affected its historical character. How far there are to be found any traces of strictly volcanic agency in the limestone bed of the Jordan-valley is still a question. But, such as there are, they are found here in a greater degree than anywhere else in Palestine; and if the agency which they seem to indicate was manifested in earlier times with greater force than at present, it would be the more impressive from its rarity'. Of this nature are the masses of bitumen which give their name to the "Asphaltic" Lake; the warm springs, which, at Hammath, on the Lake of Galilee, and at Callirhoe, on the Dead Sea, burst forth from the sides of the hills; the remains of lava which are said to exist on the shores of both lakes; the earthquakes which have within the memory of man shaken down the cities of Safed and Tiberias on the northern lake, which St. Jerome' describes as having in his own time destroyed Kerak in the Eastern neighbourhood of the southern lake. That some such means were employed in the catastrophe of the Five Cities is now generally acknowledged. If any of the other extraordinary convulsions-such as the withdrawal of the waters of the Jordan, the overthrow of Jericho, and the earthquake which afterwards in the same neighbourhood struck a panic into the Philistine host',-should have been effected by similar means, the student of the Old Testament will discover in the indications which still exist, a remarkable illustration and confirmation of the historical character of the Sacred records; the more so, because the secondary causes of such phenomena must to the historians themselves have been wholly unknown.

Two general remarks occur before descending into the detail of the several scenes of the history of the Jordan. On the one hand, it is the only river deserving of the name which flows south of the Lebanon. which fall into it from the

Those

The great river of Palestine, but unfre

eastern hills, the quented. Hieromax, the Jabbok, and the Arnon, are too remote from

The case is well stated in Williams's article on Palestine in Dr. Smith's Dictionary of Ancient Geography.

2 Jerome on Isai. xv. (De Sauley, i.

3 Josh. iii. 16; vi. 20. 1 Sam. xiv. 15.

491).