Lands, plants, and measures

Rivers, Lakes and Seas

Blackwood’s Comprehensive Aids to the Study of the Bible · Vol. I, p. 55

Begins on Vol. I, p. 55

The Name	Descriptive and General Remarks
Ab'ana	Rising in the Anti-Libanus, at a height of 3343 feet, and passing Abila, it flowed through Damascus; modern name Barada.
Æ'non	"Near to Salim," where John the Baptist baptized; has not been identified; it may have been at Wady Farah, five miles northeast of Jerusalem.
Ar'non	River east of the Jordan, the boundary of Moab and of the Amorites; modern name El-Mojeb.
Che'bar	River of Babylonia, possibly the Chaboras (now Khabour), but probably the Nahr Malcha, or royal canal of Nebuchadnezzar.
Dead Sea	This name does not occur in the Bible, but the sea is noticed by a number of names—the Salt Sea, the Sea of the Plain, the East Sea, the Former Sea, and the Sea where there is no difficulty of identification; its usual name now is the Dead Sea, from the belief, now exploded, that neither vegetable nor animal life could subsist in or near it. It is of an elongated oval shape, save that the regularity of the figure is broken by a large peninsula from its eastern shore; its extreme length is about 46 miles, breadth above 10 and area about 300 square miles—the dimensions vary, however, somewhat, at times. Its level is 1289 feet below that of the Mediterranean.
Egypt, river of	Two Hebrew words; the one indicates the Nile (see Sihor); the other the Wady el-Arish, that falls into the Mediterranean, near Rhinocolura.
Euphra'tes	The largest, longest and most important river of Western Asia; its length is 1780 miles, over two-thirds of which are navigable for small vessels.
Gal'ilee, sea of	Called also Sea of Tiberias, Sea or Lake of Gennesareth or Gennesaret, Sea of Chinnereth or Cinnereth, and Matt. iv. 15, the sea. The Jordan enters it at its northern and passes out at its southern end, the bed being simply a depression of the great Jordan valley; its level is 653 feet below that of the Mediterranean; the banks on the east are nearly 2000 feet high, deeply furrowed by ravines; the west bank is less regular, but equally picturesque.
Gi'hon	Second river of Paradise, that "compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia." Like boundaries of Eden, the locality of this river cannot be determined.
Great Sea	The Mediterranean.
Ha'bor	River of Mesopotamia; it is the Chaboras (now Khabour).
Hid'dekel	The Tigris, one of the rivers of Eden; its length is estimated at 1150 miles, of which about 300 miles are navigable for rafts in the seasons of flood.
Jab'bok	A stream falling into the Jordan about midway between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea; the present name is Zurka, or the Blue River.
Jor'dan	The great river of Palestine; its sources are in the Anti-Libanus; a traveller has well said, "It is without any parallel, historical and physical, in the whole world." Macgregor says, "The Jordan is the sacred stream not only of the Jew, who has Moses and the prophets; of the Christian, who treasures his master's life upon earth; of the cast-out Ishmaelite, who has dipped his wandering bloody foot in this river since the days of Hagar; but also of the Moslem faithful, who deeply reverence the Jordan." Present name Esh Shediah.
Me'rom	The waters of Merom, the name of a lake in northern part of Palestine; the Samachonitis of Josephus, and Bahr el-Hûleh of the present day.
Moch'mur	A wady or torrent, mentioned only in Judith; modern name Wady Makfuriyeh.
Nile	See Sihor.
Nim'rim	The waters of Nimrim, a stream or brook of Moab; now Wady Nemeirah.
Phar'par	It is eight miles from the city, but flows across the whole plain of Damascus; it is about 40 miles long; modern name Awaj.
Pi'son	One of the four rivers of Paradise; the most generally received opinion identifies it with the Ganges.
Red Sea	In some passages, called "the Sea," and in Isaiah, "the Egyptian Sea;" the Hebrew name is "the Sea of Sûph;" it lies between Egypt and Arabia; its length is about 1400 miles, average breadth 150 miles, and area 180,000 square miles; its western arm is now called the Gulf of Suez, and its eastern the Gulf of Akaba; it is very deep, more than 6000 feet at its deepest soundings.
Si'hor	Or Shihor; this is the more general Scripture name for the Nile, which recent explorations show to be the longest river in the world, except the Missouri-Mississippi, if we regard the two as one. Its length, as far as ascertained, is 2300 miles in a direct line, to which must be added several hundred on account of its windings. It is also notable for the phenomena of its annual overflow. Modern name Bahr en-Neel.
U'lai	A river of Susiana, probably the Eulæus of the Greeks and Romans.