8/8/2023 0 Comments Jordan river bible factsJesus also “was baptized of John in Jordan” ( Mark 1:9). John the Baptist’s ministry, when “there went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and were baptized of him in Jordan” ( Matthew 3:6). The chief events in Gospel history connected with it are: Twice afterwards its waters were miraculously divided at the same spot by Elijah and Elisha ( 2 Kings 2:8, 14). The Israelites passed over it as “on dry ground” ( Joshua 3:17 Psalm 114:3). “Lot beheld the plain of Jordan as the garden of the Lord.” Jacob crossed and recrossed “this Jordan” ( 32:10). The first historical mention of the Jordan River is in the account of the separation of Abraham and Lot ( Genesis 13:10). It enters the Jordan about 20 miles north of Jericho. The Jabbok or Wady Zerka, formerly the northern boundary of Ammon. It formed the boundary between Bashan and Gilead. The Wady Mandhur, called the Yarmuk by the Rabbins and the Hieromax by the Greeks. There are two considerable affluents which enter the river between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, both from the east. The total length of the Jordan from Banias is about 104 miles in a straight line, during which it falls 2,380 feet. The whole distance from the southern extremity of the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea is in a straight line about 65 miles, but following the windings of the river about 200 miles, during which it falls 618 feet. Through it the Jordan flows in a rapid, rugged, tortuous course down to the Dead Sea. Down through the midst of the “plain of Jordan” there winds a ravine varying in breadth from 200 yards to half a mile, and in depth from 40 to 150 feet. This section is properly the Jordan of Scripture. The Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River-satellite view Josias Leslie Porter, A Handbook for Travellers in Syria and Palestine (1868).įrom the Sea of Galilee, at the level of 682 feet below the Mediterranean, the river flows through a long, low plain called “the region of Jordan” ( Matthew 3:5), and by the modern Arabs the Ghor, or “sunken plain.” Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate’ ( Leviticus 26:31-34).” ‘I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation… And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it… And your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. The words of Scripture here recur to us with peculiar force: Every mile or two is an old site of town or village, now well nigh hid beneath a dense jungle of thorns and thistles. Along the whole eastern bank of the river and the lakes, from the base of Hermon to the ravine of Hieromax, a region of great fertility, 30 miles long by 7 or 8 wide, there are only some three inhabited villages. “In the whole valley of the Jordan from the Lake Huleh to the Sea of Galilee there is not a single settled inhabitant. Porter reported the desolate scene here in his 1868 …Handbook for Travellers… Today, however, the Jordan is carefully controlled for agricultural purposes and sometimes flows in a straight channel, minimizing evaporative loss and maximizing farming land.Ĩ0 years before the establishment of the modern State of Israel in 1948, Dr. Formerly flowing from the southern extremity of Lake Huleh, almost at sea level, it flowed for 2 miles “through a waste of islets and papyrus,” and then for 9 miles through a narrow gorge in a foaming torrent onward to the Sea of Galilee. At the Banias spring it is 1,080 feet above sea-level. Jordan River and what is left of Lake Huleh-satellite viewĭuring this part of its course the Jordan has descended about 1,100 feet.
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