The generally accepted explanation of the name (['ii'ip from root "np ' become black ') is from the dark colour of the stream or the ravine.
Baur, vho haa bepn follon-ed b,r llil)r»nfe1d, hu mads tlllf thf* baais of an elahorat« attack on the Fourth Oo«ii«I, arfuinff that the writer has ima<ine<l K<2p^ to b« the lenitive plurml of «i)^, *a c«4lar,' and then'torv cannot tie the Apostle John, who aa a Jew would huve knovrn that the name iraa derived (rom pi'^p 'dark.* L\■ihl1oo^^■<K^t>\ah\a Bitluai Euay$ dlscusaes thin objt-ctioii, dwell* uiHin the fact, already alluded to, that In two iiiuwi.i;i« In the \.W (2 8 15«>, ami 1 K IS") the readitiK which haa the eiii'^^rt of AD !• r*. m3^«> ; yet thr L.XX imtmlatonfi-aiiiiut have uitdtaken tlie ineainiii; of thewonl, otIuTwitH' they could not have written, aa they ^enerallv do, t ^i.u.',';*u{ Ki9.)w*. which on this supiMxitlon would bcaaoleciani I.l-.:litl>Kjt also catla attention to the erent uncertainly aa to the actual reading in Jn 16' ; and, Ihouith the i>reix>tulcranoe of MS evidence ii* cither for rwv Ki3^«f> or r«C K ?.>«k, he iH'lievea me true account to l»e that the oriu'inal rendini: wan r*v K»i^«r* ; l>ecause this reading' wilt e\i>l.'\iii itu- other tuo, where*! neither of the other two will explain euher tJili or eiu^h other ; and alao bctauae It la much lucre protuible lliat "« Kftj^t would lie change*! Into t«. Kt9.>»> anti tai Ki}/«k-, than converaetj, the tenilency belni; to aaHlnillate tenulnatloni Thla eolutloo waj a^lople^l bv (inr«l>ach and LAchmaiin. Weatcott and Ilort. however, In their 'Notea on Select R«Mlinga' defend Lht reiulint; *i* V^tlftn, and regard It aa probablj- praacrvlAg * tltc tnie etj-mology ol |Vr]p. which mta» to b* u udialc
838
KIDRON, THE BROOK
KIDROX, THE BROOK
(?CanaaniU>) plural of Ttp, " the Dark [trees]" ; for though no name from this root is applied to any tree in biblical Hebrew, •ome tree resembling a cetlar wag called by a similar name in at lea» %i.f later lan^uaf^e (see exx. in Uuxtorf, Lex. Talm. 197(1) ; and the Greek *thpK is probably of I'hu^nician origin.' WU rightly maintain that Sn; denoted not so much tlie stream as the ravine throuj^h which it flowed, and remark that isolated I>atche9 of cedar-foreat raay well have survived from prehistoric times in sheltered spota.
Tlie Valley of Kidron (modern Wady Sitti Marjnm) bej,'in8 towards the north-west of Jeru- salem at the foot of Mount Scopus, where the rocks ajipear to have been hollowed out by quarrying for stones for building tombs ; after- wards it turns to tlie right towards the south, separating Jerusalem by a deep depression of the ground from the Mount of Olives. It is here at the east side of the city that the name Kidron was specially applied to it, for the descent is here much steeper than at the north side of Jerusalem ; but the whole forms one continuous channel. Near the site of Gethsemane, where the ravine may have been cro.sseil by our Lord and the eleven apostles on the evening of the betraj'al, the bottom of the Kidron is about 150 ft. below Gethsemane, but nearly 380 ft. belcT the platform of the temple. The bed of the river becomes more perceptible as it turns towards the south, though it is only on rare occasions that water flows in it. There is, however, a curious spring which rises in a cave on the west side of the Kidron, and which appears to have originally flowed into the Kidron valley, but to have been diverted later through a tunnel cut in the rock through the ridge that forms the southern part of the Temple hill. A remarkable inscription Avas discovered in 1880 which records in pure Heurew the making of this tunnel ; and though it unfor- tunately gives no information about its date other thau what can be inferred from the language and the characters in which it is ^vritten, it is con- jectured with great probability that it may refer to the engineering work which was carried out by Ilezekiah at the time of Sennacherib's invasion of Judaea, when 'he took counsel with his princes to stop the waters of the fountains which were ■without the city, and the}- helped him. So there was gathered much people together, and they stopped all the fountains, and the brook that flowed through the midst of the land' (2 Ch Z2^-*). Robinson had suggested long before this discovery that the Kidron might very possibly flow beneath the present surface of tne ground ; and Barclay asserted that at a point in the valley about two miles below the city the murmuring of a stream could be distinctly heard, which stream on ex- cavating he actually discovered. There may, therefore, before the time of Hezekiah, have been a flow of water in the now dry valley of the Kidron.
On leaving the city, the Kidron valley turns south-east towards the Dead Sea, and as it pro- ceeds becomes deeper and more precipitous, its bed being more than 300 ft. deep. It passes here through a barren and desolate region, wliere many of the Essenes and anchorites made their homes in grottoes which have been excavated in its sides.
The name Kidron does not occur in the earlier books of the Bible ; but after David had made Jerusalem the capital of the kingdom, the physical geography of the country in its immediate neigh- bourhood naturally became more closely connected with the history of Judah than it had hitherto been.