accompanied by tlie article. It might
The name of the Jordan has i
> hold, with
The word I'll: is a common noun, and is therefore always accompanied by the article (J'!!"!:n), with a few exceptions, which will be pointed out below. Yet it is worthy of note that we have not a single passage in which Yardcn is treated with certainty as a common noun.
From the point of view of etymology, it is most natural to connect this word with the verb Ti; ' to descend,' and this is how it is treated by the pre- valent opinion, found, however, more frequently among geographers than among philologists, accord- ing to which the Jordan is 'the descending,' 'the flowing,' a name which might, of course, be appli- cable to any stream of water, and which, in a single particular case, would have become a proper name, just as the Hebrews called the Euphrates lajn, ' the river.' But it is more probable that, while retain- ing the root ii; as our starting-point, we should interpret Yarden as the place to which one goes down, sc. to drink, i.e. ' the watering-place.' Two authors, Seybold (MNDPV, 1896, I.e.) and Cheyne {Encye. Bibl. ii. col. 2575), have, independently of each other, suggested this explanation. If this derivation is correct, the modem Arabic name of the Jordan would be a literal translation of the old name, for they call it esh-Sherl'a, ' the watering- place,' and more fully esh-Sherl'a el-Kebireh, ' the great watering-place, to distinguish it from another stream, its tributary, the Sherl'at el-Marmdirch (Yarrauk). However, there is found also among the Arabs the name el-Urdunn, an approximate transcription of the Hebrew name (cf. Kampfl- meyer, in ZDPV xv. [1892] p. 27 ; Ed. Konig, Lehrgebdude der heb. Sprache, II. i. p. 461).
We must mention one other way of explaining the name of the Jordan, which used to be in great favour -vvith the Fathers of the Church as well as the Jewish teachers. According to this interpreta- tion, the name Jordan may be divided into Jor and Dan, and these two monosyllables denote the two sources of the river. Dan, that is to say, is the name of the city of Dan, formerly Laish or Leshem (Jos 18. 19*'), and consequently that of the branch of the river issuing from it ; Jor is the name of the other stream, and Jordan is the final name of the river from the point where the two branches unite. This explanation was given by St. Jerome, and accepted by many writers after liim. An attempt has been made to support it by VOL. I.— 57
interpreting Jor as a contraction of Yc'or (in-), a Heb. word meaning ' watercourse,' and used especi- ally in reference to the Nile. This strange ety- mology has now no interest except that of curiosity, and is not upheld by anybody, any more than another found in tlie Talmud (Bekhoroth, 55), which takes Yarden to be a contraction of Ycrcd- dan or Yored-dan, and thus brings in botli the verb ' to descend ' and the name of the city of Dan.
ec are: (a) J
' the Jordan ' or ' a river ' ; but several commentators doubt whether the text is reliable ; Budde suggests deleting this word as a gloss ; Gunkel and Winckler change it into Yi'or (l.y;), be- cause in the same passage reference is made to the Nile ; Cheyne into Glltbn (jin-j) for the same reason. (6) Ps 427, where 'cref hay-Yarden (pnirr p,N) seems to denote ' the country of the Jordan,' i.e. probably the region round about the sources of the river, which is confirmed by the mention of Hermon or rather the Hermons (in the plural) in the same verse. It must be observed, however, that, according to the Talmud, the river bore the name of Jordan only between the Lake of Tiberias and the Dead Sea, a statement which is neither confirmed nor con- tradicted by the Bible, and cannot be proved in any way ; we may add that, according to some writers, the present custom is exactly the opiwsite, for it is alleged— has the claim any foundation ?— that at the present day only the part of the river above the lake is called Urdimn, and the part below, Sher^a.
The word Jordan in the rflle of common noun is further proved by the expression ' Jordan of Jericho ' (inn^ JT!")'). i" the construct state. The meaning of this will be examined below.
2. General geography and geology. — The total length of the valley of the Jordan, from its source to its mouth at the Dead Sea, is about 120 miles. It stretches from north to south in a practically straight line. It begins as a continuation of the Beka'a (Coele-Syria), that valley which stretches between the Lebanon on the west and the Anti- Lebanon on the east, but whose waters run towards the north. Almost immediately after leaving Lake Puleh, which is 7 feet above the level of the Mediterranean, the Jordan begins to fall below the level of the sea ; the Lake of Tiberias is 682 feet, the Dead Sea 1292 feet, below it. There is not another example of such a marked depression on the surface of our globe, except with tracts covered by the seas ; the other cases which may be cited attain much less depths ; tlie greatest is about 300 feet in the Sahara, while, taking into account the depth of the Dead Sea (1300 feet), we get a total of almost 2600 feet. G. A. Smith has well said (HGHL p. 407): ' Among the rivers of the world the Jordan is unique by a twofold distinction of Nature and History. . . . The NOe and the Jordan, otherwise so difl'erent, are alike in this, that the historical singularity of each has behind it as remarkable a singularity of physical formation. . . . Every one knows the incomparableness of the Nile. ... In its own way the Jordan is as solitary and extreme an eft'ect of natural forces. There may be some- thing on the surface of another jDlanet to match the Jordan Valley ; there is nothing in this.'