At Succoth is one of the best and most important fords over the Jordan. Here Jacob crossed with his cattle. This, too, is possibly the Bethbarah, " house, or ford of passage," where the Israelites intercepted the routed :Midianites (Judg. vii, 2-i), and it was probably here that the men of Gilead slew the Ephraimites (xii, C). Not far off, in " the clay ground between Succoth and Zartlian," were the brass foundries of king Solomon (I Kings vii, 4G). These fords midoubtedly witnessed the first recorded passage of the Jordan in the 0. T. ; we say recorded, because there can be little dispute but that Abraham must have crossed it likewise. It is still the place at which the eastern Bedawln cross in their periodical invasions of Esdraelou. From Succoth to the mouth of the Jabbok the river becomes very low during the summer, and is fordable at many points. At one spot are the remains of a Eoman bridge (Molyneux, p. 115 sq. ; Lynch, April 16 ; Burckhardt, p. 344 sq.). Ten miles south of the Jabbok there is a noted ford on the road from Nabidus to Es-Salt. Traces of a Roman road and bridge were here discovered by Van de Velde {Me- moir, p. 124). The only other fords of note are those in the plain of Jericho, one above and one below the pilgrims' bathing-iilace. They arc much deeper than those higher up, and when the river is swollen they be- come impassalile.
Lower Ford of the Joid in .U W kU \ u\ umeh (From Pliotogiaph 29a of the "ralctme Exploration Fund ">
5. ffislorical Kotires.—'V\w (\v>t notKC of the Jordan is ill the story of the separation of Abiaham and Lot - Lot "beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it ^\as wtU watered everywhere, before tlie Lord destroyed Sodom and domorrah" (Cen. xiii, 10). Abraham had just left Egypt (xii, 10-20), and therefore the comparison be- tween the fertilizing properties of tiic Jordan and of the Nile is very apposite. Tlie section of the valley visible from the heights of Bethel, where the patriarchs stood, was the plain of Jericho and southward over a part of the Dead Sea. The " plain" or circle (ISS) of the Jor- dan must have been (lilferent then from what it is now. It IS now a iiarched desert— .then it was well watered ev- erywlierc. The waters of numerous sjirings, mountain torrents, and probably of tlie Jordan, raised by weirs such as are seen at its northern end. were used by the
0 (1 I'ha;nician inhabitants in the irrigation of the vast plain, llic curse had not yet come upon it; the lire
01 heaven ha.l not yet passed over it; the Lord had not yet destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah (Stanley p 215) It 19 manifest that some great physical change was prcC duced m the valley by the convuLsion at the .lestructi.m
of the cities. The bed of the Dead Sea was probably lowered, and a greater fall thus given to the river. See Dead Sea.
Another wonderful epoch in the Jordan's history was the passage of the Israelites. They were encamped on the "plains of Moab"— on the broad plain east of the river, extending along the northern shore of the sea to the foot of the mountains. It was harvest-time — the beginning of April— when the rains were stDl falling heavily in Hermon, and the winter snows were melting under the rays of the warm sun, and when a thousand mountain torrents thus fed swept into the Jordan, and made it " overfiow all its banks ;" or, as the Hebrew^ lit- erally signifies, made it full up to all its banks (see Rob- inson, Bib. Ees. i, 540) ; that is, perhaps, up not merely to the banks of the stream itself, but up to the banks of the glen ; covering, as it still does in a few ])laces (^Moly- neux, p. 116; Van de \elde, Memoir, p. 125), the whole bottom of the glen, and thus rendering the fords impas- sable for such a host as the Israelites. There can be no doubt that in ancient times the Jordan rose higher than it does now. When the country was more thickly wood- ed and more extensively cultivated, more rain and more snow must have fallen (Van de Velde, Nui-i-utire, ii, 272). There are wet seasons even yet, when the river rises several feet more than ordinarily (Reland, p. 273 ; Rau- mer, Paldst. p. 61, 2d ed.). The opening of a passage through the river at such a season was the greater mir- acle. Had it been late in summer it might have been thought that natural causes operated, but in harvest— the time of the overflow — the finger of God must have been manifest to all. It is a remarkable fact that at this same spot the Jordan was afterwards twice miracu- lously opened — by Elijah and Elisha (2 Kings ii,8, 14).
At a later period it was considered a feat of high daring that a party of David's "mighty men" crossed the Jordan "in the first month (April), when it had overflown all its banks," and subdued their enemies on the east side (1 Chron. xii, 15). Jeremiah speaks of the lions "coming up" from the "swellings of the Jor- dan;" but the Hebrew word 'pSiS signifies beauty or r/lo- n/, and refers to the dense jungles and verdant foliage of its banks ; these jungles are impenetrable except to the wild beasts that dwell there. No allusion is made to the rise or overflow of the river (Geseniiis, Thesavrvs, s. v. ; Robinson, i, 540). Travellers have often seen wild swine, hyoenas, and jackals, and also the tracks of ]ian- thers, on the banks of the Jordan (Molyneux, p. 118).