Jordan River

The Jordan River runs north to south through the great rift valley of Canaan, from the springs at the foot of Mount Hermon to the Salt Sea (the Dead Sea). In the Old Testament, "the Jordan" means the river and the valley floor along it, not a country; the modern state of Jordan takes its name from the river and lies to its east. The Hebrew name, yarden, is often connected with the verb yarad, "to go down." That fits a river that drops from the Hermon springs through the Hula basin and the Sea of Chinnereth (the Sea of Galilee), and ends at the Dead Sea, the lowest place on the earth's land surface.

The river was never a highway; it is not navigable. Its importance lay in its fords, which controlled movement between the hill country to the west and Gilead, Ammon and Moab to the east, and in the well-watered plain along its lower course.

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Biblical Significance

Lot looked out over "the whole plain of the Jordan," well watered everywhere "like the garden of the LORD," and chose it for himself (Genesis 13:10-11). Jacob, returning from Haran, told God he had crossed this Jordan with only his staff (Genesis 32:10). That night he wrestled at the ford of the Jabbok, an eastern tributary, at the place he named Peniel (32:22-30). When Jacob died, Joseph's funeral procession mourned him seven days at the threshing floor of Atad "beyond the Jordan," which the Canaanites then named Abel-mizraim (Genesis 50:10-11).

The Jordan is the eastern boundary of Canaan (Numbers 34:12). Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh settled east of it (Numbers 32). The altar they built beside the river nearly started a civil war, until they explained it was a witness, not a rival altar (Joshua 22). In 1406 BC Israel crossed into Canaan under Joshua. The river was in flood at harvest time, but when the priests carrying the ark stepped into it, the waters stopped and stood in a heap far upstream at Adam, and the people crossed on dry ground opposite Jericho (Joshua 3:14-17). Twelve stones from the riverbed were set up at Gilgal (Joshua 4:19-20).

The fords later decided battles. Ehud seized them against Moab (Judges 3:28), Gideon had the Ephraimites hold them against Midian (7:24), and Jephthah's men held them and made each fugitive say "Shibboleth" (12:5-6). David crossed the Jordan fleeing Absalom and crossed back on his return (2 Samuel 17:22; 19:15-18). Solomon cast the temple's bronze in the plain of the Jordan between Succoth and Zarethan (1 Kings 7:46). Elijah struck the water with his cloak and crossed on dry ground with Elisha, and Elisha did the same alone after Elijah was taken up (2 Kings 2:6-14). Naaman, the Syrian commander, was cleansed of his skin disease after dipping seven times in the Jordan (2 Kings 5:14). Jeremiah uses "the thicket of the Jordan," the dense growth along the lower river where lions lay, as a picture of danger (Jeremiah 12:5; 49:19).

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Historical Overview

Throughout the Old Testament period the Jordan served as a boundary. Israelite territory lay on both banks, but the lands east of the river were repeatedly contested: Gilead and Bashan in the north, and Ammon, Moab and Edom to the south and east. Scripture already knows kings in Edom and Moab when Israel arrives from the wilderness (Numbers 20:14; 22:4), and the defeat of Sihon and Og east of the river comes before the crossing itself (Numbers 21). In the eighth century BC, Tiglath-pileser III of Assyria took Gilead and deported its people (2 Kings 15:29). Control of the valley later passed to the Babylonian and Persian empires.

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Archaeological Evidence

Several places in the Jordan narratives are identified with known sites. Adam, where the waters stood during the crossing, is generally identified with Tell ed-Damiyeh near the mouth of the Jabbok. Succoth is often identified with Tell Deir Alla in the eastern valley, though that identification is debated. At Deir Alla in 1967, a Dutch expedition led by H. J. Franken recovered a plaster wall inscription naming "Balaam son of Beor," the seer of Numbers 22-24. It is independent evidence that Balaam's name was remembered east of the Jordan centuries after the events of Numbers. Gilgal, Israel's first camp in Canaan, has not been securely located, though several sites east of Jericho have been proposed.

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Theological Significance

Across the Old Testament, the Jordan is the threshold of the promise. Joshua ties the crossing directly to the Red Sea: the LORD dried up the Jordan as he had dried up the sea (Joshua 4:23). So both the generation that left Egypt and the generation that entered Canaan passed through water on dry ground by God's hand. The stones at Gilgal were set up to answer children's questions and to show "all the peoples of the earth" that the hand of the LORD is mighty (4:21-24). The psalmist looks back on the same moment, when "Jordan turned back" before the God of Jacob (Psalm 114:3, 5). At this river the LORD confirmed the passing of Elijah's prophetic office to Elisha. Here too he cleansed a foreign commander who humbled himself to obey the prophet's word (2 Kings 5), an early sign that the God of Israel is not the God of Israel alone.