Waters that Witness: How the Bible’s Rivers Help Convey its Message

Enablers of Life

Rivers first emerge in the Bible at the start of the second account of creation, in a passage often passed over as of little importance by commentators (e.g. Brueggemann, 1982, p.45; von Rad, 1972, p.79). A mist/spring (Hebrew דֵא ed) emerges from the earth to water the ground, where God plants a garden and places the man he has formed (Gen. 2:6-9). From this garden flows a single river (נָהָר nāhār) which then divides into four ‘heads’, each of which is named and described a little (2:10-14). The latter two clearly indicate the great rivers of Tigris and Euphrates (2:14; cf Dan. 10:4). Pishon and Gihon are harder to identify. Pishon has been variously suggested as the Ganges, Indus, rivers of Arabia, or rivers of Mesopotamia. Gihon is here linked with the land of Cush, which elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible (HB) usually refers to the land south of Egypt – in which case Pishon and Gihon could be the Blue and White Nile (with Eden located between the Nile and the Tigris and Euphrates, in Palestine). However, later in this primeval narrative, Genesis will link Cush with the Cassites, heirs to the old Babylonian empire, who came from what is now Iran (Gen. 10:8). If Genesis 2 understands Cush in these terms, then all four rivers may be in the same region, with Eden located either where their headwaters rise in the mountains of Armenia, or at their eventual confluence near the Persian Gulf (see Wenham, 1987, p.64-65; also Currid & Barrett, 2020, p.52).

Whatever the significance of the particular locations itemised in this sacred cartography, they are clearly interwoven with the theological and etiological nature of this passage. Eden and its garden depict the origins and source of life: plants, herbs, trees, birds, animals and humans all emerge there in the account of Genesis 2 through the activity of the creator. The ‘spring water/mist’ of verse 6, which leads on to the appearance of the rivers in verse 10, is presented as essential for this emergence of life. The rivers provide a symbol of God-given life in this overwhelmingly positive scene of abundance: no hint of pollution, disease, flood or drought taints this world or these waters. All life begins and flourishes in the region ‘of the two rivers’ (םיִ֖ רֲַה נַֽ naharyim, Gen. 24:10) which will later become known as ‘Mesopotamia’ (‘in the middle of rivers’). The Euphrates’ very name might suggest ‘fruitful’ to a Hebrew ear: peri – parat (ירְִפ - תרְָפ). These rivers are not only symbols of the abundant life which God creates, but also essential means that enable it: divine creativity will not unfold on earth without them.

From this fertile region emerges the human family which will define the sweep of the biblical account, first at Ur and then moving upriver, along the Euphrates as far as Haran (Gen. 11:27-32). The reasons for Terah’s emigration are not clear; it might be connected with the more general shift northward in Mesopotamian culture, caused partly by the decline in prosperity in the southern heart-lands as excessive irrigation from the rivers led to soil degradation and salination (see Hillel, 2006, pp.46-47). As the narrative moves on with Abram to the promised land and beyond it to Egypt, the Euphrates fades from immediate view, glimpsed only occasionally as a distant boundary marker, viewed from a Canaan/Judah-centred perspective (Gen. 15:18; Deut. 1:7; Josh. 1:4; 2 Kgs 24.7). Perspective, of course, depends where one stands: for those in Babylon, the lands on which the Bible particularly focuses are themselves part of a distant province, named ‘Beyond the River’ (Ezra 4:11, 17). Ironically, the same phrase is mirrored by Joshua, when speaking in Shechem and looking (in his mind’s eye) towards distant Mesopotamia (Josh. 24:3, 14, 15). With its size and strategic importance in geo-politics, the Euphrates becomes known as ‘the Great River’ or simply ‘the River’ for short (Gen. 31:21; Deut. 11:24; Josh. 24:3; Psa. 80:11). Its size and power to bring life or death, particularly when in flood, is later taken up as a vivid metaphor for the power of the successive empires that grow around it, such as that of Assyria (Isa. 8:6-8). Here we find a reminder not to romanticise rivers unduly, neglecting to acknowledge the powerfully destructive potential of flood, pollution and water-borne disease (see Kavusa, 2020).

Reminders of Loss

When the rivers of Mesopotamia next re-emerge as a more prominent feature of the biblical story, they have come to signify death, rather than life, in a context of immense loss. It is next to one of Babylon’s irrigation canals that Ezekiel experiences his vision of the divine chariot-throne (Ezek 1:1-3). If the opening phrase ‘In the thirtieth year’ indicates his age, then as a priest he would have expected to begin his duties in the Jerusalem temple at this time. The text does not explore his feelings about this anniversary, but we may surmise a sense of disappointment.

The pathos of Ezekiel’s experience and that of others like him is glimpsed in the famous opening words of Psalm 137:

The ‘rivers’ evoked by this psalmist may be a plural of the ‘Great River’ (the Euphrates), or may refer to constructed canals, such as the Chebar mentioned by Ezekiel. Either way, sitting on the river bank under the trees could have been a pleasant place to talk, eat, sing and celebrate. Instead, the riverbank has become the place of mourning and lament over the loss of homeland, which threatens the sense of community and even national identity. The poet’s economy of language resists indulging in words which are technically superfluous – so the inclusion of םשָׁ֣ sham (‘there’) must be for emphasis, highlighting the place. This riverside location seems, by its very physicality, to remind the psalmist and fellow exiles of the place they have loved and now lost, prompted by their mocking tormentors specifically mentioning ‘Zion’. The memories which this triggers reminds them that Babylon is a foreign land, not the promised land given to them (and now taken away) by Yhwh. They are prompted to remember that homeland and treasure it (Ps. 137:5-6); for the psalmist, rage at the oppressors who despise and destroy that land overflows in a torrent of imagined violence against those enemies (Ps. 137:7-9).

That sense of outrage and longing for vengeance also emerges in the oracle against Babylon which closes the prophecies of Jeremiah (Jer. 50-51). This Jerusalem-based prophet sees Babylon as the instrument of God’s judgement in the immediate crisis, but also as subject to that judgement in the longer term because of its arrogance, greed and callous brutality. The empire renowned for the rivers and canals which have helped enable its prosperity must fall (Jer. 51:13); the waters that it relies on will not serve to protect it (Jer. 51:31-32). A much later prophet, recycling Jeremiah’s words to critique the great empire of his own day, will depict Babylon as ‘seated on many waters’ (Rev. 17:1, 5) – an ambiguous image, depicting the exploitation of other nations through worldwide trade (Rev. 17:15; 18:11-13), but perhaps also suggesting an edifice built on an unstable foundation.

The Euphrates comes into focus most clearly in the scene which Jeremiah describes at the end of this lengthy oracle (Jer. 51:59-63). This brief cameo has puzzling aspects, not least around it historicity: would Seraiah the royal quartermaster, presumably sent to Babylon to convey tribute from his master, really make such a pronouncement in public, or perhaps semi-privately? (See discussion in McKane, 1996, p.1359). But the drama of the moment, with the words of divine judgement read from a scroll which is then thrown into the Euphrates, shows consistency with Jeremiah’s inclination towards physically enacted oracles, seen earlier in the book (cf Jer. 18:1-11; 19:1-14; 27:1-2). People knew that previously Jeremiah had put on a yoke and that Jerusalem was now under the yoke of Babylon, with Zedekiah a puppet king required to submit to the whims of Babylon. The deliberate destruction of the scroll in the waters of the great river may serve to remove incriminating evidence, but more importantly functions as a symbolic curse or ritual of doom, displaying the power of prophetic words to create the consequences they describe (Goldingay, 2015, p.256). The river is not simply a setting, but is one of the actors in the drama: its ability to ‘drown’ and physically destroy the scroll is an essential part of the enactment. The Euphrates, Babylon’s life-blood, takes into itself these words of death. The prophet is not simply offering inspiring speech; Yhwh’s physical action is assured through the elemental physicality of the river waters receiving and obliterating the scroll.

We glimpse one further Jewish exile spending time alongside a Mesopotamian river; this time the location is the banks of the Tigris, where Daniel receives his last and longest vision (Dan. 10-12). Like the psalmist of Psalm 137, Daniel is clearly mourning, although the reason for this is not explained (10:2). The previous chapters portray Daniel as one who was able to navigate the trauma of exile and emerge as an influential figure in the royal court. It may be that his mourning and fasting are preparation for receiving another divine revelation, similar to the one he was given in the previous chapter (cf. 4 Ezra 5:13). Rivers may have been considered likely places for such a revelation or encounter, as in the account of Jacob, who meets a mysterious divine figure at the wadi of the Jabbok (Gen 32:25-31); later rabbinic traditions proposed that the heavens might be glimpsed when reflected in a river (Newsom, 2014, on 10:3-4).

These apocalyptic visions both reveal and conceal; Daniel’s curiosity about details does not receive a clear answer, but he is given general assurance that the wicked, those who desecrate Jerusalem, will soon be conquered and removed (12:8-13). This applies to the Babylonian invaders and also to subsequent oppressors in the tumultuous times of the Antiochene crisis which this final vision has focused on. Not only deliverance, but also resurrection is promised for Daniel and his people (12:1-4, 13). This revelation by the river is rich and detailed, disturbing and somewhat bewildering, but ultimately reassuring.

Apocalyptic visions also give us the New Testament’s only glimpse of the Euphrates (Rev. 9:14; 16:12). John the seer regards it as a boundary or barrier, behind which lurk powerful and potentially overwhelming forces. Death and divine judgement abound in these disturbing chapters of Revelation. Babylon, although not mentioned by John directly in conjunction with the Euphrates, becomes an image of oppressive empire which needs to experience divine judgement (Rev. 14:8; 18:1-24).

Summary

In the narrative arc of the HB, places matter; God encounters human beings at and through particular locations (cf Inge, 2003, p.86). The first such encounter is depicted in a well-watered garden, where a stream rises and rivers flow, spreading luxuriant life with their waters, forming the great rivers of Mesopotamia. The accounts of Ezekiel and Daniel may suggest that the riverbank was a place deemed particularly suitable for human beings to receive a revelation of God. Jeremiah presents God speaking by the river and also through the river, with its waters physically participating in enactment of the divine message. However, another key aspect of all these encounters is highlighted by the psalmist: ‘By the rivers of Babylon – there we sat down…’ (Ps 137:1). Being ‘there’, by foreign rivers, means not being in the place that is desired and longed for: Jerusalem, Zion. Exile has broken these people’s hopes, prompting the response of lament; they experience a kind of death, even when seated by these great, life-sustaining rivers.

Death and Life on the Nile

Although not the only river in Egypt (see Japhet, 2006, p.42), the Nile surpasses all others in its importance and iconic status. Herodotus’ famous assertion that Egypt was ‘the gift of the river Nile’ is hardly an exaggeration, since virtually all human life in the region has always been close to the river. The gift comes in two physical forms: water and silt, flowing from the distant highlands of Ethiopia, arriving in the surge of the famous annual inundation (cf. Amos 8:8; 9:5). This brings parallels and contrasts with Mesopotamia: while the latter’s annual inundation usually arrived in spring and led, through human irrigational activity, to gradual clogging with silt and excessive salination of the soil and water table, Egypt’s annual inundation at the end of summer proved more beneficial. Its timing and regularity provided a layer of fertile silt on the free-draining sandy soil, leaving the land ready for the planting of winter crops as the salts leached away back into the river when the inundation ended (Hillel, 2006, p.90).

The Bible’s first reference to the Nile brings a reminder of its vital role as the source of Egypt’s life. Pharaoh’s first dream presents images of feast and then famine, both depicted in the form of bovine messengers coming up from the Nile (Genesis 41:1-4). Here the river is a key part of divine revelation, a reminder of human dependence and vulnerability. Egypt’s dearth of other freshwater sources had long made it dangerously dependent on this one river, the source of which remained unknown. This test of faith led to the river (or at least its inundation) becoming associated in ancient Egypt with Hapi, a hermaphrodite deity whose powerful benevolence was essential in ensuring the annual inundation (Garrett, 2014, p.292). Even here lay vulnerability: too small an overflow would reduce crop yields, while too great an inundation would break dykes and damage settlements. With the Nile also essential for travel, commerce, transport and waste disposal, any disruption of its waters would be the ultimate nightmare, not simply for Pharaoh but for all its inhabitants (cf Metzger & Coogan, 1993, pp.556-57; Marlow, 2007, pp.235-37).

In the Joseph narrative, Pharaoh has no power to prevent the years of drought by reviving the flow of the river. The great king’s vulnerability is exposed by divine revelation, with repeated mention of the Nile (four times in Gen. 41:1-3) indicating its importance as one of the protagonists in the drama of the dream. Pharaoh turns to Joseph, a disgraced immigrant, to prevent the obliteration of Egypt; this also enables the saving of lives from the wider region, as others who are facing famine also gravitate towards the nourishment provided by the Nile (Gen. 41:38-41; 50:20).

However, the source of Egypt’s life is not entirely benevolent: the Nile can itself be used to bring death. When a later Pharaoh decides on mass murder of innocent children, the water of the Nile provides a convenient choice as both executioner and grave: from this Pharaoh’s perspective, the river can be manipulated for these purposes at his command (Exod 1:22). Yet these same waters can also be manipulated by another, a nameless nobody (later named as Jochebed, Exod. 6:20), desperate to give her child a chance to live as she lays him on the surface of the river in a small, fragile boat. Instead of being the instrument of Pharaoh’s slaughter, the river supports and preserves the child, saving the life of the one who will eventually save his people. Like Noah before him, Moses drifts in his ‘ark’, which protects him from the waters of death (The infancy story of the early Mesopotamian king Sargon the Great also offers interesting parallels; see Hillel, 2006, p.293 fn. 26.). The power of the oppressor is subverted in a comical and satisfying way, as one of his own children who comes to the river to bathe finds her compassion stirred and co-opted (Exod 2:1-10). She rescues the child who will become her father’s nemesis, whose Egyptian name ‘Moses’, tweaked with a Hebrew pun, will always be a reminder of the river in which he was found and from whose waters he was ‘drawn’ (v10).

God is not mentioned in the account of the infant Moses’ miraculous survival; some readers might wonder whether to attribute his survival to the intervention of a local water-spirit, or to pure chance. As the narrative moves on to Exodus 7, however, we find no such ambiguity about the significance of the river; here Yhwh is proactive, directing the waters through his human servants, wielding his staff of power. Although Aaron is presented as the one who stretches out the staff over the waters of Egypt in 7:19, the surrounding verses (7:17 and 7:20) both offer an intriguing element of ambiguity, suggesting that it is truly Yhwh’s hand that does so. In this and the subsequent plagues, it is made clear that Yhwh is the one who can manipulate the created order: the Nile and the wider creation are not at Pharaoh’s command after all. The waters are struck (הכָ נָ nākāh) by Yhwh; like the humans and other creatures who are the usual objects of this verb, the waters then bleed. The river presents a lurid image of Egypt’s future, if Pharaoh will not yield. In addition, the medium becomes part of the message: tasting these poisoned waters or spreading them on the fields will bring death, as the dead fish and foul smell testify (7:21).

Pharaoh’s apparent indifference to this sign (perhaps having seen the river turn red in previous years, due to an excess of clay during a high inundation) will prove disastrous: the repeated phrase, ‘There was blood throughout the land of Egypt’ forewarns of actual human blood that will be shed in vast amounts. The river that is Egypt’s dependable source of life proves unreliable, producing divine revelation with a glimpse of coming judgement. In this and the subsequent divine actions in the chapters that follow, the natural order of creation unravels, reverting to a state of chaos for limited periods; here are ecological signs warning of coming disaster if the powers that be do not change their ways (see Fretheim, 1991, p.108). The plagues of Egypt later become a template for a New Testament prophet, who also depicts divine judgement on a cosmic scale (see Rev. 8-9 and 15, particularly 8:8-11; 16:3-4).

The Humiliation of Hubris

As the biblical account of historical events moves on, Egypt becomes to Israel less of a threat and more of a temptation. Thus a succession of HB prophets warn political leaders of Judah who are tempted to rebel against their current overlords about the futility of relying on Egypt. Occasionally, the Nile serves as a powerful and resonant image which can help convey the divine message.

Isaiah paints a shocking picture of the Nile, not red with blood as in Exodus, but dried up, its waters dwindling to nothing, its canals foul with stagnant water – with devastating consequences for the national economy, since Egyptians of all social groups rely on it (Isa. 19:5-10). Repetition of the word ראְֹי Yeor (‘Nile’) emphasises the enormity of this disaster: this greatest and most iconic of rivers, constantly renewed in its flow from the higher lands of Cush (Isa. 18:1-7), can still shrivel at Yhwh’s direction. Along with the loss of the Nile, Egypt’s famous wisdom and scholarship will also shrivel to nothing and its people divide against one another (Isa. 19:1-4; 11-15).

While Egypt’s total dependence on the Nile is highlighted as potentially its greatest vulnerability, hubris instead of humility is the recurring fault identified by prophetic critique of Egypt. Jeremiah resorts to sharp irony in portraying the folly of Pharaoh Neco, ‘rising up like the Nile’ in its annual inundation, as his army overflows Egypt’s borders and surges northwards to meet Nebuchadnezzar in battle (Jer. 46:1-12, particularly vv7-8). Such bravado proves futile, as this supposedly irresistible flood is turned back when it reaches the Euphrates at Carchemish, where Pharaoh’s army is defeated. Jeremiah declares that Yhwh is active at the heart of these events and in the subsequent vengeful invasion of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. 46:13-24). If the iconic image of the Nile overflowing was part of Neco’s own propaganda, it proves an empty boast: the eventual outcome will be more like the drought which Isaiah proclaimed.

Ezekiel’s lengthy critique of Egypt and those who rely on it explores some similar themes (Ezek. 29-32). Challenging any who hope Egypt may rescue Judah from impending Babylonian attack, the prophet condemns the Pharaoh of his day for apparently declaring: ‘My Nile is my own, made by me for myself.’ (Ezek. 29:3, 9 – emphasised through repetition; Allen’s translation, 1990, p.102). As king, Pharaoh was indeed proclaimed to be the one who owned the land and its great river. But in claiming to have made it, Pharaoh is declaring himself to be the divine creator, the very source of Egypt’s life. Ezekiel pronounces that such arrogant pretension will not be tolerated by the one true creator. Waste and desolation is promised, to a degree that again suggests the drying up of the Nile (Ezek. 29:10; 30:12). The prophet depicts the Egyptian ruler as a huge crocodile (or perhaps chaos monster) sprawling in the river Nile; both possibilities may be in view (see Allen, 1990, p.105). It looks fear-some and threatening – but is no match for Yhwh, who will hook it and haul it out, along with Pharaoh’s retinue of lesser fish, to be devoured on the river bank by other hungry creatures (Ezek. 29:4-5). This will be Yhwh’s doing, although his appointed fisherman will be the Babylonian king (cf Jeremiah 46). Ezekiel goes on to evoke the mighty Assyrian empire, long gone by his day; like Egypt, it was nourished by abundant rivers, from which its prosperity and awesome appearance were derived – but still was overthrown by Yhwh (Ezek. 31:2-17). (Note the repeated emphasis in this passage on Assyria’s dependence on its rivers - and, by implication, Egypt’s similar reliance on the Nile: Ezek. 31:4, 5, 7, 12, 14, 15, 16). Egypt will prove a disappointment to the Jerusalem elite of Ezekiel’s day - like leaning on one of the flexible papyrus reeds which grow by the Nile, only to find that they bend and break, cutting the hand that grasps them (29:6-7). Once again, the river furnishes vivid imagery which can ignite the imagination of the prophet’s audience, increasing the impact of the divine message.

Summary

The Nile serves most obviously as an iconic representation of Egypt. In the Pentateuch, it particularly expresses Egypt’s life and power. Without this reliable flow of water to fertilise the land, plant life and fish life would wither and with it all human life. Images of drought and of the Nile turning to blood serve as reminders that life is fragile and so is Egypt. As part of the wider creation, this river can be manipulated by its creator to save a precarious life from a wouldbe destroyer and also to help bring revelation, vividly expressing God’s judgment. This river reminds the reader that all life is vulnerable and not to be taken for granted; the wise will take this to heart and look to Yhwh as the ongoing source of life.

The Nile also becomes an icon of hubris, particularly in the prophetic tradition. Moses challenge to Pharaoh to release the Hebrew slaves is one of the biblical narrative’s earliest and most iconic instances of the prophetic role in speaking truth to power. Subsequent prophetic books remind Yhwh’s people, when aware of their vulnerability to more powerful neighbours, to resist anxious and unwise choices and instead trust in their God. The vagaries of imperial politics ebb and flow erratically, in unpredictable ways; for all their bravado, Egyptian rulers prove to be like an unreliable river which fails in the crucial season.

Boundary and Barrier

Our first sight of the Jordan in the Bible is a distant glimpse through the eyes of Lot. The fertility of its well-watered plain beckons, promising life and a future for those who are able to inhabit it (Gen. 13:10-11; cf Josh. 3:15). Here is a sight that evokes the riverine domain of Eden, ‘like the garden of Yhwh’, along with ‘the land of Egypt’, which suggests the Nile. Lot chooses the life-giving river. The reality his family experience turns out to be more complex, with death and destruction coming upon the fertile valley’s inhabitants as divine judgement for their corruption (Gen. 19).

Thereafter the narrative moves away from the Jordan, which becomes simply a geographical marker and boundary, referred to intermittently with reference to the comings and goings of Jacob/Israel (Gen. 32:10; 50:10-11; Num. 13:29; 34:12, 14; Deut. 1:1, 5). But after Israel’s escape from Egypt, this boundary gradually takes on the substance of a barrier which must be crossed – a forthcoming task alluded to repeatedly as Moses leads Yhwh’s people towards it (Num. 32:5, 21, 29; Deut. 4:21-22; 12:10; 27:2-4; 32:47). The sheer number of references and inferences to the Jordan in Deuteronomy build the sense of its significance (see Boyle, 2012, pp.26-27). Finally, we arrive at the riverbank with the people now led by Joshua and are confronted by its challenge (Josh. 3:1). The Jordan becomes a physical presence which represents potential failure (through being forced to turn back) or else death (by drowning in its particularly abundant waters - Josh. 3:15; 4:18).

Yet the presence of Yhwh, expressed physically in the ark of the covenant, proves decisive. The watery barrier opens, ‘cut off’, its flow pausing for as long as is needed (Josh. 3:16-17; 4:7). A sense of inevitability about the crossing has been building from Numbers onwards and now flows on in the calm, measured tone of the narrative, with its regular repetition of the word ‘cross’. This and the amount of space devoted to the crossing in Joshua 3-4 further emphasises its significance, not least in revealing to the people of Israel that Yhwh is with them and with Joshua, as the successor to Moses (Beck, 2005, pp.692-99). The divine promise of land is expressed and its fulfilment enabled through the river’s obedient withdrawal. Modern attempts to explain this phenomenon in geological terms (such as erosion of the soft, marly banks when the river is in spate, suddenly producing a temporary dam - Hillel, 2006, p.300) are in danger of missing the point: as with the earlier crossing of the Reed Sea, the most miraculous element is the timing, with the waters parting at just the right moment. The Jordan also becomes part of the testimony to later generations: stones taken from the river bed and formed into a cairn on its west bank physically express God’s saving grace to each of the twelve tribes. These stones from the river will prompt future story-telling to later generations (Josh. 4:2-7, 20-24). In the narrative as it stands, a second pile of stones, apparently made in mid-stream (Josh 4:9), disappears from view with the subsequent return of the water. This more puzzling creation, halfway between the two riverbanks, perhaps serves as a reminder that some tribes chose to settle on the east side of the Jordan and that they also need to remember Yhwh’s miraculous works through Moses and Joshua (see discussion on ambivalence towards those who settled on the east side - Havrelock, 2011, pp.101-05).

Mention of the Jordan’s floodwaters standing up ‘in a heap’ (Josh. 3:13, 16) reminds the reader of how other waters had previously done the same (Exod. 15:8 uses the same word, ד֖נֵ ned). This miraculous crossing of the Jordan closes with a specific reminder of the miraculous crossing of the yam suf (Reed Sea), thus overtly likening the two events and providing a bracket round the account of Israel’s journey from slavery to the promised land (Joshua 4:21-24; cf Psa. 66:6, which sets passing through ‘the sea’ in parallel with passing through ‘the river’ – similarly, Psa. 74:13-15). In salvation history, geography matters; the Jordan, like the Egyptian Sea, provides physical stuff in and through which salvation is achieved and experienced (cf Dozeman, 1996, pp.407-17). Scholars such as Noth and Cross have suggested there was an annual re-enactment festival in ancient Israel celebrating the crossing of the Jordan (see Havrelock, 2011, pp.88-89), although evidence for this interesting speculation is lacking. But the Jordan, like the Nile, is not to be divinised. In the Canaanite creation myth, Ba’al slays the god ‘Yam’ (Sea), also know sometimes as ‘Nahar’ (River); Exodus and Joshua, by contrast, present the earthly waters as parts of creation, subject to manipulation by their creator. This ‘living God’ and ‘Lord of all the earth’ (Josh 3:10-11) triumphs over all other supposed gods; the parting of these waters is done to enable faith in this God (McConville & Williams, 2010, pp.20-22.

As the narrative unfolds in Joshua and the books that follow, the Jordan continues to mark a barrier and boundary (Josh. 18:12, 20; 22:4, 25; Judg. 8:4). But now it increasingly forms a strategic part of the defences available to the tribes led by Joshua and their successors after they have settled in the land. Enemies can be ambushed at the Jordan and prevented from crossing (Judg. 3.28; 7.24; 12.5); or they can be avoided by crossing the Jordan to get away from them (1 Sam. 13:7). After he and his followers refresh themselves in the waters of the Jordan, the fleeing King David finds a greater degree of security by crossing the river (2 Sam. 16:14; 17:21-22). Following the subsequent victory over Absalom’s forces, David returns to the banks of the Jordan: this boundary marker becomes a symbolic meeting place where his return to royal office is negotiated, with the initial step of enactment being the bringing of David and his retinue back across this river (2 Sam. 19:15, 17-18, 31, 39, 41).

Yet the Jordan’s status as a boundary remains ambiguous. It marks a division between the territory of different Israelite tribes. But some of the twelve tribes remain settled on the eastern side of the Jordan (Num. 32; Josh. 13; 1 Sam. 13) – tribes which subsequently produce a number of admirable characters (2 Sam. 2:4-5; 1 Kgs 2:7; 17:1). This negates the Jordan’s identity in some biblical traditions as a clear-cut national border. Indeed, other biblical traditions proclaim an idealised ‘greater Israel’, whose eastern boundary is not the Jordan but the Euphrates (Gen. 15:18; Exod. 23:31; Deut 1:7; Josh. 1:4; 1 Kgs 5:1). The Jordan speaks of divisions between peoples, ‘us’ and ‘them’; yet on verbal and visualised maps of biblical Israel it runs down the middle, not along one edge, raising questions about the exact location and limits of the promised land (see Havrelock, 2011, chapters 5 & 6; also Marlow, 2018, p.79).

Dying and Rising in Baptism

One of the links between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament is the continuity of physical geography. The first character we meet in probably the earliest of the canonical gospels is John, baptising in the Jordan (Mark 1:4). The exact location is not specified, although crowds from Jerusalem may suggest a place in the south of the Jordan valley. (According to Josephus, John was eventually executed in Antipas’s palace of Machaerus on the east of the Dead Sea, suggesting that at least part of his ministry was on the east side of the Jordan; see discussion in France, 2002, p.66; Havrelock, 2011, pp.280-82).

John’s words and actions have attracted considerable interest. His practice carries resonance from the various washings required in Leviticus (eg Lev. 8:6; 15:5-27). This also has similarities to the repeated ritual washings of the Qumran community, with which John might have had links. Comparisons are also made with the practice of self-administered baptism of a Gentile becoming a proselyte. Yet for all these suggestive links, John’s baptism is an innovation – a once-only event; not simply for Gentiles but for Jews; with an emphasis on repentance, moral change and forgiveness of sins; administered not by self but by John; taking place not in a designated mikveh (tank/bath), but away from any religious centre, in a river (cf Hooker, 2006, pp.40-43).

The nature and significance of that river has prompted less discussion among commentators. We might wonder whether this location is simply a matter of convenience and availability: if John was based in the Qumran area, few other suitable bodies of water would be available to him. However, the location of John’s baptism ministry is identified repeatedly, in all four canonical gospels: that this is not simply any river - it is the Jordan (Mark 1:5, 9; Matthew 3:5, 6, 13; Luke 3:3; 4:1; John 1:28; 3:26; 10:40). In the flow of biblical narrative, the Jordan has become a fluid palimpsest, imbued with cultural and theological significance by successive generations. As John baptises people in this particular river, historic connotations surface – of those who crossed the Reed Sea and received God’s Law, finding their communal status as ‘God’s son’ confirmed; of those who emerged from the wilderness (cf Mark 1:4) accompanying Joshua to enter and conquer the land; of the continued struggle to challenge idolatry and disobedience while upholding the worship of Yhwh in that land, epitomised by Elijah and his successor. In John the Baptiser’s ministry, all this is ‘background noise’ provided by the presence of the Jordan, audible to those with minds furnished by the Hebrew Bible. If John did have close links with Qumran, he might have been aware of the way that community used the story of Joshua to shape and interpret its own existence, particularly the emphasis on ‘crossing over’ into new life in the covenant community, expressed in a ceremony involving lustration (see Earl, 2010, pp.128-29). By John’s day, the river Jordan has become a ‘storied place’, that is, a location linked with ideology ‘where some things have happened which are now remembered and which provide continuity and identity across generations….a space in which important words have been spoken which have established identity, defined vocation, and envisioned destiny.’ Brueggemann, 2002, p.4; cf Inge, 2003, pp.36, 54 and Havrelock, 2011, p.64).

To all this, the various NT writers add further layers of meaning. John’s proclamation ‘in the wilderness’ evokes the prophetic image of return from exile in a new exodus, this one from Babylon (Mark 1:3, quoting Isa. 40:3 along with other texts). John’s manner and ascetic clothing remind people of Elijah (John 1:21; Mark 1:2,6, cf 2 Kgs 1:8), while his action of dipping people in the Jordan evokes the cleansing found there by Naaman under direction from Elisha. However, John’s baptism is not simply for Gentiles, but particularly for Jews: this cleansing is needed by all, regardless of their ethnic heritage. Moreover, the traditional distinction between ritual impurity and moral impurity is disappearing (a development also seen in the intertwining of moral and ritual impurity in the washings practiced at Qumran), as the two become conflated in John’s baptism of repentance. (Havrelock, 2011, p.185). Those who wish to discover this must emerge from their urban comfort zones and venture into the harshness and uncertainty of ‘the wilderness’ – a traditional place of encounter with God along with testing and struggle (particularly in Exodus to Deuteronomy; also Jer. 2:2-3; Psa. 106). This is also the location where both comfort and challenge are to be experienced through the words and actions of John in the life-giving Jordan. The free availability of these river waters, untamed and unconstrained, expresses something of divine grace: this water is not a resource, manipulated into channels or tanks by human ingenuity, but simply a part of God’s creation, to be received as gift Cf Perkinson, 2016, pp.468-74). Those from Jerusalem and Judea will also find their prejudices challenged when John affirms the greatness of an unknown northerner from Galilee (Mark 1:7-9). As if to affirm this inclusiveness, the Jordan’s route connects north and south of the country, oblivious to the mutual suspicion which had grown between the regions (John 1:46; 7:40-42, 52); for the river, it is geographical faults and rifts, rather than human ones, that are decisive.

Local geography also comes into view when John warns his hearers that God is quite capable of producing new descendants of Abraham from ‘these stones’ (Matt. 3:9; Luke 3:8); Joshua’s stones of witness on the banks of this same river might come to people’s minds (Joshua 4:1-9) (Green, 1977, p.167-170; Donahue & Harrington, 2002, p.61). In the climax of this scene a new Joshua (Jesus’ Hebrew name) is baptised in the Jordan. Rather than parting the waters, as his namesake had done, Jesus experiences the dramatic opening of the heavens (‘torn open’ in Mark’s account) – perhaps reminiscent of Ezekiel’s experience by the Chebar river, where opened heavens led to divine revelation (Ezek. 1:1-3) (cf Garland, 1998, p.49; Luz, 2007, p.143). Jesus’ experience is accompanied by a heavenly voice alluding to a rich seam of HB texts (Mark 1:11; cf Gen. 22:2; Psa. 2:7; Isa. 42:1). He is identified, commissioned and launched into his mission through this seminal personal experience of the waters of the Jordan. But while Elisha and Joshua each remained in the shadow of their illustrious predecessor, even after being recognised as his successor in their passage through the Jordan, Jesus overshadows John even before he is baptised by him (Matt. 3:11, 13-15; John 1:29-30) and all the more so thereafter. Moreover, Joshua and Elisha passed through the liminal space of these waters horizontally; in Jesus’ baptism the axis shifts to the vertical, with the heavens above opening to bestow blessing as he rises from the water. But even as the axis is tipped, the Jordan itself remains central, its medial point (Havrelock, 2011, p.168).

All four canonical gospels highlight Isaiah 40:3 (‘a voice crying in the wilderness…’) as programmatic in relation to John’s ministry of baptism and Jesus’ subsequent ministry; their further identification of him with the mysterious servant figure of Isaiah 40-55 is particularly emphasised in Mark and Matthew (see discussion in Brown & Roberts, 2018, pp.40-46; 329-32). Those chapters in Isaiah repeatedly present God promising to provide streams for his people to drink in the desert and also promising to enable their safe passage through dangerous rivers (Isa. 41:17-20; 43:1-2, 19-21; 44:3-4; 49:10). Isaiah’s largely figurative imagery, non-specific about any particular riverine locations, may be evoked here at Jesus’ baptism in the imaginations of observers at the scene and those of subsequent readers: Jesus, representing and identifying with his people Israel in baptism, appears here in the wilderness like the returning exiles, emerging safely through the waters of the Jordan into the land of promise.

The symbolism in John’s baptism and in the subsequent emergence of Christian baptism is rich and diverse. This latter-day Joshua will lead those who follow through the waters to an even greater conquest which will establish God’s kingdom on earth. Dying and rising will be his path, echoed by his followers as they are buried in the waters of baptism and rise from them to new life (Romans 6:1-14); this suggests a full immersion in the water, as perhaps indicated in Mark’s depiction of Jesus ‘coming up from the water (Mark 1:10; Matt. 3:16). The imagery of the former life drowning under the waters of the river has become for Paul a powerful image for refuting his critics and expressing what it means to be baptised and consequently to live a new life united with Christ (Longnecker, 2016, pp.444-47). The enacted drama of baptism, with all its physical movements and sensory shock of encounter with the water, becomes an experience of grace. The medium of water proves to be an essential part of the message of salvation.

The association of the Jordan with baptism gradually led to the river losing its significance in Christian thinking in terms of a physical part of the historic land of Israel. Instead, Christian theologians came to see it figuratively as the boundary which needed to be crossed between death and new life, in order to cross over into membership of Christ’s church. Origen even allegorised the river to represent Jesus Christ himself, the one who washes away sins and saves the sinner. By contrast, the river’s physical presence has taken on renewed significance in the politics of its region since the early twentieth century, with Jews and Palestinians drawing on their respective traditions to argue for renewed territorial boundaries on either side of the Jordan. Twentieth century Zionists referred to the biblical Transjordanian tribes in arguing for a greater Israel; subsequent Israeli governments have settled for a smaller state with the river as a clear and defendable boundary. ‘Crossing the Jordan’ has become a metaphor for diaspora Jews entering the land to settle; also for Palestinians displaced by settlement and conflict, unwillingly leaving their homeland. In addition, access to the Jordan’s waters has continued to be a contentions, life-and-death issue, more so than ever in our own day (see Havrelock, 2011, pp.189-90; also the whole of chapter 9).

Flowing Back to Eden

The Jordan’s name seems to derive from דרַָי yārad, meaning ‘go down’: a suitable reminder of its descent to below sea level in the great rift valley (cf Robertson, 1996, pp.50-51). The river ends in a place famous for being lifeless: the Salt Sea or Dead Sea. A sad end, we might feel, for a river which has been a location for many experiencing new life in the biblical narrative.

However, parts of the Bible offer a different outcome. The image of Eden, with which we began this study, the place where life-giving rivers flow out of a mountain and nourish an earthly garden, has a mythic and archetypal resonance which finds echoes in subsequent biblical books. The Jerusalem Temple is depicted as the meeting place of heaven, earth and even regions below the earth. Those who ascend the ‘hill of Yhwh’ should remember that the whole earth is founded on ‘seas’ and ‘rivers’ (Ps. 24:1-2). Mount Zion is the source of ‘all my springs’ (Ps. 87:7); ‘a fountain of life’ comes forth from the Temple (Joel 3:18), ‘living waters’ will flow out from Jerusalem (Zech. 14:8), where Yhwh in person ‘will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams’ (Isa. 33:21; see also Pss. 36:8-9; 46:4) (Srokosz & Watson, 2017, pp.110-14). This prophetic imagery is developed most dramatically by Ezekiel, as he sees flowing from under the altar in the restored Temple a trickle of water which miraculously swells into a river too deep to cross. This growing, unstoppable surge of divine life flows down to the Jordan valley, transforming what was arid, salty and lifeless, providing an abundance of fish and fruitful trees (Ezek. 47:1-12). The holiness of divine presence, concentrated in the idealised Temple of Ezekiel’s vision, flows out to purify and sanctify the entire land, bringing ‘healing’ (mentioned repeatedly) even to its lowest and most desolate places. Life-giving redemption is expressed in the form of rehydration, a resonant image in a land with few reliable streams and springs (Block, 2014, p.178; also Myers, 2018, pp.65-67).

In the New Testament we find the Johannine Jesus appropriating this imagery and dramatically redirecting it towards himself: he becomes the fount of life-giving water, as in turn do all those who receive his life within themselves; the source of divine life is relocated to particular persons (John 7:37-39). However, a subsequent prophet, seeing visions through Ezekiel-tinted lenses, takes up that Old Testament imagery and recycles it further (Rev. 22:1-2). In the renewed, eschatological Jerusalem and its surrounding lands, the familiar age-old problem of limited water sources and lack of reliable rivers in the Judean highlands is solved; the luxuriance of Eden is re-established by its original creator.

The multiple trees of Ezekiel’s vision here become a single ‘tree of life’ (Rev. 22:2, 14, 19), evoking the singular tree of Eden (Gen. 2:9) (Aune, 1999, pp.1177-78). In a much later mystical interpretation of Christian baptism, the Jordan was relocated as one of the rivers originally flowing from Eden, so that immersion in it for baptism represented crossing over into a new birth and an actual return to the Garden of Eden (See Earl, 2010, pp.131-33). All this riverine visionary imagery is not purely symbolic: the trajectory of biblical narrative affirms a future of physical transformation, an eschatological hope involving the renewal of the created order in ‘the marriage of heaven and earth’ (Wright, 2007, pp.115-17; also Middleton, 2014, particularly chapter 3).

The Christian Bible ends by echoing where it began, with a particular symmetry: life-giving river waters flow from within a perfect, idealised garden city (Gen. 2:10-14; Rev. 22:1-2). Now comes the gift of ‘healing for the nations’ (Rev 22:2), nourished by the waters of the divinely appointed river.

Summary

The Hebrews emerge in the Bible as a people whose very identity is expressed in terms of crossing over rivers, particularly this river. As a barrier and boundary, the Jordan expresses the physical location of the promised land, yielding to Joshua in affirming both that promise and his authority, while also providing stones as a physical reminder of both. Continuity in Yhwh’s ongoing purpose is expressed in the Jordan’s responsiveness for the subsequent crossings of Elijah and Elisha. Cleansing through immersion in these particular waters is given to Naaman, a theme which the New Testament develops further, declaring new life through the washing administered by John: a death and resurrection creating a new Israel, a people returning from the defilement of exile to settle anew in their promised land. The creation of a new Eden emerges as a future vision, depicted in the renewal of the lower Jordan valley. In all this, the theme of transition recurs: the transition of the tribes led by Joshua from nomads to settlers; the transition from Moses to Joshua and Elijah to Elisha, a new generation of leaders; transition into a new life in baptism; transition from the old order to a renewed, healed creation in the apocalyptic visions.