Reference: River
American
This word answers in our Bible to various Hebrew terms, of which the principal are the following:
1. Yeor, an Egyptian word signifying river. It is always applied to the Nile and its various canals, except in Job 28:10; Da 12:5-6,7.
2. Nahar, applied, like our word river, to constantly flowing streams, such as the Euphrates. In our version this word is sometimes rendered "flood," Jos 24:2-3, etc.
3. Nahal, a torrent-bed, or valley through which water flows in the rainy season only, Nu 34:5, etc; frequently rendered "brook," Nu 13:28; Job 6:15, etc. Such streams are to the orientals striking emblems of inconstancy and faithlessness. Flowing only in the rainy season, and drying up when the summer heat sets in-and some of them in desert places failing prematurely-they sadly disappoint the thirsty and perhaps perishing traveller who has looked forward to them with longing and with hope, Job 6:15-20; Jer 15:18.
In some passages in our Bible the word "rivers" seems to denote rivulets or canals, to conduct hither and thither small streams of water from a tank or fountain, Eze 31:4. Such conduits were easily turned by moulding the soil with the foot; and some think this is the idea in De 11:10; "where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs." See also Pr 21:1.
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However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there.
And the border shall turn from Azmon to the Brook of Egypt, and its limit shall be at the sea.
For the land that you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated it, like a garden of vegetables.
And Joshua said to all the people, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan, and made his offspring many. I gave him Isaac.
My brothers are treacherous as a torrent-bed, as torrential streams that pass away, which are dark with ice, and where the snow hides itself. read more. When they melt, they disappear; when it is hot, they vanish from their place. The caravans turn aside from their course; they go up into the waste and perish. The caravans of Tema look, the travelers of Sheba hope. They are ashamed because they were confident; they come there and are disappointed.
He cuts out channels in the rocks, and his eye sees every precious thing.
The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.
Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? Will you be to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail?
The waters nourished it; the deep made it grow tall, making its rivers flow around the place of its planting, sending forth its streams to all the trees of the field.
Then I, Daniel, looked, and behold, two others stood, one on this bank of the stream and one on that bank of the stream. And someone said to the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream,"How long shall it be till the end of these wonders?"
Easton
(1.) Heb 'aphik, properly the channel or ravine that holds water (2Sa 22:16), translated "brook," "river," "stream," but not necessarily a perennial stream (Eze 6:3; 31:12; 32:6; 34:13).
(2.) Heb nahal, in winter a "torrent," in summer a "wady" or valley (Ge 32:23; De 2:24; 3:16; Isa 30:28; La 2:18; Eze 47:9).
These winter torrents sometimes come down with great suddenness and with desolating force. A distinguished traveller thus describes his experience in this matter:, "I was encamped in Wady Feiran, near the base of Jebel Serbal, when a tremendous thunderstorm burst upon us. After little more than an hour's rain, the water rose so rapidly in the previously dry wady that I had to run for my life, and with great difficulty succeeded in saving my tent and goods; my boots, which I had not time to pick up, were washed away. In less than two hours a dry desert wady upwards of 300 yards broad was turned into a foaming torrent from 8 to 10 feet deep, roaring and tearing down and bearing everything upon it, tangled masses of tamarisks, hundreds of beautiful palmtrees, scores of sheep and goats, camels and donkeys, and even men, women, and children, for a whole encampment of Arabs was washed away a few miles above me. The storm commenced at five in the evening; at half-past nine the waters were rapidly subsiding, and it was evident that the flood had spent its force." (Comp. Mt 7:27; Lu 6:49.)
(3.) Nahar, a "river" continuous and full, a perennial stream, as the Jordan, the Euphrates (Ge 2:10; 15:18; De 1:7; Ps 66:6; Eze 10:15).
(4.) Tel'alah, a conduit, or water-course (1Ki 18:32; 2Ki 18:17; 20:20; Job 38:25; Eze 31:4).
(5.) Peleg, properly "waters divided", i.e., streams divided, throughout the land (Ps 1:3); "the rivers [i.e., 'divisions'] of waters" (Job 20:17; 29:6; Pr 5:16).
(6.) Ye'or, i.e., "great river", probably from an Egyptian word (Aur), commonly applied to the Nile (Ge 41:1-3), but also to other rivers (Job 28:10; Isa 33:21).
(7.) Yubhal, "a river" (Jer 17:8), a full flowing stream.
(8.) 'Ubhal, "a river" (Da 8:2).
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A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.
On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,
After two whole years, Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing by the Nile, and behold, there came up out of the Nile seven cows attractive and plump, and they fed in the reed grass. read more. And behold, seven other cows, ugly and thin, came up out of the Nile after them, and stood by the other cows on the bank of the Nile.
Turn and take your journey, and go to the hill country of the Amorites and to all their neighbors in the Arabah, in the hill country and in the lowland and in the Negeb and by the seacoast, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.
'Rise up, set out on your journey and go over the Valley of the Arnon. Behold, I have given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Begin to take possession, and contend with him in battle.
and to the Reubenites and the Gadites I gave the territory from Gilead as far as the Valley of the Arnon, with the middle of the valley as a border, as far over as the river Jabbok, the border of the Ammonites;
Then the channels of the sea were seen; the foundations of the world were laid bare, at the rebuke of the LORD, at the blast of the breath of his nostrils.
and with the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD. And he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two seahs of seed.
He will not look upon the rivers, the streams flowing with honey and curds.
He cuts out channels in the rocks, and his eye sees every precious thing.
when my steps were washed with butter, and the rock poured out for me streams of oil!
"Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt,
He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.
He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot. There did we rejoice in him,
Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?
his breath is like an overflowing stream that reaches up to the neck; to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction, and to place on the jaws of the peoples a bridle that leads astray.
But there the LORD in majesty will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams, where no galley with oars can go, nor majestic ship can pass.
He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit."
Their heart cried to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears stream down like a torrent day and night! Give yourself no rest, your eyes no respite!
and say, You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD! Thus says the Lord GOD to the mountains and the hills, to the ravines and the valleys: Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places.
And the cherubim mounted up. These were the living creatures that I saw by the Chebar canal.
The waters nourished it; the deep made it grow tall, making its rivers flow around the place of its planting, sending forth its streams to all the trees of the field.
Foreigners, the most ruthless of nations, have cut it down and left it. On the mountains and in all the valleys its branches have fallen, and its boughs have been broken in all the ravines of the land, and all the peoples of the earth have gone away from its shadow and left it.
I will drench the land even to the mountains with your flowing blood, and the ravines will be full of you.
And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country.
And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish. For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes.
And I saw in the vision; and when I saw, I was in Susa the capital, which is in the province of Elam. And I saw in the vision, and I was at the Ulai canal.
And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."
But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great."
Fausets
A river in our sense is seen by few in Palestine.
(1) Nahar, "a continuous and full river", as Jordan, and especially "the river" Euphrates. The streams are dried up wholly in summer, or hid by dense shrubs covering a deeply sunk streamlet. When the country was wooded the evaporation was less.
(2) Nahal, "a winter torrent," flowing with force during the rainy season, but leaving only a dry channel or bed in the wady in summer. "Brook" in the KJV has too much the idea of placidity. "Valley" or wady (Nu 32:9), e.g. "the bed" (or, in winter, "the torrent") of Arnon, Jabbok, Kishon. Some of these are abrupt chasms in the rocky hills, rugged and gloomy, unlike our English "brook." Translated Job 6:15, "deceitfully as a winter torrent and as the stream in ravines which passes away," namely, in the summer drought, and which disappoint the caravan hoping to find water there. The Arab proverb for a treacherous friend is "I trust not in thy torrent." The fullness and noise of those temporary streams answer to the past large and loud professions; their dryness when wanted answers to the failure of friends to make good their professions in time of need (compare Isa 58:11; margin Jer 15:18).
(3) 'Aphik, from a root "to contain"; so "the channels" or "deep rock-walled ravines that hold the waters" (2Sa 22:16); so for "rivers" (Eze 32:6) translated "channels."
(4) Yeor, "the river Nile" (Ge 41:1-2; Ex 1:22; 2:3,5). In Jer 46:7-8; Am 8:8; 9:5, translated "the river of Egypt" for "flood." The word is Egyptian, "great river" or "canal." The Nile's sacred name was Hapi, i.e. Apis. The profane name was Aur with the epithet act "great." Zec 10:11, "all the deeps of the river shall dry up," namely, the Nile or else the Euphrates. Thus the Red "sea" and the Euphrates "river" in the former part of the verse answer to "Assyria." and "Egypt" in the latter.
(5) Peleg (compare Greek pelagos), from a root "divide," "waters divided", i.e. streams distributed through a land. Ps 1:3, "a tree planted by the divisions of water," namely, the water from the well or cistern divided into rivulets running along the rows of trees (See REUBEN on Jg 5:15-16, where "divisions" mean "waters divided for irrigation"); but Gesenius from the root to flow out or bubble up.
(6) Yubal, "a full flowing stream" (Jer 17:8).
(7) "A conduit" or "watercourse" (2Ki 18:17); tealah.
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After two whole years, Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing by the Nile, and behold, there came up out of the Nile seven cows attractive and plump, and they fed in the reed grass.
Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, "Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live."
When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank.
Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it.
For when they went up to the Valley of Eshcol and saw the land, they discouraged the heart of the people of Israel from going into the land that the LORD had given them.
the princes of Issachar came with Deborah, and Issachar faithful to Barak; into the valley they rushed at his heels. Among the clans of Reuben there were great searchings of heart. Why did you sit still among the sheepfolds, to hear the whistling for the flocks? Among the clans of Reuben there were great searchings of heart.
Then the channels of the sea were seen; the foundations of the world were laid bare, at the rebuke of the LORD, at the blast of the breath of his nostrils.
And the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab-saris, and the Rabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they arrived, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway to the Washer's Field.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.
And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? Will you be to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail?
He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit."
"Who is this, rising like the Nile, like rivers whose waters surge? Egypt rises like the Nile, like rivers whose waters surge. He said, 'I will rise, I will cover the earth, I will destroy cities and their inhabitants.'
I will drench the land even to the mountains with your flowing blood, and the ravines will be full of you.
Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who dwells in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?"
The Lord GOD of hosts, he who touches the earth and it melts, and all who dwell in it mourn, and all of it rises like the Nile, and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt;
He shall pass through the sea of troubles and strike down the waves of the sea, and all the depths of the Nile shall be dried up. The pride of Assyria shall be laid low, and the scepter of Egypt shall depart.
Hastings
For the meaning and use of '
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A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.
On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,
On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,
Then the servant took ten of his master's camels and departed, taking all sorts of choice gifts from his master; and he arose and went to Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor.
He fled with all that he had and arose and crossed the Euphrates, and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead.
And the LORD said to Moses, "Say to Aaron, 'Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, their canals, and their ponds, and all their pools of water, so that they may become blood, and there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.'"
And the LORD said to Moses, "Say to Aaron, 'Stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers, over the canals and over the pools, and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt!'"
Turn and take your journey, and go to the hill country of the Amorites and to all their neighbors in the Arabah, in the hill country and in the lowland and in the Negeb and by the seacoast, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.
because they did not meet you with bread and with water on the way, when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you
Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?" So he turned and went away in a rage.
And the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab-saris, and the Rabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they arrived, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway to the Washer's Field.
The rest of the deeds of Hezekiah and all his might and how he made the pool and the conduit and brought water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?
Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods.
when my steps were washed with butter, and the rock poured out for me streams of oil!
"Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt,
Behold, if the river is turbulent he is not frightened; he is confident though Jordan rushes against his mouth.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.
You visit the earth and water it; you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide their grain, for so you have prepared it.
By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.
And the LORD said to Isaiah, "Go out to meet Ahaz, you and Shear-jashub your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Washer's Field.
therefore, behold, the Lord is bringing up against them the waters of the River, mighty and many, the king of Assyria and all his glory. And it will rise over all its channels and go over all its banks,
his breath is like an overflowing stream that reaches up to the neck; to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction, and to place on the jaws of the peoples a bridle that leads astray.
And the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem, with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Washer's Field.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.
Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea;
He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit."
"Who is this, rising like the Nile, like rivers whose waters surge?
"Thus says the LORD: Behold, waters are rising out of the north, and shall become an overflowing torrent; they shall overflow the land and all that fills it, the city and those who dwell in it. Men shall cry out, and every inhabitant of the land shall wail.
In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the Chebar canal, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.
The waters nourished it; the deep made it grow tall, making its rivers flow around the place of its planting, sending forth its streams to all the trees of the field.
And I saw in the vision; and when I saw, I was in Susa the capital, which is in the province of Elam. And I saw in the vision, and I was at the Ulai canal. I raised my eyes and saw, and behold, a ram standing on the bank of the canal. It had two horns, and both horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last.
He came to the ram with the two horns, which I had seen standing on the bank of the canal, and he ran at him in his powerful wrath.
On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of the great river (that is, the Tigris)
But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
its mistress is stripped; she is carried off, her slave girls lamenting, moaning like doves and beating their breasts.
And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
Morish
The three principal rivers referred to in scripture are the Nile, the Jordan, and the Euphrates. The word employed for the Nile is yeor, 'a fosse or channel'; for the Jordan and the Euphrates the word used is nahar, 'a river' always supplied with water. The other streams in Palestine, though called 'rivers,' as the Arnon, are torrents running in valleys; for the most part they have water only in the winter, and are then often impassable: these are described by the word nachal. For the symbolical river that Ezekiel saw issuing from the house this latter word is used. Eze 47:5-12.
God will make His people drink of the river of His pleasures, Ps 36:8; here the word is nachal. In Ps 46:4 it is nahar. "There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God." It will never run dry.
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They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.
Again he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen. It was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through. And he said to me, "Son of man, have you seen this?"Then he led me back to the bank of the river. read more. As I went back, I saw on the bank of the river very many trees on the one side and on the other. And he said to me, "This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, and enters the sea; when the water flows into the sea, the water will become fresh. And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish. For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes. Fishermen will stand beside the sea. From Engedi to Eneglaim it will be a place for the spreading of nets. Its fish will be of very many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea. But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they are to be left for salt. And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing."
Smith
River.
In the sense in which we employ the word viz. for a perennial stream of considerable size, a river is a much rarer object in the East than in the West. With the exception of the Jordan and the Litany, the streams of the holy land are either entirely dried up in the summer months converted into hot lanes of glaring stones, or else reduced to very small streamlets, deeply sunk in a narrow bed, and concealed from view by a dense growth of shrubs. The perennial river is called nahar by the Hebrews. With the definite article, "the river," it signifies invariably the Euphrates.
Ge 31:21; Ex 23:31; Nu 24:6; 2Sa 10:16
etc. It is never applied to the fleeting fugitive torrents of Palestine. The term for these is nachal, for which our translators have used promiscuously, and sometimes almost alternately, "valley" "brook" and "river." No one of these words expresses the thing intended; but the term "brook" is peculiarly unhappy. Many of the wadys of Palestine are deep, abrupt chasms or rents in the solid rock of-the hills, and have a savage, gloomy aspect, far removed from that of an English brook. Unfortunately our language does not contain any single word which has both the meanings of the Hebrew nachal and its Arabic equivalent wady which can be used at once for a dry valley and for the stream which occasionally flows through it.
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He fled with all that he had and arose and crossed the Euphrates, and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead.
And I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates, for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you.
Like palm groves that stretch afar, like gardens beside a river, like aloes that the LORD has planted, like cedar trees beside the waters.
Watsons
RIVER. The Hebrews give the name of "the river," without any addition, sometimes to the Nile, sometimes to the Euphrates, and sometimes to Jordan. It is the tenor of the discourse that must determine the sense of this vague and uncertain way of speaking. They give also the name of river to brooks and rivulets that are not considerable. The name of river is sometimes given to the sea, Hab 3:8; Ps 78:16. It is also used as a symbol for plenty, Job 29:6; Ps 36:8.
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when my steps were washed with butter, and the rock poured out for me streams of oil!
They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
He made streams come out of the rock and caused waters to flow down like rivers.
Was your wrath against the rivers, O LORD? Was your anger against the rivers, or your indignation against the sea, when you rode on your horses, on your chariot of salvation?