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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Only that the people are strong dwelling upon the land, and the cities fortified, and very great: and also we saw the children of Anak there.
And the boundary turned from Azmon to the torrent of Egypt, and the goings out were the sea.
For the land where thou goest in there to possess it, it is not as the land of Egypt, where ye came from there, when thou shalt sow thy seed, and thou wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of green things:
And Joshua will say to all the people, So said Jehovah the God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt beyond the river from everlasting time, Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor and they will serve other gods. And I will take your father Abraham from beyond the river, and I will lead him into all the land of Canaan, and I will multiply his seed and I will give to him Isaak.
My brethren dealt faithlessly as a torrent; as a channel of torrents they shall pass away;
My brethren dealt faithlessly as a torrent; as a channel of torrents they shall pass away; Being darkened because of ice, upon them the snow will be hid: read more. In the time they will flow of they became extinct: in its heat they were extinguished from their place. The paths of their way will turn aside; they will go up into desolation and perish. Behold the paths of Tema; the goings of Sheba, wait ye for them. They were ashamed for trusting; they came even to it, they will be put to shame.
Steams of waters the heart of the king, in the hand of Jehovah: upon all which he shall delight in he will turn it
Wherefore was my pain everlasting and my blow incurable, refusing to be healed? Being, wilt thou be to me as falsehood, the waters were not faithful?
The water made him great, the deep raised him up with her rivers going round about her planting, and she sent forth her channels to all the trees of the field.
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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And a river shall go out from Eden to water the garden, and from thence it shall be separated into four heads.
In that day Jehovah cut out a covenant with Abram, saying, To thy seed gave I this land from the river of Egypt, to the great river, the river Euphrates:
Andhewill take them and will cause them to pass through the torrent, and he will cause to pass through what is to him.
And it will be the end of two years of days, and Pharaoh dreamed; and behold, he stood by the river. And behold, from the river came up seven heifers, fair of look and fat in flesh; and they will feed in marsh grass. read more. Behold, seven other heifers coming up after them out of the river, evil of look, thin in flesh; and they will stand by the heifers by the lip of the river.
Turn ye and remove for yourselves, and go to the mountain of the Amorite, and to all his neighbors in the sterile region, in the mountain, and in the low country, and in the south and in the coast of the sea, the land of the Canaanites and of Lebanon to the great river, the river Phrath
Rise ye up, remove and pass through the torrent Arnon: see, I gave into thy hand Sihon, king of Heshbon, the Amorite, and his land: begin and possess and thou shalt contend with him in war.
And to the Reubemtes and to the Gadites I gave from Gilead even to the torrent Anion, the midst of the torrent and the boundary and even to the emptying of the torrent, the boundary of the sons of Ammon.
The torrents of the sea will be seen, The foundations of the habitable globe will be uncovered, In the rebuke of Jehovah, from the breath of the spirit of his anger.
And he will build with the stones an altar in the name of Jehovah: and he will make a channel, rolling up two measures of seed, round about the altar.
He shall not look upon the streams, the rivers, the torrents of honey and curdled milk
In washing my goings with butter, and the rock will pour out with me streams of oil;
Who divided a channel for the overflowing, and a way for the lightning of the voices?
And he was as a tree planted by the streams of water which will give its fruit in its time; his leaf shall not fall away, and all which he shall do shall be prospered.
He turned the sea into dry land: they will pass through the river on foot: there we shall rejoice in him.
Thy fountains shall be dispersed without; in the broad places streams of waters.
And his spirit as the torrent overflowing, shall divide even to the neck, to shake the nations in the sieve of ruin: and a curb upon the cheeks of the people, causing to err.
But there the mighty Jehovah to us a place of rivers, rivers broad of hands; a ship with the oar shall not go in it, and a mighty ship shall not pass over it.
And he was as a tree planted by the waters, and it shall spread out its roots by the river, and it shall not see when heat shall come, and its leaf was green; and it shall not be afraid in the year of restraint, and it shall not withdraw from making fruit.
Their heart cried to Jehovah, O wall of the daughter of Zion, cause tears to go down as a torrent day and night thou shalt give no remission to thyself; the daughter of thine eye shall not be silent
And say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Jehovah: Thus said the Lord Jehovah to the mountains and to the hills, to the torrents and to the valleys: behold me, I bring the sword upon you, and I destroyed your heights.
And the cherubs will be lifted up. This the living creature which I saw by the river Chebar.
The water made him great, the deep raised him up with her rivers going round about her planting, and she sent forth her channels to all the trees of the field.
And strangers, the terrible of the nations, shall cut him off and cast him down: upon the mountains and in all the galleys his branches fell, and his boughs shall be broken by all the torrents of the land; and all the people of the land shall go down from his shadow, and will cast him down.
And I watered the earth with thine inundation from thy blood, to the mountains; and the rivers shall be full from thee.
And I brought them out from the peoples, and I gathered them from the lands, and I brought them to their land, and I fed them upon the mountains of Israel by the torrents, and in all the dwellings of the earth.
And it was every living soul that shall creep, to all where the two torrents shall come there, shall live: and there was very many fish, because these waters came there: and they shall be healed and all lived where the torrent shall come there.
And I shall see in a vision; and it will be in my seeing, and I in Shushan the fortress, in Elam the province; and I shall see in a vision, and I was by the stream of strength.
And the rain descended, and rivers came, and winds blew and struck upon that house, and it fell, and great was its fall.
And he having heard, and not having done, is like a man having built a house upon the earth, without a foundation; against which the river dashed, and immediately it fell; and the breaking 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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And it will be the end of two years of days, and Pharaoh dreamed; and behold, he stood by the river. And behold, from the river came up seven heifers, fair of look and fat in flesh; and they will feed in marsh grass.
And Pharaoh will command to all the people, saying, Every son being brought forth ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall preserve alive.
And she will not be able any more to hide him, and she will take for him an ark of bulrush, and will pitch it with bitumen and with pitch, and she will put in it the child, and will put in the sedge by the lip of the river.
And the daughter of Pharaoh will come down to wash at the river; and her maids going by the side of the river: and she will see the ark in the midst of the sedge, and she will send her maid and she will take it.
And they will go up to the valley of Eshcol, and will see the land, and hinder the heart of the sons of Israel not to go to the land which Jehovah gave to them.
And the chiefs in Issachar with Deborah; And Issachar, so Barak: In the valley sent he, upon his feet. In the divisions of Reuben, Great decrees of heart Wherefore didst thou dwell in the midst of the folds, To hear the pipings of the flocks? For the divisions of Reuben, great searching's of heart
The torrents of the sea will be seen, The foundations of the habitable globe will be uncovered, In the rebuke of Jehovah, from the breath of the spirit of his anger.
And the king of Assur will send Tartan, Rab-Saris, and Rabshakeh from Lachish to king Hezekiah, with weighty strength to Jeruslaem; and they will go up and come to Jerusalem: and they will go up and come and stand by the aqueduct of the highest pool in the highway of the field of the fuller.
My brethren dealt faithlessly as a torrent; as a channel of torrents they shall pass away;
And he was as a tree planted by the streams of water which will give its fruit in its time; his leaf shall not fall away, and all which he shall do shall be prospered.
And Jehovah led thee continually, and he satisfied thy soul in dry places, and he will make thy bones strong: and thou wed as a watered garden, and as a spring of water which its waters shall not deceive.
Wherefore was my pain everlasting and my blow incurable, refusing to be healed? Being, wilt thou be to me as falsehood, the waters were not faithful?
And he was as a tree planted by the waters, and it shall spread out its roots by the river, and it shall not see when heat shall come, and its leaf was green; and it shall not be afraid in the year of restraint, and it shall not withdraw from making fruit.
Who this as a river he shall come up, as the rivers his waters shall be moved? Egypt as a river will come up, and as rivers the waters will be moved; and he will say, I will go up, I will cover the earth; I will destroy the city and those dwelling in it
And I watered the earth with thine inundation from thy blood, to the mountains; and the rivers shall be full from thee.
For this shall not the land be moved, and all dwelling in it, mourn? And it came up all of it as a river; and it was driven out and watered as the river of Egypt
And the Lord Jehovah of armies touching upon the land, and it shall melt, and all dwelling in it mourned: and it came up as a river all of it, and it was overflowed as the river of Egypt.
And he passed through the sea of straits, and he struck the waves in the sea, and all the depths of the river dried up; and the pride of Assur was brought down, and the rod of Egypt shall depart
Hastings
For the meaning and use of '
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And a river shall go out from Eden to water the garden, and from thence it shall be separated into four heads.
In that day Jehovah cut out a covenant with Abram, saying, To thy seed gave I this land from the river of Egypt, to the great river, the river Euphrates:
In that day Jehovah cut out a covenant with Abram, saying, To thy seed gave I this land from the river of Egypt, to the great river, the river Euphrates:
And the servant shall take ten camels from the camels of his lord, and will go, and all the goods of his lord in his hand; and he will rise and go to Syria of the rivers to the city of Nahor.
And he will break away, and all which was to him; and he will rise and pass over the river, and will set his face to Mount Gilead.
And Jehovah will speak to Moses, Say to Aaron, Take thy rod and stretch out thy hand over the waters of Egypt. upon their rivers, upon their canals, and upon their pools, and upon all the collections of their waters, and they shall be blood: and blood was in all the land of Egypt, and in wood, and in stones.
And Jehovah will say to Moses, Say to Aaron, Stretch forth thy hand with thy rod upon the rivers, and upon the canal; and upon the pools, and bring up frogs upon the land of Egypt,
Turn ye and remove for yourselves, and go to the mountain of the Amorite, and to all his neighbors in the sterile region, in the mountain, and in the low country, and in the south and in the coast of the sea, the land of the Canaanites and of Lebanon to the great river, the river Phrath
For the word that they met you not with bread and with water in the way in your coming out of Egypt, and who hired against thee Balaam, son of Beor of Pethor, of Arum of the two rivers, to curse thee.
Is not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, good above all the waters of Israel? and shall I not wash in them And be cleansed? And he will turn and go in wrath.
And the king of Assur will send Tartan, Rab-Saris, and Rabshakeh from Lachish to king Hezekiah, with weighty strength to Jeruslaem; and they will go up and come to Jerusalem: and they will go up and come and stand by the aqueduct of the highest pool in the highway of the field of the fuller.
And the rest of the words of Hezekiah, and all his powers, and how he made the pool and the aqueduct, and he will bring waters to the city, are they not written upon the book of the words of the days to the kings of Judah?
And I shall call a fast there, upon the river Ahava, to humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a straight way for us and for our little ones, and for all our substance.
In washing my goings with butter, and the rock will pour out with me streams of oil;
Who divided a channel for the overflowing, and a way for the lightning of the voices?
Behold, he will oppress a river, and he will not spring up: he will trust that Jordan burst forth into his mouth.
And he was as a tree planted by the streams of water which will give its fruit in its time; his leaf shall not fall away, and all which he shall do shall be prospered.
A river, its streams will gladden the city of God, the holy place of the tents of the Most High.
A river, its streams will gladden the city of God, the holy place of the tents of the Most High.
Thou reviewedst the earth, and thou wilt water it: thou wilt greatly enrich it; the stream of God being full of waters: thou wilt prepare their grain, for so thou wilt prepare it.
By the rivers of Babel, there we sat down: also we wept in our remembering Zion.
And Jehovah will say to Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou and Shear-Jashub thy son, at the extremity of the channel of the highest pool of the highway, of the fuller's field;
And for this, behold Jehovah bringing up upon them the water of the river, strong and many, the king of Assur and his glory: and he came up over all his channels and he went over all his banks.
And his spirit as the torrent overflowing, shall divide even to the neck, to shake the nations in the sieve of ruin: and a curb upon the cheeks of the people, causing to err.
And the king of Assur will send Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to king Hezekiah with a weighty army. And he will stand by the channel of the higher pool in the highway of the fuller's field.
When thou shalt pass through the waters, I with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou shalt go through fire thou shalt not be burnt, and the flame shall not consume thee.
Would thou didst attend to my commands! and thy peace shall be as a river, and thy justice as the billows of the sea.
And he was as a tree planted by the waters, and it shall spread out its roots by the river, and it shall not see when heat shall come, and its leaf was green; and it shall not be afraid in the year of restraint, and it shall not withdraw from making fruit.
Who this as a river he shall come up, as the rivers his waters shall be moved?
Thus said Jehovah, Behold, waters coming up from the north, and they were for an overflowing torrent, and they shall overflow the land, and its fulness; the city and those dwelling in it: and the men cried out, and all inhabiting the land wailed.
And it will be in the thirtieth year, in the fourth, in the fifth to the month, and I in the midst of the captivity by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened and I shall see visions of God.
The water made him great, the deep raised him up with her rivers going round about her planting, and she sent forth her channels to all the trees of the field.
And I shall see in a vision; and it will be in my seeing, and I in Shushan the fortress, in Elam the province; and I shall see in a vision, and I was by the stream of strength. And I shall lift up mine eyes, and I shall see, and behold, one ram stood before the stream, and horns to him: and the horns high; and the one high above the second, and the high came up at the last.
And ha will come even to the ram possessing the horns, which I saw standing before the stream, and he will run against him in the wrath of his power.
And in the twenty and fourth day to the first month, and I was upon the hand of the great river, this is Hiddekel;
Judgment shall roll as the waters, and justice as a torrent of strength.
It was fixed, she was led away captive, she went up and her maids being led as the voice of doves smiting upon their heart
And the Judean country, and the Jerusalemites, were going out to him, and all were being immersed by him in the river Jordan, acknowledging 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 shall satiate from the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt give them to drink the torrent of thy delights.
A river, its streams will gladden the city of God, the holy place of the tents of the Most High.
And he will measure a thousand, a torrent which I shall not be able to pass through: for the waters rose, waters of swimming, a torrent which shall not be passed through. And he will say to me, Didst thou see, son of man? And he will cause me to go, and he will turn me back upon the lip of the torrent read more. In my turning back, and behold, upon the lip of the torrent very much wood from here and from them And he will say to me, These waters going forth to the circuit of the east, and they went down to Arabia and came into the sea: being brought forth to the sea and the waters were healed. And it was every living soul that shall creep, to all where the two torrents shall come there, shall live: and there was very many fish, because these waters came there: and they shall be healed and all lived where the torrent shall come there. And it was the fisherman shall stand upon it from the fountain of the kid, even to the fountain of the two calves; they shall be a spreading for nets; their fish shall be according to its kind as the fish of the great sea very many. Its marshes and its pools and they shall not be healed; they were given marshes to salt And upon the torrent shall come up upon its lip, from hence and from thence, every tree of food, its leaf shall not fade, and its fruit shall not be consumed: for its months it shall bear early fruit, for its waters from the holy place they come forth: and its fruits were for food and its leaf for medicine.
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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And he will break away, and all which was to him; and he will rise and pass over the river, and will set his face to Mount Gilead.
And I put thy bounds from the sea of sedge, and even to the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert even to the river: for I will give into your hand those inhabiting the land, and thou drove them out from before thee.
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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In washing my goings with butter, and the rock will pour out with me streams of oil;
They shall satiate from the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt give them to drink the torrent of thy delights.
And he will bring forth flowings from the rock, and bring down waters as rivers.
Was Jehovah angry against the rivers? if thine anger against the rivers? if thy wrath against the sea? if thou wilt ride upon thy horses, thy chariots of salvation?