Place · Water · River
Jordan
Named in 177 verses across 21 books, first in Genesis 32:10.
In these stories
In the Bible
The first 10 of 177 verses, in Bible order. Text from the Berean Standard Bible; verse numbers follow the KJV.
Genesis
- Genesis 32:10
I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness You have shown Your servant. Indeed, with only my staff I came across the Jordan, but now I have become two camps.
- Genesis 50:10
When they reached the threshing floor of Atad, which is across the Jordan, they lamented and wailed loudly, and Joseph mourned for his father seven days.
- Genesis 50:11
When the Canaanites of the land saw the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “This is a solemn ceremony of mourning by the Egyptians.” Thus the place across the Jordan is called Abel-mizraim.
Numbers
- Numbers 13:29
The Amalekites live in the land of the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the sea and along the Jordan.”
- Numbers 22:1
Then the Israelites traveled on and camped in the plains of Moab near the Jordan, across from Jericho.
- Numbers 26:3
So on the plains of Moab by the Jordan, across from Jericho, Moses and Eleazar the priest issued the instruction,
- Numbers 26:63
These were the ones numbered by Moses and Eleazar the priest when they counted the Israelites on the plains of Moab by the Jordan, across from Jericho.
- Numbers 31:12
They brought the captives, spoils, and plunder to Moses, to Eleazar the priest, and to the congregation of Israel at the camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho.
- Numbers 32:5
“If we have found favor in your sight,” they said, “let this land be given to your servants as a possession. Do not make us cross the Jordan.”
- Numbers 32:19
Yet we will not have an inheritance with them across the Jordan and beyond, because our inheritance has come to us on the east side of the Jordan.”
Events here
Events the dataset sets at Jordan. Dates follow its Ussher–Jones reckoning (one of several traditional counts), not established history.
- c. 1451 BCCrossing the Jordan into Canaan
- c. AD 26John the Baptist Begins Ministry
- c. AD 26John Baptizes Jesus
- c. AD 30Teaching and Healing in Perea to Jerusalem
Dictionary
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), as attached to this record by Theographic. Its geography and “modern” descriptions date from the 1890s. Easton wrote in 1897, and some of his views are now debated.
Read Easton’s entry
But besides these two historical fountains there is a third, called the Hasbany, which rises in the bottom of a valley at the western base of Hermon, 12 miles north of Tell-el-Kady. It joins the main stream about a mile below the junction of the Leddan and the Banias. The river thus formed is at this point about 45 feet wide, and flows in a channel from 12 to 20 feet below the plain. After this it flows, “with a swift current and a much-twisted course,” through a marshy plain for some 6 miles, when it falls into the Lake Huleh, “the waters of Merom” (q.v.).
During this part of its course the Jordan has descended about 1,100 feet. At Banias it is 1,080 feet above sea-level. Flowing from the southern extremity of Lake Huleh, here almost on a level with the sea, it flows for 2 miles “through a waste of islets and papyrus,” and then for 9 miles through a narrow gorge in a foaming torrent onward to the Sea of Galilee (q.v.).
“In the whole valley of the Jordan from the Lake Huleh to the Sea of Galilee there is not a single settled inhabitant. Along the whole eastern bank of the river and the lakes, from the base of Hermon to the ravine of Hieromax, a region of great fertility, 30 miles long by 7 or 8 wide, there are only some three inhabited villages. The western bank is almost as desolate. Ruins are numerous enough. Every mile or two is an old site of town or village, now well nigh hid beneath a dense jungle of thorns and thistles. The words of Scripture here recur to us with peculiar force: ‘I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation...And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it...And your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate’ (Lev. 26:31-34).”, Dr. Porter’s Handbook.
From the Sea of Galilee, at the level of 682 feet below the Mediterranean, the river flows through a long, low plain called “the region of Jordan” (Matt. 3:5), and by the modern Arabs the Ghor, or “sunken plain.” This section is properly the Jordan of Scripture. Down through the midst of the “plain of Jordan” there winds a ravine varying in breadth from 200 yards to half a mile, and in depth from 40 to 150 feet. Through it the Jordan flows in a rapid, rugged, tortuous course down to the Dead Sea. The whole distance from the southern extremity of the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea is in a straight line about 65 miles, but following the windings of the river about 200 miles, during which it falls 618 feet. The total length of the Jordan from Banias is about 104 miles in a straight line, during which it falls 2,380 feet.
There are two considerable affluents which enter the river between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, both from the east.