“There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the taber

“There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the taber
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life,(Revelation 22 : 1)

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Pishon and Gihon

My musings about River Jabbok  took my thoughts to a strange point, ie. Which is the first river mentioned in the Bible. And there I was in the second chapter of the very first book of the Bible - Genesis. It is in the second chapter that the mention of a river appears. But nay, it is not just one river, but four rivers originating from a single source, may be a fountain in the Garden of Eden. The word 'eden' has a Hebrew meaning , 'pleasure'. Well that name suits the garden. It sure was a garden of pleasure, the lush green of trees and plants , fruits and vegetation and the various animals under control of the human beings all brings images of natural pleasure. It is the garden where the Creator God used to take a stroll in the cool of the evening. There were the great trees too - the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. Wow, one is reminded of a resort environment of modern days. And there was a special arrangement for irrigation. From the fountain I mentioned earlier, there originated four great rivers, just to water the garden. Hm... a real garden it might have been, to have such rivers to water it.
And the names of the four rivers _   Hidekel (Tigris), Phrath (Euphrates) , Gihon and Pishon.I'll better quote the Bible verses.
10A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of( Havilah, where there is gold. 12And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. 14And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
I searched in the map, yes Euphrates and  Tigris are there. And where exactly were this Gihon and Pishon flowing? And where is Havilla that land of gold, bdellium and onyx stones? And Cush?
Well, I'll stop here and am going to search for these rivers like the Lama who wandered with his little chela in search of the sacred river  in Kipling's 'Kim'. Well , I'll be back after a few days. Till then I''m gonna search, yeah wander in the google land and in my little library here in this little room of mine, to search and fish out a little knowledge about Mesopotamia and  the archeological city of Petra. And of course I'll study some theories concerning Pishon as Ganges and  Nile etc, and Gihon as River Araxes in Armania.Good exercise for my brain, I hope. This may keep the spirit of Alzheimer out. God bless.

2 comments:

  1. Here are two great sites that gives interesting details about the fertile crescent, mesopotamia, the fertile land between two rivers - Tigris and Euphrates. Awesome!

    http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Fertile-Crescent-Mesopotamia

    http://www.crystalinks.com/mesopotamia.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. elu
    u've become a Bible scholar.
    what's pummalose?
    will be sending your site to a few people

    ReplyDelete