Gihon is the name of the second

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of ...

mentioned in the second chapter of the

biblical The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of ...

Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning" ...

. The Gihon is mentioned as one of four rivers (along with the

Tigris The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the ...

Euphrates The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers'') ...

, and

Pishon The Pishon ( ''Pîšōn'') is one of four rivers (along with Hiddekel (Tigris), Perath ( Euphrates) and Gihon) mentioned in the Biblical Book of Genesis. In that passage, a source river flows out of Eden to water the Garden of Eden and from t ...

) issuing out of the

Garden of Eden In Abrahamic religions, the Garden of Eden ( he, גַּן־עֵדֶן, ) or Garden of God (, and גַן־אֱלֹהִים ''gan- Elohim''), also called the Terrestrial Paradise, is the biblical paradise described in Genesis 2-3 and Ezekiel 28 ...

that branched from a single river within the garden.

Overview

The name (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

''Gīḥōn'' גיחון) may be interpreted as "bursting forth, gushing". The author of Genesis describes Gihon as "encircling the entire land of Cush", a name associated with

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

elsewhere in the Bible. This is the reason that Ethiopians have long identified the Gihon (''Giyon'') with the Abay River (

Blue Nile The Blue Nile (; ) is a river originating at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. It travels for approximately through Ethiopia and Sudan. Along with the White Nile, it is one of the two major tributaries of the Nile and supplies about 85.6% of the water to ...

), which encircles the former kingdom of Gojjam. From a geographic standpoint this would seem impossible, since two of the other rivers said to issue out of Eden, the Tigris and the Euphrates, are in

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...

. However, the scholar Edward Ullendorff has argued in support of this identification. Blue Nile Falls Ethiopia III

Some scholars identify Cush in this context as the ancient

Kassite The Kassites () were people of the ancient Near East, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c. 1531 BC and until c. 1155 BC (short chronology). They gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of Babyl ...

kingdom, which encompassed a Mesopotamian area that is repeatedly flooded by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. This view has some support from

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known fo ...

, who thought there were both an African Ethiopia (Cush) and a northern (Asiatic) Ethiopia. Nineteenth century, modern, and Arabic scholars have sought to identify the "land of Cush" with

Hindu Kush The Hindu Kush is an mountain range in Central and South Asia to the west of the Himalayas. It stretches from central and western Afghanistan, Quote: "The Hindu Kush mountains run along the Afghan border with the North-West Frontier Province ...

, and Gihon with

Amu Darya The Amu Darya, tk, Amyderýa/ uz, Amudaryo// tg, Амударё, Amudaryo ps, , tr, Ceyhun / Amu Derya grc, Ὦξος, Ôxos (also called the Amu, Amo River and historically known by its Latin name or Greek ) is a major river in Central Asi ...

(Jihon/Jayhon of the Islamic texts). Amu Darya was known in the medieval Islamic writers as Jayhun or Ceyhun in Turkish. This was a derivative of Jihon, or Zhihon as it is still known by the

Persians The Persians are an Iranian ethnic group who comprise over half of the population of Iran. They share a common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language as well as of the languages that are closely related to Persian. ...

. First-century Jewish historian

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for '' The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly ...

associated the Gihon river with the

Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest riv ...

. Gihon has also been associated with the Araxes (modern Aras) river which flows through Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran.

Juris Zarins Juris Zarins (Zariņš) (born 1945, in Germany) is an American-Latvian archaeologist and professor at Missouri State University, who specializes in the Middle East. Biography Zarins is ethnically Latvian, but was born in Germany at the end of ...

identified the Gihon with the

Karun River The Karun ( fa, کارون, ) is the Iranian river with the highest water flow, and its only navigable river. It is long. It rises in the Zard Kuh mountains of the Bakhtiari district in the Zagros Range, receiving many tributaries, such as t ...

in Iran and Kush with the land of the

Kassites The Kassites () were people of the ancient Near East, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c. 1531 BC and until c. 1155 BC (short chronology). They gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of Babylo ...

. The Sefer haYashar, a medieval Hebrew

midrash ''Midrash'' (;"midrash"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. he, מִדְרָשׁ; ...

, asserts that in the time of Enos, grandson of

Adam Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...

, the river Gihon was subject to a catastrophic flood due to the wickedness of man. Book of Jasher/the Upright, Chapter 2:6.

References

{{Authority control Torah places Mythological rivers Bereshit (parashah) Hebrew Bible rivers Book of Genesis Nile Blue Nile

Overview

See also

References