Gihon is the name of the second

river A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside Subterranean river, caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of ...

mentioned in the second chapter of the

biblical The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...

Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek language, Greek ; ; ) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its incipit, first word, (In the beginning (phrase), 'In the beginning'). Genesis purpor ...

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

Tigris The Tigris ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the eastern 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 Desert, Syrian and Arabia ...

Euphrates The Euphrates ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of West Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia (). Originati ...

, and

Pishon The Pishon ( ''Pīšōn''; Koine Greek: Φισών ''Phisṓn'') 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 ...

) issuing out of Eden, branching from a single river that split after watering the

Garden of Eden In Abrahamic religions, the Garden of Eden (; ; ) or Garden of God ( and ), also called the Terrestrial Paradise, is the biblical paradise described in Genesis 2–3 and Ezekiel 28 and 31.. The location of Eden is described in the Book of Ge ...

(Genesis 2:10–14).

Overview

The name (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

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

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

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 Tributary, tributaries of the Nile and supplies about 85.6% of the wa ...

), which encircles the former kingdom of

Gojjam Gojjam ( ''gōjjām'', originally ጐዛም ''gʷazzam'', later ጐዣም ''gʷažžām'', ጎዣም ''gōžžām'') is a historical provincial kingdom in northwestern Ethiopia, with its capital city at Debre Markos. During the 18th century, G ...

. 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 is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

. However, the scholar

Edward Ullendorff Edward Ullendorff (25 January 1920 – 6 March 2011) was a British scholar of Semitic languages and Ethiopian studies. Biography Ullendorff was born on 25 January 1920 in Berlin, Germany, to an upper-class, secular Jewish family. His parents ...

has argued in support of this identification. In the Italian (Venetian)

Fra Mauro map The Fra Mauro map is a World map, map of the world made around 1450 by the Italian (Republic of Venice, Venetian) cartographer Fra Mauro, which is “considered the greatest memorial of medieval cartography." It is a circular planisphere drawn on ...

of 1459, the Nile is called ''Gion'', giving credence to this claim. Blue Nile Falls Ethiopia III

Some scholars identify Cush in this context as the ancient

Kassite The Kassites () were a people of the ancient Near East. They controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire from until (short chronology). The Kassites gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of Babylon in 1531 B ...

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

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

, 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 Asia, Central and South Asia to the west of the Himalayas. It stretches from central and eastern Afghanistan into northwestern Pakistan and far southeastern Tajikistan. The range forms the wester ...

, and Gihon with

Amu Darya The Amu Darya ( ),() also shortened to Amu and historically known as the Oxus ( ), is a major river in Central Asia, which flows through Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan. Rising in the Pamir Mountains, north of the Hindu Ku ...

(Jihon/Jayhon of the Islamic texts). Amu Darya was known in the medieval Islamic writers as Jayhun or Ceyhun in

Turkish Turkish may refer to: * Something related to Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities in the former Ottoman Empire * The w ...

. This was a derivative of Jihon, or Zhihon as it is still known by the

Persians Persians ( ), or the Persian people (), are an Iranian ethnic group from West Asia that came from an earlier group called the Proto-Iranians, which likely split from the Indo-Iranians in 1800 BCE from either Afghanistan or Central Asia. They ...

. First-century Jewish historian

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

associated the Gihon river with the

Nile The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the List of river sy ...

, which is the merger of White and Blue Nile. Gihon (or Pishon) has also been associated with the Araxes (modern Aras) river which flows through Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran, or with the river Oxus (the Amu Darya).

Juris Zarins Juris Zarins (Zariņš) (February 17, 1945 – July 8, 2023) was a German-born American archaeologist and professor at Missouri State University, who specialized in the Middle East. Biography An ethnic Latvian, Juris Zarins was born in German ...

identified the Gihon with the

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

in Iran and Kush with the land of the

Kassites The Kassites () were a people of the ancient Near East. They controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire from until (short chronology). The Kassites gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of Babylon in 1531 B ...

. The Sefer haYashar, a medieval Hebrew

midrash ''Midrash'' (;"midrash"
. ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; or ''midrashot' ...

, asserts that in the time of Enos, grandson of

Adam Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems (including Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism and Islam). According to Christianity, Adam ...

, 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 Hebrew Bible rivers Garden of Eden Nile Blue Nile

Overview

See also

References