Word | American Tract Society - Definition |
ARNON | A river rising in the mountains east of the Dead Sea, into which it flows. It is now called Wady Modjeb, and anciently divided the territories of the Moabites in turn from those of the Ammonites, Amorites, and Reubenites, Nu 21:13; Jos 13:16. It flows in a deep and wild ravine of the same name. Burckhardt, after reaching the ruins of Aroer, which stand on the edge of the precipice at the foot of which the Arnon flows, says, "From hence a footpath leads down to the river. The view which the Modjeb presents is very striking. From the bottom, where the river runs through a narrow stripe of verdant level about forty yards across, the steep and barren banks arise to a great height, covered with immense blocks of stone which have rolled down from the upper strata; so that, when viewed from above, the valley looks like a deep chasm, formed by some tremendous convulsion of the earth, into which there seems to be no possibility of descending to the bottom. The distance from the edge of one precipice to that of the opposite one, is about two miles in a straight line." He was thirty-five minutes in descending to the riverbed. Here the heat of midsummer is extreme, and the river becomes almost dried up; but in the rainy season there is an impetuous torrent. |