2nd Kings Chapter 5 verse 12 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 12. - Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? The "rivers of Damascus" are streams of great freshness and beauty. The principal one is the Barada, probably the Abaua of the present passage, which, rising in the Antilibanus range, and flowing through a series of romantic glens, bursts finally from the mountains through a deep gorge and scatters itself over the plain. One branch passes right through the city of Damascus, cutting it in half. Others flow past the city both on the north and on the south, irrigating the gardens and orchards, and spreading fertility far and wide over the Merj. A small stream, the Fidjeh, flows into the Barada from the north. Another quite independent river, the Awaaj. waters the southern portion of the Damascene plain, but does not approach within several miles of the city. Most geographers regard this as the "Pharpar;" but the identification is uncertain, since the name may very possibly have attached to one of the branches of the Barada. The Barada is limpid, cool, gushing, the perfection of a river: It was known to the Greeks and Romans as the Chrysorrhoas, or "river of gold." We can well understand that Naaman would esteem the streams of his own city as infinitely superior to the turbid, often sluggish, sometimes "clay-colored" (Robinson, ' Researches,' ver. 2. p. 256) Jordan. If leprosy was to be trashed away, it might naturally have appeared to him that the pure Barada would have more cleansing power than the muddy river recommended to him by the prophet. So he turned and went away in a rage.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(12) Abana.--So Hebrew text; Hebrew margin, Amana; and so many MSS., Complut., LXX., Targum, Syriac. (Comp. Amana, Song of Solomon 4:8, as name of a peak of the Lebanon, which is common in the Assyrian inscriptions also.) The river is identified with the present Burada, or Barady ("the cold"), which descends from the Anti-Lebanon, and flows through Damascus in seven streams. (The Arabic version has Barda.)Pharpar.--Parpar ("the swift"), the present Nahr el-Awaj, which comes down from the great Hermon, and flows by Damascus on the south. Both rivers have clear water, as being mountain streams, whereas the Jordan is turbid and discoloured.Rivers of Damascus.--Add the. Damascus is still famous for its wholesome water.May I not wash in them, and be clean?--If mere washing in a river be enough, it were easy to do that at home, and to much better advantage.