While on the spot, I had wished to believe in the theory of Leake in 1822, and afterwards turned almost into poetry by Lord Lindsay, notwithstanding the demonstrations of Bertou in 1838, and of the American expedition of 1848, namely, that the Jordan formerly flowed the whole length from the Anti-Lebanon to the Red Sea, and that the
Asphaltite Lake, or Dead Sea, is only formed by a stoppage of its stream.
Two facts, however, which militate against this theory, were visible to our eyes on this journey.
1. That the valleys south of the Dead Sea all point towards it, and incline the slope of their beds in that direction. This was most particularly the case with the Wadi el Jaib, where the banks between which the torrents had cut a channel became higher, which is equivalent to saying that the water fell lower as it passed northwards.
2. That wherever there were trees or shrubs to arrest the currents of water, we found that all the rushes, thorns, or reeds carried on by the streams, were arrested on the south side of those trees, and there they remained in the dry season.
The course of the torrents was therefore from the south, towards the Dead Sea.
The best dissertation on the relative levels of lands and seas, bearing on this subject, and that which I believe to be exhaustive on the subject, till we get more of scientific realities, is contained in vol. xviii., part 2, of the Royal Geographical Society’s Journal of 1848.
Still, allowing the facts that I myself observed, as well as all the scientific calculations in the Journal above referred to, (indeed, making use of them,) there seem to remain certain considerations undisposed of, in favour of the theory that the Jordan formerly ran into the Red Sea.
1. The ’Arabah, south of the Dead Sea, and the Ghôr on its north, are one continued hollow between the same parallel lines of hills; and Robinson has shown that by the Arabian geographers they are both called the ’Arabah; the native Arabs also still call by the name of Ghuwair, or little Ghôr, a space at the southern extremity of the water.
In the Hebrew Bible also, the northern part is called ’Arabah, as in Joshua iii. 16, where it is said the Israelites crossed “the sea of ’Arabah, namely, the sea of salt.” In 2 Sam. iv. 7, the murderers of Ish-bosheth went all night from Mahanaim to Hebron along the ’Arabah, this was clearly not south of the Dead Sea. Josh. xii. i., “From the river Arnon to mount Hermon, and all the ’Arabah on the east,” going northwards; this is explained in the 3d verse as “the ’Arabah, (beginning at Hermon,) unto the sea of Chinnereth, (sea of Tiberias) on the east, and unto the sea of the ’Arabah, the sea of salt, on the east.” The same words occur also in Deut. iii. 17, and iv. 49. That the present Arab ’Arabah on the south of the Dead Sea bore the same name, may be seen in Deut. ii. 8, where Moses speaks of “the way of the ‘’Arabah’ from Elath, and from Ezion-gaber.”