Bible Map: Euphrates River

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Atlas

Euphrates River and surrounding region

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Occurrences

Genesis 2:14 The name of the third river is Hiddekel: this is the one which flows in front of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.

Genesis 15:18 In that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:

Genesis 31:21 So he fled with all that he had. He rose up, passed over the River, and set his face toward the mountain of Gilead.

Genesis 36:37 Samlah died, and Shaul of Rehoboth by the river, reigned in his place.

Exodus 23:31 I will set your border from the Red Sea even to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you.

Numbers 22:5 He sent messengers to Balaam the son of Beor, to Pethor, which is by the River, to the land of the children of his people, to call him, saying, "Behold, there is a people who came out from Egypt. Behold, they cover the surface of the earth, and they are staying opposite me.

Deuteronomy 1:7 turn, and take your journey, and go to the hill country of the Amorites, and to all the places near there, in the Arabah, in the hill country, and in the lowland, and in the South, and by the seashore, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.

Deuteronomy 11:24 Every place whereon the sole of your foot shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness, and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even to the hinder sea shall be your border.

Joshua 1:4 From the wilderness, and this Lebanon, even to the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your border.

Joshua 24:2 Joshua said to all the people, "Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel,'Your fathers lived of old time beyond the River, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor: and they served other gods.

Joshua 24:3 I took your father Abraham from beyond the River, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac.

Joshua 24:14 "Now therefore fear Yahweh, and serve him in sincerity and in truth. Put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River, in Egypt; and serve Yahweh.

2 Samuel 8:3 David struck also Hadadezer the son of Rehob, king of Zobah, as he went to recover his dominion at the River.

2 Samuel 10:16 Hadadezer sent, and brought out the Syrians who were beyond the River: and they came to Helam, with Shobach the captain of the army of Hadadezer at their head.

1 Kings 4:21 Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt: they brought tribute, and served Solomon all the days of his life.

1 Kings 4:24 For he had dominion over all the region on this side the River, from Tiphsah even to Gaza, over all the kings on this side the River: and he had peace on all sides around him.

1 Kings 14:15 For Yahweh will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water; and he will root up Israel out of this good land which he gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the River, because they have made their Asherim, provoking Yahweh to anger.

2 Kings 23:29 In his days Pharaoh Necoh king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates: and king Josiah went against him; and Pharaoh Necoh killed him at Megiddo, when he had seen him.

2 Kings 24:7 The king of Egypt didn't come again out of his land any more; for the king of Babylon had taken, from the brook of Egypt to the river Euphrates, all that pertained to the king of Egypt.

1 Chronicles 1:48 Samlah died, and Shaul of Rehoboth by the River reigned in his place.

1 Chronicles 5:9 and eastward he lived even to the entrance of the wilderness from the river Euphrates, because their livestock were multiplied in the land of Gilead.

1 Chronicles 18:3 David struck Hadadezer king of Zobah to Hamath, as he went to establish his dominion by the river Euphrates.

1 Chronicles 19:16 When the Syrians saw that they were defeated by Israel, they sent messengers, and drew forth the Syrians who were beyond the River, with Shophach the captain of the army of Hadadezer at their head.

2 Chronicles 9:26 He ruled over all the kings from the River even to the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt. Nehemiah

2 Chronicles 35:20 After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Neco king of Egypt went up to fight against Carchemish by the Euphrates: and Josiah went out against him.

Isaiah 7:20 In that day the Lord will shave with a razor that is hired in the parts beyond the River, even with the king of Assyria, the head and the hair of the feet; and it shall also consume the beard.

Isaiah 8:7 now therefore, behold, the Lord brings upon them the mighty flood waters of the River: the king of Assyria and all his glory. It will come up over all its channels, and go over all its banks.

Isaiah 11:15 Yahweh will utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his scorching wind he will wave his hand over the River, and will split it into seven streams, and cause men to march over in sandals.

Isaiah 27:12 It will happen in that day, that Yahweh will thresh from the flowing stream of the Euphrates to the brook of Egypt; and you will be gathered one by one, children of Israel.

Jeremiah 2:18 Now what have you to do in the way to Egypt, to drink the waters of the Shihor? or what have you to do in the way to Assyria, to drink the waters of the River?

Jeremiah 13:4 Take the belt that you have bought, which is on your waist, and arise, go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.

Jeremiah 13:5 So I went, and hid it by the Euphrates, as Yahweh commanded me.

Jeremiah 13:6 It happened after many days, that Yahweh said to me, Arise, go to the Euphrates, and take the belt from there, which I commanded you to hide there.

Jeremiah 13:7 Then I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and took the belt from the place where I had hid it; and behold, the belt was marred, it was profitable for nothing.

Jeremiah 46:2 Of Egypt: concerning the army of Pharaoh Necoh king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon struck in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah.

Jeremiah 46:6 Don't let the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape; in the north by the river Euphrates have they stumbled and fallen.

Jeremiah 46:10 For that day is a day of the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour and be satiate, and shall drink its fill of their blood; for the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, has a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates.

Jeremiah 51:63 It shall be, when you have made an end of reading this book, that you shall bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates:

Micah 7:12 In that day they will come to you from Assyria and the cities of Egypt, and from Egypt even to the River, and from sea to sea, and mountain to mountain.

Zechariah 9:10 I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow will be cut off; and he will speak peace to the nations: and his dominion will be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.

Revelation 9:14 saying to the sixth angel who had one trumpet, "Free the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates!"

Revelation 16:12 The sixth poured out his bowl on the great river, the Euphrates. Its water was dried up, that the way might be made ready for the kings that come from the sunrise.

Encyclopedia

EUPHRATES

u-fra'-tez (perath; Euphrates, "the good and abounding river"):

The longest (1,780 miles) and most important stream of Western Asia, generally spoken of in the Old Testament as "the river" (Exodus 23:31 Deuteronomy 11:24).

Its description naturally falls into 3 divisions-the upper, middle and lower. The upper division traverses the mountainous plateau of Armenia, and is formed by the junction of 2 branches, the Frat and the Murad. The Frat rises 25 miles Northeast of Erzerum, and only 60 miles from the Black Sea. The Murad, which, though the shorter, is the larger of the two, rises in the vicinity of Mt. Ararat. After running respectively 400 and 270 miles in a westerly direction, they unite near Keban Maaden, whence in a tortuous channel of about 300 miles, bearing still in a southwesterly direction, the current descends in a succession of rapids and cataracts to the Syrian plain, some distance above the ancient city of Carchemish, where it is only about 200 miles from the Northeast corner of the Mediterranean. In its course through the Armenian plateau, the stream has gathered the sediment which gives fertility to the soil in the lower part of the valley. It is the melting snows from this region which produce the annual floods from April to June.

The middle division, extending for about 700 miles to the bitumen wells of Hit, runs Southeast "through a valley of a few miles in width, which it has eroded in the rocky surface, and which, being more or less covered with alluvial soil, is pretty generally cultivated by artificial irrigation.. Beyond the rocky banks on both sides is the open desert, covered in spring with a luxuriant verdure, and dotted here and there with the black tent of the Bedouin" (Sir Henry Rawlinson). Throughout this portion the river formed the ancient boundary between the Assyrians and Hittites whose capital was at Carchemish, where there are the remains of an old bridge. The ruins of another ancient bridge occur 200 miles lower down at the ancient Thapsacus, where the Greeks forded it under Cyrus the younger. Throughout the middle section the stream is too rapid to permit of successful navigation except by small boats going downstream, and has few and insignificant tributaries. It here has, however, its greatest width (400 yds.) and depth. Lower down the water is drawn off by irrigating canals and into lagoons.

The fertile plain of Babylonia begins at Hit, about 100 miles above Babylon; 50 miles below Hit the Tigris and Euphrates approach to within 25 miles of each other, and together have in a late geological period deposited the plain of Shinar or of Chaldea, more definitely referred to as Babylonia. This plain is about 250 miles long, and in its broadest place 100 miles wide. From Hit an artificial canal conducts water along the western edge of the alluvial plain to the Persian Gulf, a distance of about 500 miles. But the main irrigating canals put off from the East side of the Euphrates, and can be traced all over the plain past the ruins of Accad, Babylon, Nippur, Bismya, Telloh, Erech, Ur and numerous other ancient cities. Originally the Euphrates and Tigris entered into the Persian Gulf by separate channels. At that time the Gulf extended up as far as Ur, the home of Abraham, and it was a seaport. The sediment from these rivers has filled up the head of the Persian Gulf for nearly 100 miles since the earliest monumental records. Loftus estimates that since the Christian era the encroachment has proceeded at the rate of 1 mile in 70 years. In early times Babylonia was rendered fertile by immense irrigating schemes which diverted the water from the Euphrates, which at Babylon is running at a higher level than the Tigris. A large canal left the Euphrates just above Babylon and ran due East to the Tigris, irrigating all the intervening region and sending a branch down as far South as Nippur. Lower down a canal crosses the plain in an opposite direction. This ancient system of irrigation can be traced along the lines of the principal canals "by the winding curves of layers of alluvium in the bed," while the lateral channels "are hedged in by high banks of mud, heaped up during centuries of dredging. Not a hundredth part of the old irrigation system is now in working order. A few of the mouths of the smaller canals are kept open so as to receive a limited supply of water at the rise of the river in May, which then distributes itself over the lower lying lands in the interior, almost without labor on the part of the cultivators, giving birth in such localities to the most abundant crops; but by far the larger portion of the region between the rivers is at present an arid, howling wilderness, strewed in the most part with broken pottery, the evidence of former human habitation, and bearing nothing but the camel thorn, the wild caper, the colocynth-apple, wormwood and the other weeds of the desert" (Rawlinson). According to Sir W. Willcocks, the eminent English engineer, the whole region is capable of being restored to its original productiveness by simply reproducing the ancient system of irrigation. There are, however, in the lower part of the region, vast marshes overgrown with reeds, which have continued since the time of Alexander who came near losing his army in passing through them. These areas are probably too much depressed to be capable of drainage. Below the junction of the Euphrates and the Tigris, the stream is called Shat el Arab, and is deep enough to float war vessels.

LITERATURE.

Fried. Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies? 169; Chesney, Narrative of the Euphrates Exped., I; Loftus, Travels, etc., in Chaldoea and Susiana; Layard, Nineveh and Babylon, chapters xxi, xxii; Rawlinson, Herodotus, I, essay ix; Ellsworth Huntington, "Valley of the Upper Euphrates River," Bull. Amer. Geog. Soc., XXXIV, 1902.

George Frederick Wright

EUPHRATES, is the largest river in Western Asia, its whole length being 1780 ms. It rises in Armenia, overflows its banks every spring, is navigable for large ships for 70 ms. from its mouth and for small steamers to Bir, 1197 ms.; it empties into the Persian Gulf after being joined by the Tigris at a point nearly 100 ms. from the Gulf. The increment of land about the mouth, has been found to be about one mile in 30 years, which is said to be double that of any other.

Strong's Greek

G2166: Euphrats

Euphrates, a river of Asia