a stream (including the sea · conjunction + definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Euphrates
פְרָֽתfe.Rat
H6578
Perath (i.e. Euphrates) · proper noun, a place name
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Daniel 10:4 And in the four and twentieth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, which is Hiddekel;
Genesis 15:18 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great ri…
Genesis 10:11 Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah,
Genesis 10:22 The children of Shem; Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram.
Genesis 25:18 And they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt, as thou goest toward Assyria: and he died in the presence of all his brethren.
Deuteronomy 1:7 Turn you, and take your journey, and go to the mount of the Amorites, and unto all the places nigh thereunto, in the plain, in the hills, an…
Deuteronomy 11:24 Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates,…
Revelation 9:14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 2:8-15
Man consisting of body and soul, a body made out of the earth and a rational immortal soul the breath of heaven, we have, in these verses, the provision that was made for the happiness of both; he that made him took care to make him happy, if he could but have kept himself so and known when he was well off. That part of man by which he is allied to the world of sense was made happy; for he was put in the paradise of God: that part by which he is allied to the world of spirits was well provided for; for he was taken into covenant with God. Lord, what is man that he should be thus dignified - man that is a worm! Here we have,
I. A description of the garden of Eden, which was intended for the m…
tree of life--so called from its symbolic character as a sign and seal of immortal life. Its prominent position where it must have been an object of daily observation and interest, was admirably fitted to keep man habitually in mind of God and futurity.
tree of the knowledge of good and evil--so called because it was a test of obedience by which our first parents were to be tried, whether they would be good or bad, obey God or break His commands.
Adam Clarke on Genesis 2:12
There is bdellium (בדלח bedolach) and the onyx stone, אבן השהם eben hashshoham - Bochart thinks that the bedolach or bdellium means the pearl-oyster; and shoham is generally understood to mean the onyx, or species of agate, a precious stone which has its name from ονυξ a man's nail, to the color of which it nearly approaches. It is impossible to say what is the precise meaning of the original words; and at this distance of time and place it is of little consequence.
John Gill on Genesis 2:14
The name of the third river is Hiddekel,.... A river which ran by Shushan in Persia, and retained its name in the times of Daniel, Daniel 10:4 where it is called the great river; and it seems it bears the same name now among the Persians; at least it did an hundred and fifty years ago, when Rauwolff (m) travelled in those parts. The Targum of Jonathan here calls it Diglath, the same with the Diglito of Pliny (n); and according to him it is called Tigris, from its swiftness, either from the tiger, a swift creature, or from "to dart", in the Chaldee language; and so Curtius (o) says, that in the Persian language they call a dart "tigris": and with this agrees the word "Hiddekel", which in the…
The Church Fathers
The third river is the Tigris, which flows by the Assyrian land. To this river the deceiver Israel was dragged as a prisoner. This river is the swiftest of all rivers. The Assyrians dwell by it, guarding its course—for this is the meaning of its name. Hence those who by their fortitude hold in check the guileful vices of the body and direct themselves to higher things are thought to have something in common with this river. For that same reason fortitude emanates from that source in paradise. Fortitude in its rapid course tosses aside everything standing in its path and like this river is not hindered by any material obstacle.
Now these four rivers are as follows: the Pishon, that is, the Danube; the Gihon, that is, the Nile; the Tigris and the Euphrates. In between these we live. Even though the regions from which these flow are known, this does not apply to the head of the source; for Paradise is situated on a great height, and the rivers are swallowed up under the surrounding sea, descending as it were down a tall water pipe; having passed through the ground beneath the sea and reached this earth, the earth then spouts forth with one of them in the West-the Danube, or Pishon-the Gihon in the South, and the Euphrates and Tigris in the North.
The four rivers, then, are these: the Pishon, which is the Danube; the Gihon, which is the Nile; and then the Tigris and the Euphrates, between which we dwell. Although the places from which they flow are known, the source of the spring is not known. Because paradise is set on a great height, the rivers are swallowed up again, and they go down to the sea as if through a tall water duct, and so they pass through the earth that is under the sea into this land. The earth then spits out each one of them: the Danube, which is the Pishon, in the west; the Gihon in the south; and the Euphrates and the Tigris in the north.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Asshur — Second son of Shem (Gen. 10:22; 1 Chr. 1:17). He went from the land of Shinar and built Nineveh, etc. (Gen. 10:11, 12). He probably gave his name to Assyria, which is the usual translation of the…
Assyria, Asshur — was a great and powerful country lying on the Tigris, (Genesis 2:14) the capital of which was Nineveh. (Genesis 10:11) etc. It derived its name apparently from Asshur, the son of Shem, (Genesis…
Eden — Delight. (1.) The garden in which our first parents dewlt (Gen. 2:8-17). No geographical question has been so much discussed as that bearing on its site. It has been placed in Armenia, in the region…
Euphrates — Hebrew, Perath; Assyrian, Purat; Persian cuneiform, Ufratush, whence Greek Euphrates, meaning “sweet water.” The Assyrian name means “the stream,” or “the great stream.” It is generally called in the…
Fall of man — An expression probably borrowed from the Apocryphal Book of Wisdom, to express the fact of the revolt of our first parents from God, and the consequent sin and misery in which they and all their…
Hiddekel — Called by the Accadians id Idikla; i.e., “the river of Idikla”, the third of the four rivers of Paradise (Gen. 2:14). Gesenius interprets the word as meaning “the rapid Tigris.” The Tigris rises in…
Media — Heb. Madai, which is rendered in the Authorized Version (1) “Madai,” Gen. 10:2; (2) “Medes,” 2 Kings 17:6; 18:11; (3) “Media,” Esther 1:3; 10:2; Isa. 21:2; Dan. 8:20; (4) “Mede,” only in Dan. 11:1.…
Tigris — is used by the LXX. as the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Hiddekel, and occurs also in several of the apocryphal books, as in Tobit, ch. 6:1, Judith, ch. 1:6, and Ecclesiasticus, ch. 24:25. The…
Tree of the knowledge of good and evil — Stood in the midst of the garden of Eden, beside the tree of life (Gen. 2, 3). Adam and Eve were forbidden to take of the fruit which grew upon it. But they disobeyed the divine injunction, and so…
And a river went out Moses says that one river flowed to water the garden, which afterwards would divide itself into four heads. It is sufficiently agreed among all, that two of these heads are the Euphrates and the Tigris; for no one disputes that hydql(Hiddekel) is the Tigris. But there is a great controversy respecting the other two. Many think, that Pison and Gihon are the Ganges and the Nile; the error, however, of these men is abundantly refuted by the distance of the positions of these rivers. Persons are not wanting who fly across even to the Danube; as if indeed the habitation of one man stretched itself from the most remote part of Asia to the extremity of Europe. But since many ot…
"And there was a river going out of Eden, to water the garden; and from thence it divided itself, and became four heads;" i.e., the stream took its rise in Eden, flowed through the garden to water it, and on leaving the garden was divided into four heads or beginnings of rivers, that is, into four arms or separate streams. For this meaning of ראשׁים see Eze 16:25; Lam 2:19. Of the four rivers whose names are given to show the geographical situation of paradise, the last two are unquestionably Tigris and Euphrates. Hiddekel occurs in Dan 10:4 as the Hebrew name for Tigris; in the inscriptions of Darius it is called Tigrâ (or the arrow, according to Strabo, Pliny, and Curtius), from the Zendi…
Tigris . . . Euphrates: These well-known rivers flow from the mountains of eastern Turkey.
Rashi on Genesis 2:14
חדקל TIGRIS — It is called חדקל because its waters are pungent in taste (חד) and light in weight (קל) (Berakhot 59b).
פרת EUPHRATES — It is called פרת because its waters grow (פרה) and increase and make men healthy (Berakhot 59b). כוש ואשור CUSH AND ASHUR did not then exist as countries, but Scripture writes with reference to the names which those districts would bear in the future (Ketubot 10b; Genesis Rabbah 16).
קדמת אשור means AT THE EAST OF ASHUR.
הוא פרת IS THE EUPHRATES — the most important of all, being mentioned in connection with the Land of Israel (Genesis Rabbah 16:3).
Euphrates · A river in the gar — A river in the gar
Euphrates, The · A branch of the river of Eden — A branch of the river of Eden
Gardens · Of eden: Watered by a river — Of eden: Watered by a river
Hiddekel · Ancient name of the Tigris River — Ancient name of the Tigris River
Rivers · Mentioned in scripture: Euphrates — Mentioned in scripture: Euphrates
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
