What does "River" mean in the Bible?
In the sense in which we employ the word viz. for a perennial stream of considerable size, a river is a much rarer object in the East than in the West. River appears in 8 verses across 3 books of the Bible.
What does the Bible say about River?
In the sense in which we employ the word viz. for a perennial stream of considerable size, a river is a much rarer object in the East than in the West. With the exception of the Jordan and the Litany, the streams of the holy land are either entirely dried up in the summer months converted into hot lanes of glaring stones, or else reduced to very small streamlets, deeply sunk in a narrow bed, and concealed from view by a dense growth of shrubs. The perennial river is called nahar by the Hebrews. With the definite article, “the river,” it signifies invariably the Euphrates. (Genesis 31:21; Exodus 23:31; Numbers 24:6; 2 Samuel 10:16) etc. It is never applied to the fleeting fugitive torrents of Palestine. The term for these is nachal, for which our translators have used promiscuously, and sometimes almost alternately, “valley” “brook” and “river.” No one of these words expresses the thing intended; but the term “brook” is peculiarly unhappy. Many of the wadys of Palestine are deep, abrupt chasms or rents in the solid rock of-the hills, and have a savage, gloomy aspect, far removed from that of an English brook. Unfortunately our language does not contain any single word which has both the meanings of the Hebrew nachal and its Arabic equivalent wady which can be used at once for a dry valley and for the stream which occasionally flows through it.
Definition text: Smith's Bible Dictionary · 1863. Public domain.
Compiled by Protos: the verse list on this page. Where one name belongs to more than one person or place, each of them gets a separate entry.
What is the Greek word for River?
Greek · G4215
ποταμός
potamos
river
TBESG, from Abbott-Smith (1922). Public domain.
Where does River appear in the Bible?
River is referenced in 8 verses across 3 books. Every passage below is about this one, not just every verse the word turns up in.
- Acts 16:13
- Matthew 3:6
- Revelation 9:14
- Revelation 12:15
- Revelation 12:16
- Revelation 16:12
- Revelation 22:1
- Revelation 22:2
What else appears in these passages?
These turn up in the same passages as River.
Common questions
How many times does the Bible mention River?
River appears in 8 verses across 3 books, most often in Revelation, which accounts for 6 of them.
Which books of the Bible mention River?
Revelation, Acts, Matthew.
Where can I read every verse about River?
This page lists 8 of them. Protos carries all 8, and opens this entry on the verse you are reading rather than in a separate tab.
