Jordan River

History

Washing of Naaman

Matthew 10:8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely you must give.

When the prophet Elisha healed Naaman the King of Syria of his leprosy by telling him to wash himself in the Jordan seven times, Naaman returned and tried to give him a gift. The prophet responded “As the LORD liveth, before whom I stand, I will receive none.” All Elisha did was pass the instructions which God gave him on to Naaman. Elisha received them freely, and therefore could not take anything for them in return.

Prophecies

Isaiah 9:1

See 'Galilee of the Nations?' by William Finck or the article here on CIpedia concerning Capernaum

Isaiah 9:1 Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations.

How could Zebulun and Naphtali be afflicted by “... way of the sea beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the Nations”? That truly does not describe the sea of Galilee at all, and there is no discussion in the Old Testament describing any shipping traffic by Zebulun or Naphtali in that small sea. Even in the time of Christ, the sea of Galilee was plied by little more than small fishing craft. So what else may this statement mean?

The word “beyond” in Isaiah 9:1, the Hebrew ‘eber (Strong’s #5676), may also mean “opposite”, among other things. It is the word from which the names Eber and Hebrew are derived. In the A.V. the word is represented by a wide range of meanings, “from, over, passage, quarter, other side, this side, straight”, etc. according to Strong’s, and many of them quite proper in the contexts in which the word appears. The word is, for instance. “over” in the phrase “over against” at Exod. 25:37, which the Thomas Nelson King James Study Bible I have footnotes “in front of”, and is “this side” at Num. 22:1; 32:19 and 32. So use of the word at Isa. 9:1 does not necessitate that the “sea” or the “way of the sea” referred to there is east of the Jordan River, or is the sea of Galilee, which is actually the source of the river and not “beyond” it at all.

It is evident that this in reference to Europe and Asia Minor, which was trafficked to by the Israelites in Tyre and Sidon and whom were the recipients of the Gospel message following the Passion of the Christ.