Places of the Bible

Jordan

River · river

What happened here

A dot is a moment; a bar is something that lasted, drawn to its length.

Crossing the Jordan into Canaan · 1450 BC
John the Baptist Begins Ministry · 26 AD
John Baptizes Jesus · 26 AD
Teaching and Healing in Perea to Jerusalem · 30 AD

Where the name appears

Events told in passages that name Jordan, and how many of their verses do. That is not the same as saying they happened here: a place can be named as a landmark, as somewhere being travelled to, or as the subject of a prophecy.

A dot is a moment; a bar is something that lasted, drawn to its length. The fainter the mark, the fewer verses name the place. The numbers are the lines below.

1 Job's Trial · 1649 BC · 1 verse
2 War with Canaanites · 1450 BC · 20 verses
3 Dividing the land · 1444 BC · 5 verses
4 Deliverance by Ehud · 1360 BC · 1 verse
5 Deliverance by Barak And Deborah · 1277 BC · 1 verse
6 Deliverance by Gideon · 1250 BC · 3 verses
7 Oppression by Ammon and Philistia · 1169 BC · 2 verses
8 Deliverance by Jephthah · 1151 BC · 4 verses
9 Reign of Saul · 1094 BC · 1 verse
10 Death of Saul · 1054 BC · 1 verse
11 Reign of David · 1054 BC · 13 verses
12 Reign of Solomon · 1014 BC · 1 verse
13 Construction of Solomon's Temple · 1011 BC · 1 verse
14 Prophecies of Elijah · 909 BC · 7 verses
15 Elijah Translated · 896 BC · 3 verses
16 Prophecies of Elisha · 896 BC · 3 verses
17 Reign of Jehu · 885 BC · 1 verse
18 Prophecies of Isaiah · 758 BC · 1 verse
19 Prophecies of Jeremiah · 627 BC · 3 verses
20 Prophecies of Ezekiel · 592 BC · 1 verse
21 Prophecies of Zechariah · 519 BC · 1 verse
22 Temptations of Jesus · 26 AD · 1 verse
23 Jesus in Capernaum · 27 AD · 1 verse
24 John's Witness · 27 AD · 1 verse
25 John the Baptist Witnesses · 27 AD · 1 verse
26 Healing Multitudes · 28 AD · 1 verse
27 Jesus' 1st Tour of Galilee · 28 AD · 1 verse
28 Jesus Teaches in Perea · 30 AD · 2 verses

Easton’s Bible Dictionary

But besides these two historical fountains there is a third, called the Hasbany, which rises in the bottom of a valley at the western base of Hermon, 12 miles north of Tell-el-Kady. It joins the main stream about a mile below the junction of the Leddan and the Banias. The river thus formed is at this point about 45 feet wide, and flows in a channel from 12 to 20 feet below the plain. After this it flows, “with a swift current and a much-twisted course,” through a marshy plain for some 6 miles, when it falls into the Lake Huleh, “the waters of Merom” (q.v.).

During this part of its course the Jordan has descended about 1,100 feet. At Banias it is 1,080 feet above sea-level. Flowing from the southern extremity of Lake Huleh, here almost on a level with the sea, it flows for 2 miles “through a waste of islets and papyrus,” and then for 9 miles through a narrow gorge in a foaming torrent onward to the Sea of Galilee (q.v.).

“In the whole valley of the Jordan from the Lake Huleh to the Sea of Galilee there is not a single settled inhabitant. Along the whole eastern bank of the river and the lakes, from the base of Hermon to the ravine of Hieromax, a region of great fertility, 30 miles long by 7 or 8 wide, there are only some three inhabited villages. The western bank is almost as desolate. Ruins are numerous enough. Every mile or two is an old site of town or village, now well nigh hid beneath a dense jungle of thorns and thistles. The words of Scripture here recur to us with peculiar force: ‘I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation...And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it...And your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate’ (Lev. 26:31-34).”, Dr. Porter’s Handbook.

From the Sea of Galilee, at the level of 682 feet below the Mediterranean, the river flows through a long, low plain called “the region of Jordan” (Matt. 3:5), and by the modern Arabs the Ghor, or “sunken plain.” This section is properly the Jordan of Scripture. Down through the midst of the “plain of Jordan” there winds a ravine varying in breadth from 200 yards to half a mile, and in depth from 40 to 150 feet. Through it the Jordan flows in a rapid, rugged, tortuous course down to the Dead Sea. The whole distance from the southern extremity of the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea is in a straight line about 65 miles, but following the windings of the river about 200 miles, during which it falls 618 feet. The total length of the Jordan from Banias is about 104 miles in a straight line, during which it falls 2,380 feet.

There are two considerable affluents which enter the river between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, both from the east.

From M. G. Easton, Illustrated Bible Dictionary (1893), in the public domain.

Named in 177 verses

Genesis: 32:10, 50:10, 50:11
Numbers: 13:29, 22:1, 26:3, 26:63, 31:12, 32:5, 32:19, 32:21, 32:29, 32:32, 33:48, 33:49, 33:50, 33:51, 34:12, 34:15, 35:1, 35:10, 35:14, 36:13
Deuteronomy: 1:1, 1:5, 2:29, 3:8, 3:17, 3:20, 3:25, 3:27, 4:21, 4:22, 4:26, 4:41, 4:46, 4:47, 4:49, 9:1, 11:30, 11:31, 12:10, 27:2, 27:4, 27:12, 30:18, 31:2, 31:13, 32:47
Joshua: 1:2, 1:11, 1:14, 1:15, 2:7, 2:10, 3:1, 3:8, 3:11, 3:13, 3:14, 3:15, 3:17, 4:1, 4:3, 4:5, 4:7, 4:8, 4:9, 4:10, 4:16, 4:17, 4:18, 4:19, 4:20, 4:22, 4:23, 5:1, 7:7, 9:1, 9:10, 12:1, 12:7, 13:8, 13:23, 13:27, 13:32, 14:3, 15:5, 16:1, 16:7, 17:5, 18:7, 18:12, 18:19, 18:20, 19:22, 19:33, 19:34, 20:8, 22:4, 22:7, 22:10, 22:11, 22:25, 23:4, 24:8, 24:11
Judges: 3:28, 5:17, 7:24, 7:25, 8:4, 10:8, 10:9, 11:13, 11:22, 12:5, 12:6
1 Samuel: 13:7, 31:7
2 Samuel: 2:29, 10:17, 17:22, 17:24, 19:15, 19:17, 19:18, 19:31, 19:36, 19:39, 19:41, 20:2, 24:5
1 Kings: 2:8, 7:46, 17:3, 17:5
2 Kings: 2:6, 2:7, 2:13, 5:10, 5:14, 6:2, 6:4, 7:15, 10:33
1 Chronicles: 6:78, 12:15, 12:37, 19:17, 26:30
2 Chronicles: 4:17
Job: 40:23
Psalms: 42:6, 114:3, 114:5
Isaiah: 9:1
Jeremiah: 12:5, 49:19, 50:44
Ezekiel: 47:18
Zechariah: 11:3
Matthew: 3:5, 3:6, 3:13, 4:15, 4:25, 19:1
Mark: 1:5, 1:9, 3:8, 10:1
Luke: 3:3, 4:1
John: 1:28, 3:26, 10:40

The place, its people and its events come from Theographic, a knowledge graph of the Bible by Robert Rouse, used and shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.