Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“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 2:14

Hiddekel or Tigris had pungent waters, light in weight. The name means both those things. It can also refer to a sharp voice or sound, another rapid river – but not a LOUD river.

The Hiddekel flowed more or less in a continuous direction to the eastern region of what was the land of Ashur at the time Moses was writing. It does not circumvent that country but flows in a northerly direction (in relation to the land of Israel), seeing that both Babylon and Ashur are situated north of where the garden appears to have been situated.

Euphrates is from a root meaning break forth or rushing. The waters grew and increased. They were considered ‘healthy’ or having a health benefit.

Moses, writing down what he was seeing, gave almost no details about the Euphrates. That is because the Israelites were very familiar with that river – Genesis 15:18. Every other river needed some kind of identifier (even if they weren’t in the exact places that they ended up post-flood). But for the Euphrates, the name was enough.

Some sages, however, believe this Euphrates was a completely different river than the one bordering Israel. They believe it was a river located in Babylon where Ezekiel received his vision (Ezekiel 1:1). According to Rabbi Yehudah, is that its waters keep increasing until it becomes a navigable stream, and it cannot be crossed on foot or raft, but must be crossed by ferry.

About these four rivers, the sage Radak writes: ‘The 4 rivers mentioned symbolise that the four directions on earth are all supplied with fresh water by these rivers. Seeing that the land of Israel is considered as in the center of the civilised world, all these rivers touch the land of Israel at one point or another The reason why all this was recorded here is to show how Moses, at his time, was able to provide all these details having been imbued with holy spirit. Otherwise, how would Moses have known all this, seeing that he had not been a world traveler but had spent almost all the 40 years that he was a leader in a narrow desert. Seeing that all these stories recorded in the Book of Genesis do not contain commandments either between G’d and man or between man and man, it is clear that unless G’d had endowed Moses with the requisite knowledge he could not have recorded all these details. G’d’s purpose was clearly, to implant in man knowledge of how the early years of man on earth had begun, after G’d had created the world and had placed Adam in Gan Eden. Our sages, looking for deeper allusions to man’s history in all this, also saw in the 4 rivers mentioned a reference to the four exiles the Jewish people would endure before being redeemed. (Bereshit Rabbah 16,4).’