ARNON, TORRENT VALLEY OF
(Arʹnon) [rushing, roaring torrent].
About halfway down the eastern side of the Dead Sea the deep gorge of the Arnon valley cuts through the high plateau region. This torrent, the modern Wadi el-Mojib, is fed by numerous tributaries (Num. 21:14) and, after the Jordan, is the only important stream emptying into the Dead Sea. The sheer red and yellow sandstone cliffs drop down abruptly to flank the sides of the narrow valley with its small perennial stream of limpid waters, plentiful with fish. Alongside grow willows, oleanders and other vegetation in abundance. Where the stream leaves the steep chasm walls to enter the flat shore of the Dead Sea its size varies from forty to one hundred feet (12.2 to 30.5 meters) in width, with a flow of from one to four feet (0.3 to 1.2 meters) deep.
This formidable canyon, which, at the top, measures some two miles (3.2 kilometers) in width and is nearly 1,700 feet (518 meters) deep, was crossed by only a few passages (Isa. 16:2) and hence became an obvious natural boundary. At the time of the Israelite conquest it separated the Amorites on the N from the Moabites on the S (Num. 21:13), but Jephthah’s message to the Ammonites shows that the side to the N had once been under Ammonite control and had been invaded by the Amorites prior to Israel’s arrival. (Judg. 11:12-27) Israel, having skirted the territory of Moab, reached the Arnon, probably at its upper reaches. Attacked by Sihon, the Amorite king, Israel gained the victory and took possession of the land from the Arnon up to the Jabbok. (Num. 21:21-24; Deut. 2:24-36) This first conquest thereafter became the territory of the tribes of Reuben and Gad.—Deut. 3:16; Josh. 12:1, 2; 13:8, 9, 15-28; see JABBOK, TORRENT VALLEY OF.
Due to Jehu’s failure to walk strictly according to Jehovah’s law, this region was later overrun by the invading forces of Hazael of Syria. (2 Ki. 10:32, 33) The Arnon is referred to on line 26 of the famed Moabite Stone, King Mesha of Moab there boasting that he had constructed a highway through the valley. Archaeological discoveries of evidence of a number of forts and bridges in the area testify to the strategic importance of the Arnon. Its name figures in prophecies directed against Moab.—Isa. 16:2; Jer. 48:20.
[Picture on page 133]
Gorge through which the river Arnon flows into the Dead Sea