2 Kings 5:12

12. Abana The main stream by which the plain of Damascus is fertilized, and bears now the name Baroda. “It rises in the high plain south of Zebedany, on Anti-Lebanon, where I afterwards visited its fountains, and rushes in a southeasterly course down the mountain till it issues upon the plain. Here it turns eastward, and flowing along the north wall of the city, takes its way across the plain to the northern lakes. It is a deep, broad, rushing mountain stream; and although not less than nine or ten branches are taken from it for the supply of the city and the plain, yet it still flows on as a large stream, and enters the middle lake by two channels. The water is limpid and beautiful.” Robinson.

Pharpar The modern Awaj, that flows some distance south of Damascus. Its sources, course, and the lake into which it empties, were first explored by J.L. Porter in the year 1852. He says, “It has two principal sources, one high up on the eastern side of Hermon, just beneath the central peak; the other in a wild glen a few miles southward. The streams unite near Sasa, and the river flows eastward in a deep rocky channel, and falls into a lake about four miles south of the lake into which the Barada fails. Although the Awaj is eight miles distant from the city, yet it flows across the whole plain of Damascus; and large ancient canals drawn from it irrigate the fields and gardens almost up to the walls. The total length of the Awaj is nearly forty miles, and in volume it is about one fourth that of the Barada. The Barada and the Awaj are the only rivers of any importance in the district of Damascus, and there can be little doubt that the former is the Abana, and the latter the Pharpar.”

Better than all the waters of Israel It was natural for the Syrian captain to prefer the streams of his own land to those of an enemy’s country. The Jordan is described by Robinson as “a deep, sluggish, discoloured stream;” and as it flows in its deep bed through wild, desolate jungles, until it empties into the Dead Sea, Naaman might have thought it a useless river in comparison with those limpid rivers of Damascus, which, flowing through the great plain, change it from a desert to a paradise. “Once and again,” writes Tristram, “we crossed the Barada (Abana) by low bridges; and as we beheld its fertilizing powers, and recalled the barren sides of Jordan, we could not but sympathize with the natural feeling of Naaman.”

Went away in a rage “Carnal minds,” says Wordsworth, “despise the foolishness of preaching, and the simplicity of the sacraments. They look on the Christian Jordan with Syrian eyes. But the true believer knows that one drop of water, set apart by the Divine ordinance of God, has more virtue than all the Abanas and Pharpars of the world.”