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Bible Encyclopedias
Jabbok
Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
or Jab´bok, one of the streams which traverse the country east of the Jordan, and which, after a course nearly from east to west, falls into that river about thirty miles below the lake of Tiberias. It seems to rise in the Hauran mountains, and its whole course may be computed at sixty-five miles. It is mentioned in Scripture as the boundary which separated the kingdom of Sihon, king of the Amorites, from that of Og, king of Bashan (); and it appears afterwards to have been the boundary between the tribe of Reuben and the half-tribe of Manasseh. The earliest notice of it occurs in . The Jabbok now bears the name of Zerka. In its passage westward across the plains it more than once passes underground; and in summer the upper portion of its channel becomes dry. But on entering the more hilly country immediately east of the Jordan, it receives tribute from several springs, which maintain it as a perennial stream, although very low in summer. On approaching the Jordan it flows through a deep ravine, the steep banks being overgrown with the Solanum furiosum, which attains a considerable size. But the ravine is not so well wooded as the immediate neighborhood. The water is pleasant, and the bed being rocky the stream runs clear.
Public Domain.
Kitto, John, ed. Entry for 'Jabbok'. "Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature". https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/kbe/j/jabbok.html.
