Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?.... Abana is, in the marginal reading, called Amana, and so the Targum; perhaps from the Mount Amana, from whence it sprung, a mountain in Syria g, mentioned with Lebanon, Song of Solomon 4:8. This river is thought to be the Chrysorrhoas of Pliny h, and other writers; there are no traces of its name, or of the following, to be met with now; the only river by Damascus is called Barrady, which supplies Damascus and its gardens, and makes them so fruitful and pleasant as they be; it pours down from the mountains, as Mr. Maundrell i describes it, and is divided into three streams, of which the middlemost and biggest runs directly to Damascus, through a large field, called the field of Damascus; and the other two are drawn round, the one to the right hand, and the other to the left, on the borders of the gardens. Pharpar is thought k to be the river Orontes, which runs close to the walls of Antioch, and courses through its large and spacious plain, being numbered among the rivers of Syria; it takes its rise from Lebanon, and, sliding through the said plain, falls into the Syrian sea. Benjamin of Tudela l speaks of these rivers under their Scripture names; Abana or Amana as he says, passes through the city and supplies the houses of great men with water through wooden pipes; and Pharpar is without the city and runs among the gardens and orchards, and waters them. Farfar is also the name of a river in Italy m:
may I not wash in them, and be clean? as well as in Jordan; or rather, since they are better waters, and so not have been at this trouble and expense to come hither; or have I not washed in them every day? I have, and am I clean? I am not; which is the sense the several Jewish writers give n:
so he turned, and went away in a rage; in a great passion, swearing and cursing perhaps, ordering his chariot driver to turn and be gone at once.
g Tacit. Annal. l. 2. c. 83. h Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 18. i Journey from Aleppo, p. 122, 123. k Cartwright's Preacher's Travels, p. 7, 8. Hiller. Onomast. Sacr. p. 908. l Itinerar. p. 55. m Servius in Virgil. Aeneid. l. 7. p. 1243. n Ben Gersom in loc. & R. Joseph Kimchi, & R. Jonah in Ben Melech in. loc.