The
Jordan
The River of the Rising Sun
Jesus
earned his title of the Christ (the anointed one) when he was christened
by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, the only river that
can be located from any point in the Holy Land by walking "toward
the rising of the sun" (Joshua 12:1). As the map shows,
the Jordan river flows from north to south along it's entire length
and was thus the eastern boundary of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea,
the lands where Jesus practiced his ministry. The river was given
that title as long as a person was standing anywhere on it's West
bank because the East is the direction from where the sun rises.
The
River Jordan is derived from the Hebrew word yar-dane,
meaning "descender." The "Descender" is a very
appropriate name for the river because it flows in a virtually perfect
north-south line on a map from its source near Mount Hermon (about
10 miles north of Lake Huleh) to it's terminus at the Dead Sea,
the lowest point of any lake on earth.
The
elevation of the river drops virtually 2,368 feet from it's source
to where the river flows into the great salt sea. The length of
it's meanders over the same two points measures approximately 318
kilometers, over twice its direct distance. Coincidentally, these
two modern measures correspond to the gematria value of Jesus Christ
(2368) and Helios (318), the sun.