Abana

(2 Kings 5:12) — the name of a river in Syria that waters the city of Damascus. This word, as Masoretic scholars note, ought to be read as Amana, and in Hebrew it means “stony.” It is not without reason supposed that the river Abana is the present-day Barada, which the Greeks called Chrysorrhoas, that is, “the golden river.” It rises at the foot of the mountains of Lebanon, divides into several small branches to the east of Damascus, and abundantly waters all the surrounding country; then the streams flow together again and the river continues its course to its outflow into a small, marshy lake situated fifteen or twenty miles from the city.

This river, and the river Pharpar (now called the Awaj), a tributary of it, abounded in fine, clear, transparent water and made the environs of Damascus one of the most beautiful and fruitful regions of that part of the world, whereas the rivers and streams of Israel, with the exception of the Jordan, are for most of the year dry and run in deep, rocky beds. This circumstance sufficiently explains the following question put by Naaman the Syrian to the servant of the prophet Elisha, when the latter, by the prophet’s direction, bade him wash seven times in the Jordan to be healed of his leprosy: “Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?” (2 Kings 5:12).

Along the banks of this river are found many beautiful views, and its importance is such that, even at the present time, according to the English traveler D. Porter, the river Abana supplies water to fourteen villages and 150,000 inhabitants (Porter’s Five Years in Damascus, London, 1855).