Arabah in the Bible Encyclopedia - ISBE

ar'-a-ba, a-ra'-ba ha-`arabhah, "the Arabah"): This word indicates in general a barren district, but is specifically applied in whole or in part to the depression of the Jordan valley, extending from Mount Hermon to the Gulf of Akabah. In the King James Version it is transliterated only once (Josh 18:18) describing the border of Benjamin. Elsewhere it is rendered "plain." But in the Revised Version (British and American) it is everywhere transliterated. South of the Dead Sea the name is still retained in Wady el-Arabah. In Dt 1:1; 2:8 (the King James Version "plain") the southern portion is referred to; in Dt 3:17; 4:49; Josh 3:16; 11:2; 12:3 and 2 Ki 14:25 the name is closely connected with the Dead Sea and the Sea of Chinnereth (Gennesaret). The allusions to the Arabah in Dt 11:30; Josh 8:14; 12:1; 18:18; 2 Sam 2:29; 4:7; 2 Ki 25:4; Jer 39:4; 52:7 indicate that the word was generally used in its most extended sense, while in Josh 11:16, and 12:8 it is represented as one of the great natural divisions of the country. The southern portion, which still retains the name of Arabah, is included in the wilderness of Zin (Nu 34:3). According to the survey of Lord Kitchener and George Armstrong made in 1883, under the auspices of the Israel Exploration Fund, its length from the head of the Gulf of Akabah to the Dead Sea is 112 miles. The lowest point of the watershed is 45 miles from Akabah, and 660 feet above tide (1,952 above the Dead Sea). The average width of the valley up to this point is about 6 miles, but here a series of low limestone ridges (called Er Risheh) rising 150 feet above the plain runs obliquely across it for a distance of 10 miles, narrowing it up to a breadth of about one-half mile. North of this point, opposite Mount Hor, the valley widens out to 13 miles and then gradually narrows to 6 miles at the south end of the Dead Sea. At Ain Abu Werideh, 29 miles north of the watershed, the valley is at the sea-level-- 1,292 feet above that of the Dead Sea. North of the watershed, the main line of drainage is the Wady el-Jeib, which everywhere keeps pretty close to the west side of the valley. At Ain Abu Werideh it is joined by numerous wadies descending from the Edomite mountains on the east, which altogether water an oasis of considerable extent, covered with a thicket of young palms, tamarisks, willows and reeds. Twenty-four miles farther north the Arabah breaks down suddenly into the valley of the Dead Sea, ...