bethnimrah Summary and Overview

("house of sweet water," or "house of leopards.") (See BETHABARA.) A Gadite "fenced city" E. of Jordan, "in the valley" beside Betharan (Numbers 32:3; Numbers 32:36; Joshua 13:27). The Arabs calls the lower end of the wady Shoaib Nahr nimrin. The wady Shoaib (possibly the modern form of Hobab) discharges its waters into the Jordan near a ford above Jericho. By it tradition makes Israel to have descended to the Jordan. The Septuagint reads Bethanabra, almost identical with Bethabara. That this is the scene of John 1:28; Mark 1:5; Matthew 3:5, appears from there being abundant water, and its being near "the region round about Jordan," the CICCAR of the Old Testament, the oasis of Jericho, accessible to "Jerusalem and all Judea." But see for Conder's view BETHABARA.