Cedron

So called from Kedar, black, dark, gloomy. This was the memorable brook over which the great Redeemer passed, to enter the garden of Gethsemane, the night before his sufferings and death. Here, indeed, Jesus often walked, for he loved the sacred haunts of that hallowed ground, where he knew his last agony, in the conflicts with Satan, was to take place. (John 18: 1, 2.) The brook itself lay in a valley to the east of the city, between Jerusalem and the mount of Olives; and it emptied itself in the dead Sea. Into this black and foul brook ran all the filth of the sacrifices from the temple; and most probably, like other sinks, for the most part, what was conveyed thither from the temple remained stagnant until the swelling rain carried off the contents. This was the ever to be remembered brook Cedron, concerning which it was prophesied of the Lord Jesus, a thousand years before his incarnation, that "he should drink of the brook in the way." (Ps. cx. 7.) Some, in reading that and connecting with it in the mind, the hot country of Palestine, might conceive it to have a pleasant thing to a dry thirsty traveller to drink of the brook in his way. And no doubt, of all earthly delights, the cooling streams in a sultry desert is the most grateful. But Cedron was no cooling, limpid, pure stream; but dark, and black, and filthy. When Jesus, therefore, is said to drink of it, the meaning is, that all our uncleanness was put on him. Here Jesus passed through all that torrent of divine wrath against sin, when "he that knew no sin, became sin and a curse for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Cor. v. 21.) Here it was, that all the waves and billows of JEHOVAH’S just anger, for his broken law, went over the head of Christ, as the Surety and Representative of his people; and which brought forth those cries of the Glory - man, Christ Jesus, which, by the Spirit of prophecy, was recorded of him. (Ps. xx2: and lxix.) Such was Cedron. And this brook was rendered memorable in allusion to Christ, when David, as a type of Jesus, passed it in his ascent to the mount of Olives, when fleeing from his kingdom with his followers barefoot, his head covered, and weeping, and sorrowing, at the instance of Absalom, his unnatural son. (2 Sam. xv. 30.) Thus Jesus passed Cedron under the deepest of all possible sorrows, when, with his few faithful disciples, he entered the garden from the foul conspiracy of Judas, and the high priest, and elders of his people. And God the Holy Ghost was graciously pleased to make Cedron again memorable, as typical of the Lord Jesus Christ, when Asa, Hezekiah, and Josiah, burnt and destroyed the idols of the land, and cast the accursed things of the groves into this brook. As if to shew, by type, that the brook Jesus, in after ages, was to drink of, should be the common receiver of all our idols, and all our uncleanness, when, by his gracious undertaking, that blessed promise of a covenant God in Christ was to be fulfilled: "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness, and from all your idols." (Ezek. 36. 25. See also 2 Chron. xv. 16; xxx. 14. and 2 Kings 23. 4 - 6.) Such then was, and is, Cedron. Oh! the blessedness of beholding it thus explained to us by God the Holy Ghost, in reference to the Lord Jesus Christ! Here would my soul take frequent wing, and by faith, alight near the hallowed spot. And if Jesus oftimes resorted thither with his disciples, here,

me thinks, would my soul delight to roam, and see the place, and the memorable brook Jesus drank of by the way, See Gethsemane.

See KIDRON.\par

Ce’dron. Joh 18:1. See Kidron or Kedron.

Cedron or Kedron. "The black torrent," in the ravine below the E. wall of Jerusalem (Joh 18:1). Gethsemane was beyond it.

the name of a place and of a rivulet.

1. (ἡ Κεδρών v. r. Κεδρώ.) A place fortified by Cendebaeus, under the orders of king Antiochus (Sidetes), as a station from which to command the roads of Judaea (1Ma 15:39; 1Ma 15:41; 1Ma 16:9). It was not far from Jamnia (Jabneh), or from Azotus (Ashdod), and had a winter-torrent or wady (χειμάῤῥους) on the eastward of it, which the army of the Maccabees had to cross before Cendebaeus could be attacked (16:5). These conditions are well fulfilled in the modern place Katra or Kitrah, which lies on the maritime plain below the river Rubin, and three miles south-west of Akir (Ekron). Schwarz (Palest. p. 119) gives the modern name as Kadrûn, but this wants confirmation. Ewald (asr. Gesch. 4:390, note) suggests Tell- Turmus, five or six miles farther south. The Syriac has Hebron, and the Vulg. Gedor, which some compare with the village Gedrus (Κέδους), mentioned by Eusebius and Jerome (Ozonmast. s.v. Γεδούρ, Gaedur) as lying ten miles from Diopolis, toward Eleutheropolis.

2. In this form is given in the N.T. the name of the brook Kidron ( נִחִל קַדְרֹן= "the black torrent") in the ravine below the eastern wall of Jerusalem (Joh 18:1). Lachman, with codices A and D, has χειμάῤῥους τοῦ Κεδρών; but the Rec. Text with B has τῶν Κέδρών, i.e. "the brook of the cedars" (so, too, the Sept. in 2Sa 15:23). Other MSS. have the name even so far corrupted as τοῦ κέδρου (so א), cedri, and τῶν δένδρων. The word, however, has no connection with "cedar." In English, the name in this form is often erroneously pronounced (as if written Kedron) with a hard C. SEE KIDRON.

Cedron. Joh 18:1. See Kidron.

See KIDRON

By: Executive Committee of the Editorial Board., Gerson B. Levi

1. Name of the brook Kidron as given in John xviii. 1. Near the stream was the garden in which Jesus was taken by the officials after he had been betrayed by Judas (see Kidron).

2. A place mentioned in connection with Jamnia (the "Jabneh" of II Chron. xxvi. 6) and fortified by Cendebeus at the command of Antiochus (I Macc. xv. 39). From Cedron as a base, Cendebeus began to ravage Judea. According to the account of Josephus ("Ant." xiii. 7, § 3), Simon Maccabeus, although at this time quite old, himself led the attack and drove back Cendebeus; but, according to I Macc. xv. 39-41, xvi. 9, Simon delegated the command to his sons Judas and John. Judas was wounded, but John continued the pursuit to Cedron and thence to Azotus (Ashdod). Cedron is perhaps the same as Gederoth (Josh. xv. 41; II Chron. xxviii. 18), and to be identified with the modern Ḳaṭra, three and one-half miles southwest of Ekron, the modern'Aḳir.

Bibliography:

Buhl, Geographie des Alten Palästina, p. 188;

Guérin, Judée, ii. 35 et seq.

CEDRON.—See Kidron.

sē´dron. See KIDRON.