Cherith

Che´rith, a river in Palestine, on the banks of which the prophet Elijah found refuge (1Ki 17:3-7). Local traditions have uniformly placed the Cherith on this side the Jordan; and this agrees with the history and with Josephus. Dr. Robinson drops a suggestion that it may be the Wady Kelt, which is formed by the union of many streams in the mountains west of Jericho, issuing from a deep gorge, in which it passes by that village and then across the plain to the Jordan. It is dry in summer.

A small brook flowing into the Jordan, to which Elijah once withdrew, and where ravens brought him supplies of bread and flesh, 1Ki 17:3-5 . Robinson suggests that it may be the present Wady Kelt, which drains the hills west of Jericho, and flows near that town on its way to the Jordan. This brook is dry in summer.\par

("separation".) The brook or torrent channel (wady) by which Elijah sojourned in the early part of the three years drought (1Ki 17:3; 1Ki 17:5). Probably running into the Jordan from the E. side, Elijah’s native region, where he would be beyond Ahab’s reach. Possibly now the Wadi Fasail, further North.

(Hebrews Kerith´, כְּרַית, a cutting; Sept. Χοῤῥάθ), a "brook" (נִחִל, nach’al, Sept. χειμάῤῥους) i.e. torrent-bed (the Arabic wady) or winter- stream of Palestine, in (כְּ, not "by") which, i.e. upon whose sloping bank the prophet Elijah (q.v.) hid himself during the early part of the three years’ drought (1Ki 17:3; 1Ki 17:5). The words of the passage give no precise clew to its position: " Get thee hence [i.e. apparently from the spot where the interview with Ahab had taken place], and turn thy face eastward (קֵרְמָה), and hide thee in the torrent of Cherith, which is facing (עִל פְּטֵי) the Jordan." This last expression, which occurs also in 1Ki 17:5, seems simply to indicate that the stream in question ran into that river, and not into either the Mediterranean or Dead Sea; for although the words sometimes require the translation "beyond" (as in Gen 25:18; Jos 15:18), they may also be rendered " towards," or "before the Jordan" (comp. Genesis 16:22), that is, in coming from Samaria. Josephus (Ant. 8:13, 2) does not name the torrent (χειμάῤῥους τις), and he says that Elijah went, not "eastward," but towards the. south (εἰς τὰ πρὸς νότον μέρη).

Eusebius and Jerome, on the other hand (Onomasticon, s.v. Χοῤῥά, Chorath), place the Cherith beyond Jordan, where also Schwarz (Palest. p. 51) would identify it in a Wady Alias, opposite Bethshean. This is the Wady el-Yaabis (Jabesh); the other name, Benj. Tudela says, is a corruption of Uad Elias (ואר אליאס, Itin. 2:408, ed. Asher). The argument from probability is but little in favor of the Cherith being on the east of Jordan, of which region Elijah was indeed a native, but where he would scarcely be more out of Ahab’s reach than in the recesses of the mountains of the rival kingdom of Judah. The only explicit tradition on the subject is one mentioned by Marinus Sanutus in 1321 (Gesta per Franc. p. 247), that it ran by Phasaelis (q.v.), Herod’s city in the Jordan valley (comp. Reland, Palest. p. 953). This would make it the Ain Fusail, which falls from the mountains of Ephraim into the Ghor, south of Kurn Surtabeh, and about fifteen miles above Jericho. This view is supported by Bachiene (Heilige Geogr. I, 1:126-130, and Van de Velde, Narrative, 2:310, 311). The spring of the brook is concealed under high cliffs and under the shade of a dense jungle (Van de Velde, Memoir, p. 339). Dr. Robinson, on the other hand, would find the stream in the Wady el-Kelt, behind Jericho (Researches, 2:288). This last name is, however, not greatly like Cherith, yet the identification is perhaps the best hitherto suggested.

This wady is formed by the union of many streams in the mountains west of Jericho, issuing from a deep gorge, in which it passes by that village, and then across the plain to the Jordan. It is dry in summer. No spot in Palestine is better fitted to afford a secure asylum to the persecuted than Wady el-Kelt. On each side of it extend the bare, desolate hills of the wilderness of Judaea, in whose fastnesses David was able to bid defiance to Saul. The Kelt is one of the wildest ravines in this wild region. In some places it is not less than five hundred feet deep, and just wide enough at the bottom to give a passage to a streamlet (1Ki 17:6), like a silver thread, and to afford space for its narrow fringe of oleanders. The banks are almost sheer precipices of naked limestone, and are here and there pierced with the dark openings of caves and grottoes, in some one of which probably Elijah lay hid. The wady opens into the great valley, and from its depths issues a narrow line of verdure into the white plain; it gradually spreads as it advances until it mingles, at the distance of a mile or more, with the thickets that encompass Riha, the modern representative of Jericho. To any one passing down from Jerusalem or Samaria towards Jericho, the appropriateness of the words in 1Ki 17:3, would be at once apparent (see Tristram, Land of Israel, p. 202). The Kelt being near Mount Quarantania, the traditional scene of the Temptation, was a favorite resort for anchorites when the example of St. Saba made that order fashionable in Palestine. SEE ELIJAH.

Wady el-Kelt is held by Porter (Hand-book for Syria, p. 191) to be the "Valley of Achor," in which the Israelites stoned Achan (Jos 7:26), and which served to mark the northern border of Judah (Jos 15:7). Along the southern bank of the wady, by a long and toilsome pass, ascends the ancient and only road from Jericho to Jerusalem. This he deems "the going up to Adummim, which is on the south side of the river (Jos 15:7). But this identification would confound the name Cherith with the very dissimilar one Achor, which latter we know was retained to a late period in Jewish history. SEE ACHOR.

Cherith (kç’rith), gorge, The Brook, a brook or torrent "before Jordan" where the prophet Elijah was hid. 1Ki 17:5. Robinson and several others identify it with Wady Kelt, a swift, brawling stream, 20 yards wide and three feet deep, running into the Jordan from the west, a little south of Jericho. Some identify it with Wady Fusail, a little farther north, and yet others think it was some stream on the other, or eastern, side of the Jordan.

[Cherith’]

Brook or wady ’before Jordan,’ where Elijah was fed by the ravens during part of the three years’ famine. 1Ki 17:3; 1Ki 17:5. It is not, identified.

By: Emil G. Hirsch, Gerson B. Levi

The name of a brook or wadi near the Jordan, where Elijah, in the time of drought and famine, was told to hide himself, and there findwater and food (I Kings xvii. 3, 5). When the brook dried up he was sent to Zarephath. In the verses cited from Kings the expression "before Jordan" (literally, "by the face of the Jordan") certainly points to the eastern side; hence Robinson's proposed identification with the Wadi al-Ḳalt, apart from philological difficulties, is impossible. Cheyne proposes Reḥoboth, which he explains as worn down into "Cherith," and further suggests that "Egypt" be substituted for "Jordan." Buhl ("Geog. des Alten Palästina," p. 121) argues for the identification of Cherith with Wadi al-Ḥimar, on the supposition that Tishbi is Khirbat Istib. None of the modern attempts at identification is satisfactory.

CHERITH.—The ‘brook’ by which Elijah lived (1Ki 17:3; 1Ki 17:5) was ‘before,’ i.e. on the E. of Jordan. The popular identification of Cherith with the Wady Kelt between Jerusalem and Jericho is unwarranted.