The words do not require that the river should actually _take_
its _rise_ within the Garden limits; but it is necessary that the river
should be so situated, that its waters could be distributed by means of
creeks or canals across the Garden, that it could be said the river
"went out and watered the Garden." Now it is a remarkable fact, that in
the district just above Babylon, the bed of the Euphrates is in level
much higher than the bed of the Tigris (Hiddekel) to the east, and that
hence there always have been a number of very variable channels leading
from the Euphrates eastward to the Tigris. These, it is well known, were
often enlarged by the ancients and converted into useful "inundation
canals" for irrigation and the passage of boats. Imagine, then, the high
level river bed of the Euphrates, and various streams flowing off it
down to the valley of the Tigris, and we have a most efficiently
irrigated "Garden," and one accurately described by the text--the great
river "went out" and watered it. The Euphrates, moreover, is liable to
great flushes of water from the melting of the snows in wide tracts of
mountain or highlands from which its waters are collected, and these
volumes of water found vent from the overcharged mother-channel by
escape, not only through the side channels, just spoken of, but also by
other important branches on the other side.
Pages:
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245