The actual locality which Professor Delitzsch proposes as the most
probable site of the Garden of Eden is between the present Euphrates and
Tigris, just to the north of Babylon. The boundaries would be--roughly
and generally speaking--the two rivers for East and West; while for the
North and South boundaries we should draw parallel lines through Accad
on the North and Babylon on the South.
But granted that the general locality and the relations of the river
Euphrates and Tigris satisfy the requirements of the text by such a
location as this: how about the other two _and_ the countries which they
compass? The troubles of the earlier commentators will warn us, that we
need not be too ready to force names, and to identify one river, and
then, _because_ we have fixed that, make the country which the text
requires follow it!
It is, however, in this matter that Professor Delitzsch's work is so
satisfactory. He has pointed out, that there is historical evidence (and
also that the local traces are not wanting in the present day) to prove
that, just below Babylon, we _can_ find two prominently important
channels or branches of the Euphrates, which will at least supply the
place of Pison and Gihon. As to the first, it is known that in historic
times a great channel called by the Greeks Pallakopas (navigable for
ships) used to carry off the surplus water of the Euphrates when swollen
in the summer season by the melting snows of the Armenian mountains.
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