The meaning of Marsh in the Bible
(From International Standard Bible Encyclopedia)
marsh ((1) gebhe', the American Standard Revised Version "marsh," the King James Version and the English Revised Version "marish" (Ezekiel 47:11); the King James Version "pit," the Revised Version (British and American) "cistern" (Isaiah 30:14); compare Arabic jaba', "reservoir," "watering-through"; (2) bots, "mire"; bitstsah, "mire," "fen"; compare Arabic badda, to "trickle," badad, "a little water"; (3) TiT, "mire" "clay"; (4) chomer, "mire," "clay," "mortar"; (5) ma'abheh ha-'adhamah (I Kings 7:46), and 'abhi ha-'adhamah (II Chronicles 4:17), "clay ground"): In the vision of Ezekiel the saltness of the Dead Sea is "healed" by the stream issuing from under the threshold of the temple, "But the miry places (bitstsah) thereof, and the marshes (gebhe') thereof, shall not be healed" (Ezekiel 47:11). Gebhe' occurs elsewhere only in Isaiah 30:14, where the King James Version has "pit" and the Revised Version (British and American) "cistern." Bots, "mire," is found only in Jeremiah 38:22. Bitstsah is found also in Job 8:11,
"Can the rush grow up without mire (bitstsah)?
Can the flag grow without water?"
and in Job 40:21 (of the behemoth),
"He lieth under the lotus-trees,
In the covert of the reed, and the fen (bitstsah)."
In 1 Macc 9:42,45 helos, but in 9:42 Codex Vaticanus reads oros, "mount."
Marshes are found near the mouths of some of the rivers, as the Kishon, about the Chuleh (? waters of Merom), at various places in the course of the Jordan and about the Dead Sea, especially at its south end. For the most part Palestine is rocky and dry.
Alfred Ely Day
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