this plain was abundantly watered. It was watered not only
by the Jordan, but also by many smaller rivers which now
empty themselves into the Dead Sea — the brook Kedron, the
spring Callirrhoe, the Arnon, and the Zered. Moses therefore
compares the region with Paradise, which was watered by four
streams, Gen. xiii. 10, and with Lower Egypt, which was
exceedingly fruitful, and was watered by the branches of the
Mle. Moreover the district was at that time full of bitumen,
as we infer from Gen. xiv. 10, where it is related that the people
of the kings of Sodom and Gomorrha, who were conquered by
Ohedorlaomer, had fallen into the pits of bitumen. Bitumeis,
therefore, was already buried there; or rather there were natural
pits, sources of bitumen, before the sea was there. In harmony
with this statement is the fact that even yet masses of asphalt
often appear suddenly floating on the sea — E,obinson, part iii.
p. 1.64 ; Hitter, Palestine, i. pp. 752, 757 — as this account would
naturally lead us to expect, since the masses from the asphalt'
mines which are covered by the sea, must necessarily come up
from time to time.
