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Bible Dictionaries
Euphrates
People's Dictionary of the Bible
or Euphrates (eû-frâ'tçz), the abounding. A noted river, the largest in western Asia; rises in Armenia in two sources. Its whole length is 1780 miles. It is navigable for large ships to Bassora, 70 miles above its mouth; a steamer drawing four feet of water has ascended to Bir, 1197 miles. It flows in a broad, deep current, filled to the level of its banks, and at Babylon is considerably less than a mile in width. For the last 800 miles of its course it does not receive a single tributary. The Tigris flows in a narrower channel, with deeper banks and a less rapid current. The country between the two rivers slopes toward the Tigris, and thus greatly favors the draining off of the superfluous waters of the Euphrates. In Scripture the Euphrates is named as one of the rivers of Eden, Genesis 2:14; called "the great river," Genesis 15:18; Deuteronomy 1:7; noted as the eastern boundary of the Promised Land, Deuteronomy 11:24; Joshua 1:4; 1 Chronicles 5:9; and of David's conquests, 2 Samuel 8:3; 1 Chronicles 18:3; of those of Babylon from Egypt, 2 Kings 24:7; is referred to in prophecy, Jeremiah 13:4-7; Jeremiah 46:2-10; Jeremiah 51:63; and in Revelation 9:14; Revelation 16:12. In upward of 26 other passages it is spoken of as "the river." By this stream the captive Jews wept. Psalms 137:1. It is now called the Frat by the natives.
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Rice, Edwin Wilbur, DD. Entry for 'Euphrates'. People's Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/rpd/e/euphrates.html. 1893.
