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Gihon is the name of the secondriver mentioned in the second chapter of thebiblicalBook of Genesis. The Gihon is mentioned as one offour rivers (along with theTigris,Euphrates, andPishon) issuing out of Eden, branching from a single river that split after watering theGarden of Eden (Genesis 2:10–14).
The name (HebrewGīḥōn גיחון) may be interpreted as "bursting forth, gushing".
The book of Genesis describes Gihon as "encircling the entire land ofCush", a name associated withEthiopia elsewhere in the Bible. This is the reason that Ethiopians have long identified the Gihon (Giyon) with the Abay River (Blue Nile), which encircles the former kingdom ofGojjam. From a geographic standpoint this would seem impossible, since two of the other rivers said to issue out of Eden, the Tigris and the Euphrates, are inMesopotamia. However, the scholarEdward Ullendorff has argued in support of this identification.[1] In theFra Mauro map of 1459, the Nile is calledGion, giving more credence to this claim.
Some scholars identify Cush in this context as the ancientKassite kingdom, which encompassed a Mesopotamian area that is repeatedly flooded by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. This view has some support fromHerodotus, who thought there were both an African Ethiopia (Cush) and a northern (Asiatic) Ethiopia.
Nineteenth century, modern, and Arabic scholars have sought to identify the "land of Cush" withHindu Kush, and Gihon withAmu Darya (Jihon/Jayhon of the Islamic texts). Amu Darya was known in the medieval Islamic writers as Jayhun or Ceyhun inTurkish.[2] This was a derivative of Jihon, or Zhihon as it is still known by thePersians.[3][4]
First-century Jewish historianJosephus associated the Gihon river with theNile.[5]
Gihon (or Pishon) has also been associated with the Araxes (modernAras) river which flows through Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran, or with the river Oxus (the Amu Darya).[6]
Juris Zarins identified the Gihon with theKarun River in Iran and Kush with the land of theKassites.[7]
TheSefer haYashar, a medieval Hebrewmidrash, asserts that in the time ofEnos, grandson ofAdam, the river Gihon was subject to a catastrophic flood due to the wickedness of man.[8]