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[96]
NOW Titus Caesar tarried some time at Berytus, as we told you before.
He thence removed, and exhibited magnificent shows in all those cities
of Syria through which he went, and made use of the captive Jews as public
instances of the destruction of that nation. He then saw a river as he
went along, of such a nature as deserves to be recorded in history; it
runs in the middle between Arcea, belonging to Agrippa's kingdom, and Raphanea.
It hath somewhat very peculiar in it; for when it runs, its current is
strong, and has plenty of water; after which its springs fail for six days
together, and leave its channel dry, as any one may see; after which days
it runs on the seventh day as it did before, and as though it had undergone
no change at all; it hath also been observed to keep this order perpetually
and exactly; whence it is that they call it the Sabbatic River 1
that name being taken from the sacred seventh day among the Jews.
1 Since in these latter ages this Sabbatic River, once so famous, which, by Josephus's account here, ran every seventh day, and rested on six, but according to Pliny, Nat. Hist. 31. II, ran perpetually on six days, and rested every seventh, (though it no way appears by either of their accounts that the seventh day of this river was the Jewish seventh day or sabbath,) is quite vanished, I shall add no more about it: only see Dr. Hudson's note. In Varenius's Geography, i, 17, the reader will find several instances of such periodical fountains and. rivers, though none of their periods were that of a just week as of old this appears to have been.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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