CISON
CISON (
Κίσων, LXX.:
Nahr el-Mukútta), the “ancient river,” which pouring its waters through the plain of Esdraelon in such abundance “swept away” the troops of Sisera during the battle of Deborah and Barak (
Judges 5.21, comp. 4.13;
Ps. 83.9.)
The earliest writers place its source in Mt. Tabor (
Onomast. s. v.), and this statement is correct; but a considerable supply of water flows into its bed from the S. of the plain to the W. of Little Hermon and Mt. Gilboa, as well as from the S. chain which connects Carmel and the hills of Samaria. The Kishon is not now a permanent stream, but flows only during the season of rain, though at the mouth, where it discharges itself into the sea at the S. corner of the bay of Ptolemais by the foot of Mt. Carmel, it is never dry.
At the battle of Tabor between the French and Arabs, many of the latter were drowned in the stream which Burkhardt (
Trav. p. 339) calls the
Debúrieh, and is formed from the Wadys, NW. of Tabor. (Robinson,
Palestine, vol. iii. pp. 228, foll.; Ritter,
Erdkunde, vol. xv. pp. 19, 247, 296; Von Raumer,
Palestina, p. 52.)
[
E.B.J]
