What is the significance of the Tigris River in the Bible?

Other particulars concerning time and place are added: "And in the four and twentieth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, which is Hiddekel;* then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked," etc. (vv. 4, 5). At this date, then, and at this place, the vision of "a certain man" is granted to him, and the various features of his dress and appearance are described. He was clothed in fine linen; his loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz; his body also was like the beryl; his face as the appearance of lightning; his eyes as lamps of fire; his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass; and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude (vv. 5, 6).

*This river is only mentioned by name in one other place (Gen. 2:14). It is generally identified, both from geographical and etymological considerations, with the Tigris. If this be correct, Daniel would have to cross it on his journeys to Shushan (Dan. 8:2) from Babylon.

*This river is only mentioned by name in one other place (Gen. 2:14). It is generally identified, both from geographical and etymological considerations, with the Tigris. If this be correct, Daniel would have to cross it on his journeys to Shushan (Dan. 8:2) from Babylon.

One of the rivers of Eden: supposed to be identical with the Tigris, which is called Dijlah. Gen. 2:14; Dan. 10:4.

Daniel's closing revelations of chapters 10 – 12 are by "the side of the great river, which is Hiddekel" (10:4), and this carries us back in thought to Eden, where, in Genesis 2, we first read of this important river. These are remarkable revelations, taking us down to the time of the end, even to the time when "many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Dan. 12:2). In verses 5-7 the prophet sees and hears the divine messengers on the banks of the river, and upon its waters, but is unable to understand the messages that were for our generation. By the Spirit of God we are now enabled to apprehend the revelations given to Daniel by the rivers of Babylon, so that we may take our way quietly towards the end, waiting and watching for the coming of the Lord, the One who shall give effect to all that He revealed to Daniel so long ago.

Let us look then a little at the differences. In Genesis we find that there were four rivers; and of these rivers, although we know little or nothing of the two first, at any rate it is clear that the two last, the Euphrates and Hiddekel or Tigris, were connected with some of the most painful passages in the history of God's earthly people at a later day. On these rivers were built the two most famous cities of antiquity; the Tigris on which Nineveh stood, and the Euphrates on which Babylon was built. I speak now, of course, of a time long subsequent to Adam, or even the deluge. And though the flood may have effaced, as it doubtless did, many other features of the antediluvian earth, still we find these two rivers again. As for Paradise, it was gone, but these rivers were to play an important part in the history of man, and especially of that which acquires a moment greater than its own, from being mingled with the vicissitudes and the chastenings of God's people Israel. These two rivers were identified with the powers that were to be the ruin of Israel and Judah respectively. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, which carried the great mass of the ten tribes of Israel into captivity. Babylon was the power afterwards used of God for the captivity of that which seemed to stand firm for God, no less than for David's house, but which ere long fell into greater unfaithfulness than backsliding Israel. Thus these rivers, which had been at first connected with Paradise, became afterwards the representatives of the powers of men that were used to scourge the guilty people of God.

The Tigris is where Ninevah was built, and Euphrates is where Babylon was built, the two empires being centred on these places. Both were used by God in chastisement on the nation of Israel. Babylon has special mention in Revelation, in chapters 14, 17 and 18 of Revelation. But there is no possibility that the Lord will ever allow empires to be built on this river which comes from the throne of God and of the Lamb. There is another river in Zechariah 14:8 and of that river it says, "And it shall come to pass in that day that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the eastern sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea" but this river is on this earth flowing from the earthly Jerusalem.

Observe another thing too. We have the description of the garden of Eden. I do not consider that its locality is so very difficult to ascertain in a general way as has been often imagined. Scripture describes it, and mentions two rivers which unquestionably exist at the present day. There can be no doubt that the Euphrates and the Tigris or Hiddekel, here named, are the same two rivers similarly called to this moment. It appears to me beyond reasonable doubt that the other two rivers are by no means impossible to trace; and it is remarkable, as showing that the Spirit of God takes an interest, and furnishes a thread to help us in the fact, that the two less notorious rivers are described more fully than the rivers which are so commonly known.* We are therefore warranted in supposing that they are described just because they might have been less easily discerned. It is said that the name of the first river is the Pison, and of the other the Gihon. Now without wishing to press my individual judgment of such a matter, I may state the conviction that the Pison and the Gihon, here described, are two rivers on the north of the site of Eden, one running into the Black Sea, the other into the Caspian. I believe that they are what are called, or used to be called in ancient times at any rate, the Phasis and the Aras or Araxes.

This is confirmed by the notable fact that the river which watered paradise is without a name; silence the more striking, because the four rivers, into which, after its allotted service, it was parted, are carefully named. One can readily understand that fact, if it were caused to disappear as well as paradise. It is implied in the description that it flowed through Eden before it watered the garden, and only after that was severed into four chief streams, two of which are the well-known rivers, Hiddekel or Tigris, and P'hrath or Euphrates. The last was notorious enough to need no description, its companion calling for the very few words, "that which flows toward," or in front of, "Assyria." The first and second are described more fully, as being comparatively unknown to Israel, and in fact nowhere else mentioned in the scriptures. But the account has the difficulties arising from countries obscure to later generations at least, both in their own names and in those of their products. Havilah and Cush have been debated nearly as much as Pison and Gihon; and not less the exact force of B'dolach and Shoham.

A river ran out of Eden to water it, and then divided into four. Only two of these can be identified, the Euphrates, and the Hiddekel denoting the Tigris. There are no others to be found to make up the four, and all efforts to find out where the garden of Eden was situated have utterly failed. It belonged to the time of innocence, and as that has gone, the earthly paradise has long ceased to exist. See PARADISE.

A river is also mentioned, flowing out of the garden, evidently having its source by a spring from the earth, but watering the garden as it flowed. This speaks of the blessing of God by His word and Spirit, as does also the "river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb," described in Revelation 22:1. This river from the garden of Eden, however, was parted into four different rivers, indicating increasing blessing as the waters flowed. The last two rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, are prominent rivers today, though the contour of the land will have been so changed by the flood that their courses cannot be the same.