The Aravah
עֲרָבָה
Where is the Aravah? The whole Jordan Rift, from the Kinneret down to Eilat. I mark it certain.
Ask an Israeli where the Arava is and they'll point south of the Dead Sea, to the desert valley that runs down to Eilat. On this map the label is somewhere else, in the Jordan Valley north of the Dead Sea, opposite Jericho. That isn't a mistake. It's how the Tanach uses the word.
By Aaron Shaffier, licensed Israel tour guide and mapmaker · About the mapmaker
- Site today
- The whole Jordan Rift, from the Kinneret down to Eilat
- How sure
- Certain The name, the sources and the finds all agree.
- Other names
- Arabah, Arava, Arvot, Rift Valley, Ghor
- Location
- 31.9152° N, 35.4858° E (Google Maps)
How we know where it was
Aravah means a dry, open plain, and in the Tanach it names the entire rift. Moses describes the land of the eastern tribes as "the Aravah and the Jordan, from the Kinneret to the Sea of the Aravah, the Salt Sea." The Dead Sea itself is "the Sea of the Aravah." The flat land on either bank near Jericho is Arvot Moav and Arvot Yericho, the plains of Moab and the plains of Jericho. The word reaches south too: "the road of the Aravah" climbs from Eilat.
So the heart of the biblical Aravah is right where the label sits. Moses spoke the words of Deuteronomy "in the Aravah," across the Jordan from Jericho. Centuries later Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, fled Jerusalem "by way of the Aravah" and was caught by the Babylonians in the plains of Jericho.
The modern usage doesn't come from the Bible at all. It comes from Arabic. The Arabs called the desert valley south of the Dead Sea Wadi Araba, and modern Hebrew took the name over from them. Read the Tanach with that meaning and these stories land in the wrong valley.
Isaiah promised that one day "the Aravah shall rejoice and blossom." Drive Route 90 through the date groves north of the Dead Sea and you're watching it happen!
Visiting today
Route 90 runs the length of the biblical Aravah, from the Kinneret to Eilat.
Read it in the Bible
Verse numbers follow the Hebrew Bible. In a handful of chapters English Bibles count one verse off.
See The Aravah on the interactive map →
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Get the print + free ebookNearby places
- The Jordan River 4 km
- Jericho 6 km
- Gilgal 7 km
- Perath (Wadi Qelt) 7 km
- Beth Hoglah 10 km
- The Ascent of Adumim 13 km