THE HEALING OF THE DEAD SEA

C.J.—It is doubtless impossible to reconcile Ezekiel 47:1–8 with the idea that the healing of the Dead Sea in the age to come will be due to the inrush of the Mediterranean. The verse referred to states that the healing of the waters of the Dead Sea will be due to the entrance of the water which issues in a gradually-deepening stream from under the threshold of the house. There are, however, grounds for admitting the probability that the waters of the Mediterranean will enter and entirely fill the basin of the Dead Sea and the Valley of the Jordan. The first fact pointing in this direction is the presence of the fish of the Mediterranean in the Dead Sea after the healing is effected (verse 10); and the second is the cleft to be caused in the Mount of Olives, and the earthquake attendant on the discomfiture of the assembled armies of the alien at the appearing of Christ. The Mount of Olives is on the apex of the hilly ridge that lies between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, and as the level of the Dead Sea is a thousand feet below the level of the Mediterranean, it would follow that the cleaving of this hill would fissure the barrier between the one sea and the other, and admit the waters of the Mediterranean into the Dead Sea, with the result of filling up the whole valley of the Jordan and forming a magnificent water way from the sea of Galilee to the Gulf of Akaba, thus giving water communication from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. The healing of the Dead Sea, however, is due to the spring that rises under the temple, which also meanders its way by another branch to the Mediterranean itself. The state of the facts does not admit of much positiveness on the point; it is more in the nature of an interesting speculation upon facts revealed.



(1879). The Christadelphian, 16(electronic ed.), 424–425.