The Sunday Mail
Shingai Rukwata Ndoro Chiseling the Debris
THE first of the four rivers is Pishon. The river Pishon “flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold,” (Genesis 2:11).
Abarim Publications’ Biblical Hebrew Dictionary (BHD) said, Pishon may have been Indus River. Literally it means the “mouth of the region” or even “valley region.”
According to “The Garden of Eden; or The Paradise Lost & Found” (1890) by Victoria Claflin Woodhull, the term Pishon is symbolism for the changing and extension of the mouth.
Biologically, the human body is watered and fed by a stream which is the extension of the mouth, and that changes constantly as it encircles the system. The support of the body enters it by the mouth, and by the river, which is the extension of the mouth as it runs to the stomach.
From the stomach (the small intestines), where the separating process in the chyle (“a milky fluid containing fat droplets which drains from the lacteals of the small intestine into the lymphatic system during digestion”) begins, there is the digested contents of the stomach. This river flow, Pishon, empties itself into the heart, and then into the lungs, where it is de-carbonised and oxygenised, and returned to the heart to be distributed over the entire system by the arterial circulation.
In its course toward the extremities, it gives necessary supplies to the various parts through which it passes. This constant giving-off changes the character of the current as constantly, until the circumference of the body is reached. From thence it is returned to the heart through the venous circulation, gathering up the worn-out matter to expel it from the body.
This is the process by which the river Pishon, “compasseth the whole land of Havilah”, which is the land “that suffers pain and brings forth,” and in which there are precious things.
This land, “that suffers pain and brings forth” is the land of Havilah, which is compassed by the river Pishon. This is a very graphic description of the process by which the body is nourished and fed.
Second river
The first branch that divides from the main river of the body is that which drains the body by way of the intestines is the river Gihon.
This “flows around the whole land of Cush (Genesis 2:13)… Cush is usually associated or equated with Ethiopia, but more accurate is Nubia, the region south of Egypt (Oxford Companion to the Bible).” – BHD.
From various sources, Gihon means, gusher (HAW Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament), “great breaking forth (of waters),” (Jones’ Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names) bursting forth (NOBSE Study Bible Name List).
The Hebrew verb, giah/gwh meaning to burst forth describes, “a vivaciously flowing river” (Job 40:23) or “a child coming forth from the womb,” (Job 38:8, Psalm 22:10) – BHD.
Alternatively, Gihon means “the valley of grace.” Grace is an appropriate name for the process by which the material from the mouth (river Pishon) is discharged from the body. The process of grace is a process of natural and involuntary purification. The “valley of grace” is for the operations that are performed within the abdomen for the elimination from the body of the refuse that is gathered there.
This is the river that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia – the land of blackness (darkness), and where there is heat (Psalm 139:12). That is to say, the intestines occupy the abdominal cavity, which is the land of darkness in Eden. All the movements that are made therein are made in darkness, and therein also is the heat that signifies the warmth that gives and maintains life; that maintains the old and that produces the new; that sustains the temperature of the body, and that gives it the power to reproduce. Physiologically this is absolutely true.
Third river
“And the name of the third river is Tigris (Hiddekel) that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria.” Next in importance to the maintenance of the human economy is the river that drains the system of another class of impurities, running by the way of the renal system consisting of kidneys, uterus, bladder and urethra. This is the river Hiddekel or the stream that runs with a “swift current” and a “sharp sound.”
And this river of Eden runs toward the east of Assyria, which is the “land of the garden,” in the midst of which is the Tree of Life. It is the female human body that suffers pain in bringing forth and it was the producing part of the garden – the reproductive female power.
Fourth river
And the fourth river is Euphrates and variously defined as good bountiful (Abarim Publications’BHD), “that which makes fruitful” (NOBSE Study Bible Name List) and fruitfulness (Jones’ Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names).
This last river of the Garden of Eden is that one which renders it fruitful; that makes it yield its fruit, and that flows through the reproductive system.
Euphrates (“Waters of the East”) means fruitfulness. The river is the last one in the order of physiological sequence. It is the fruit or the result of the perfected action of all the others combined.
Conclusion
A river waters the land of pleasure or delight, enters by the mouth, and extending by the way of the stomach, intestines, heart, lungs, arteries, and veins, waters the whole land that suffers pain and brings forth.
The scriptural scribes used historical names for the four rivers to symbolically represent the mouth and the three systems – digestive, renal system and reproductive of a human being.
References
“A Complete Concordance to the Holy Scripture” (1737) by Alexander Cruden.
“The Garden of Eden; or The Paradise Lost & Found” (1890) by Victoria Claflin Woodhull, www.sacred-texts.com
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