John Gill Commentary 2 Kings 5:12

"Are not Abanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage." — 2 Kings 5:12 (ASV)

Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all
the waters of Israel ?
&c.] Abana is, in the marginal reading, called Amana, and so the Targum; perhaps from the Mount Amana, from which it sprung, a mountain in Syria ^F7 , mentioned with Lebanon, (Song of Solomon 4:8) . This river is thought to be the Chrysorrhoas of Pliny ^F8 , and other writers; there are no traces of its name, or of the following, to be met with now; the only river by Damascus is called Barrady, which supplies Damascus and its gardens, and makes them so fruitful and pleasant as they be; it pours down from the mountains, as Mr. Maundrell

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may I not wash in them, and be clean ?
as well as in Jordan; or rather, since they are better waters, and so not have been at this trouble and expense to come hither; or have I not washed in them every day? I have, and am I clean? I am not; which is the sense the several Jewish writers give ^F14 :

so he turned, and went away in a rage ;
in a great passion, swearing and cursing perhaps, ordering his chariot driver to turn and be gone at once.

FOOTNOTES:

• F7: Tacit. Annal. l. 2. c. 83.
• F8: Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 18.
• F14: Ben Gersom in loc. & R. Joseph Kimchi, & R. Jonah in Ben Melech in. loc.
• F9: describes it, and is divided into three streams, of which the middlemost and biggest runs directly to Damascus, through a large field, called the field of Damascus; and the other two are drawn round, the one to the right hand, and the other to the left, on the borders of the gardens. Pharpar is thought ^F11 to be the river Orontes, which runs close to the walls of Antioch, and courses through its large and spacious plain, being numbered among the rivers of Syria; it takes its rise from Lebanon, and, sliding through the said plain, falls into the Syrian sea. Benjamin of Tudela ^F12 speaks of these rivers under their Scripture names; Abana or Amana as he says, passes through the city and supplies the houses of great men with water through wooden pipes; and Pharpar is without the city and runs among the gardens and orchards, and waters them. Farfar is also the name of a river in Italy ^F13 :
• F11: Cartwright's Preacher's Travels, p. 7, 8. Hiller. Onomast. Sacr. p. 908.
• F12: Itinerar. p. 55.
• F13: Servius in Virgil. Aeneid. l. 7. p. 1243.