Zaretan


Zaretan is a city mentioned in the Bible, as near the location where the Hebrews crossed the Jordan. In the books of Joshua and 1 Kings, it is called Zarethan, but in 2 Chronicles it is called Zeredathah.
Zaredathah stood in the Jordan Valley. Nelson Glueck looked for it on the east bank of the river, proposing Tell es-Saidiyeh, but some more recent authors place it on the west bank, one theory identifying it with Tell el-Mezar in Wadi Far'a. Tell el-Mezar is at the site called in Arabic Qerawa, known from antiquity by the name Korea or Koreous and located at the foot of Mount Sartabe.
These clay grounds were where the bronze castings for the Temple of Solomon were made by Hiram I.
The old identification of the site of the miracle of the Israelites' crossing of the Jordan with the waters stopping their flow at the "city of Adam beside Zaretan" was, according to the Easton's Bible Dictionary, presumed to be near Succoth, where the Jabbok flows into the Jordan, about 30 miles upstream from the Israelite camp. There the priests stepped into the water, which then "stood and rose upon an heap", thus creating a 30-mile stretch of dry riverbed for the tribes to use for crossing over to the Promised Land.