Kidron, Kedron, Brook

 •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 8
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Jerusalem and the Kidron Valley from the Air
The valley, or wide wady, that lies between the east of Jerusalem and the west of Mount Olivet. It is joined by the valley of Hinnom that runs along the south of Jerusalem, and it continues its course for about twenty miles to the Dead Sea. Though called a brook, it is now nearly always dry; this is supposed to be partially due to the amount of rubbish lying in the valley. Its true bottom has been found some forty feet below, and much nearer to the walls of the city. The side of the valley nearest the city is full of Mahometan graves, and on the eastern slope are the graves of the Jews, among which is the erection called the Pillar of Absalom. In Old Testament times it was treated as a defiled place. Asa burnt his mother’s idol there (1 Kings 15:1313And also Maachah his mother, even her he removed from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove; and Asa destroyed her idol, and burnt it by the brook Kidron. (1 Kings 15:13)). Josiah also burnt there the symbols of idolatry (2 Kings 23:4,6,124And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Beth-el. (2 Kings 23:4)
6And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people. (2 Kings 23:6)
12And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, did the king beat down, and brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron. (2 Kings 23:12)); and by 2 Kings 23:66And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people. (2 Kings 23:6) and Jeremiah 31:4040And the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and all the fields unto the brook of Kidron, unto the corner of the horse gate toward the east, shall be holy unto the Lord; it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more for ever. (Jeremiah 31:40) it would appear to have been the common burial ground.