What is a…
brook in the Bible

Hebrew: נַחַל —transliteration: nachal —meaning: a torrent, brook, flood, river, stream, valley

1. Applied to small streams, as the Arnon, Jabbok, etc. Isaiah (Isaiah 15:7) speaks of the “brook of the willows,” probably the Wadi al Asha (Wady al Asha).

2. It is also applied to winter torrents (Job 6:15; Numbers 34:5; Joshua 15:4, 47), and to the torrent-bed or wadi as well as to the torrent itself (Numbers 13:23; 1 Kings 17:3).

   What is the “brook of Egypt”? (an important border landmark)

3. In Isaiah 19:7 KJV, the river Nile is meant, as translated in the New King James Version and other modern translations.

   The bulrushes by the Nile, by the edge of the Nile
   And all the sown fields by the Nile
   Will become dry, be driven away, and be no more. —Isaiah 19:7 NASB, LSB