And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it was parted, and became four heads.
All Commentaries on Genesis 2:10 Go To Genesis 2
Ephrem The Syrian
AD 373
Moses turned to write about the river that flowed out from paradise and that, once outside of it, divided into four distinct sources, saying, “A river flowed out of Eden to water paradise.” Here too Moses calls the delightful land of paradise Eden. If that river had indeed watered paradise, it would not have divided into the four rivers outside it. I would suggest that it was perhaps due to convention that it is said “to water,” since the spiritual trees of paradise had no need of water. But if someone should say that because they are spiritual, they drink from the blessed and spiritual waters there, I would not quarrel over this. The four rivers that flowed from that river were not similar in taste to the headspring. For if the waters of our lands vary, all being placed under the sentence of a curse, how much more distinct should the taste of the blessed land of Eden be from the taste of that land that had been placed under the curse of the Just One due to Adam’s transgression of the commandment? The four rivers, then, are these: the Pishon, which is the Danube; the Gihon, which is the Nile; and then the Tigris and the Euphrates, between which we dwell. Although the places from which they flow are known, the source of the spring is not known. Because paradise is set on a great height, the rivers are swallowed up again, and they go down to the sea as if through a tall water duct, and so they pass through the earth that is under the sea into this land. The earth then spits out each one of them: the Danube, which is the Pishon, in the west; the Gihon in the south; and the Euphrates and the Tigris in the north.
