John 3:23

Ver. 23. “Now John also was baptizing in AEnon, near to Salim, because there was abundance of water there; and they came and were baptized.”

AEn, from which AEnon, denotes a fountain. We may also, with Meyer, make of the termination on an abridgment of the word jona, dove; this word would thus signify the fountain of the dove. This locality was in the vicinity of a town called Salim. The situation of these two places is uncertain. Eusebius and Jerome, in the Onomasticon, place AEnon eight thousand paces south of Bethsean or Scythopolis, in the valley of the Jordan, on the borders of Samaria and Galilee, and Salim, a little further to the west. And indeed there has recently been found in these localities a ruin bearing the name of Aynu=n (Palestine Exploration Report, 1874).

From this, therefore, it would be necessary to conclude that these two localities were in Samaria. But this result is incompatible with the words of John 3:22: in the country of Judea (on the supposition, at least, that the two baptisms were near each other). And, above all, how should John have settled among the Samaritans? How could he have expected that the multitudes would follow him into the midst of this hostile people? Ewald, Wieseler, Hengstenberg, and Muhlau, because of these reasons, suppose an altogether different locality. In Jos 15:32 three towns are spoken of: Shilhim, Ain, and Rimmon, situated towards the southern frontier of the tribe of Judah, on the borders of Edom (comp. John 15:21). In Jos 19:7 and 1 Chronicles 4:32, Ain and Rimmon again appear together.

Finally, in Neh 11:29 these two names are blended in one: En-Rimmon. Might not AEnon be a still more complete contraction? This supposition would do away with the difficulty of the baptism in Samaria, and would give a very appropriate sense to the reason: because there was abundance of water there. Indeed, as applied to a region generally destitute of water and almost desert, like the southern extremity of Judah, this reason has greater force than if the question were of a country rich in water, like Samaria.

Jesus would thus have gone over all the territory of the tribe of Judah, seeing once in His life Bethlehem, His native town, Hebron, the city of Abraham and David, and all southern Judea even as far as Beersheba. This remark has excited the derisive humor of Reuss; we do not at all understand the reason of it. In the Synoptical Gospels, we see Jesus making a series of excursions as far as the northern limits of the Holy Land, once even to Caesarea Philippi, in the vicinity of the ancient Dan, at the foot of Hermon, at another time as far as into the regions of Tyre and Sidon. He would thus have visited all the countries of the theocratic domain from Dan to Beersheba. Is not this altogether natural? Hengstenberg has taken advantage of this sojourn of Jesus in the vicinity of the desert, to place the temptation at this time. This opinion is chronologically untenable.