Today, the Jordan is a city and villages, such as Bejsán and Jericho; but generally it is desolate because of the torrid climate.
Not navigable, the JORDAN constitutes more of a barrier than a means of communication between peoples. In the Bible it is remembered above all as a frontier (Num. 34:12; Ezek. 47:18), whether of enemies who had crossed it (2 Kgs. 7:15; Judg. 12:5) or of Israelites who took refuge on the other shore (1 Sam. 13:7; 2 Sam. 2:20, 17:22).
In the lower part, opposite Jericho, the JORDAN is associated with the memory of the miraculous crossing of the Israelites (Josh. 3:1), with the prophets Elijah and Elisha (2 Kgs. 2), with the ministry of St. John the Baptist (John 1:28), and with the Baptism of Jesus. This memory made the JORDAN a place always frequented and visited by the faithful, who, out of devotion, bathe in it, especially on the feast of Epiphany.
Iconography. - The representation of the river JORDAN recurs frequently in Christian monuments, because of the events of which it was a witness, principally the Baptism of Jesus. It is well known how the ancients, to express particular landscape features, often made use of personifications. Rivers are represented by an old river god, reclining and leaning on a urn or a vase, from which water flows. This custom is also found in early Christian art. In the mosaic decoration of the Baptistery of St. John in Fonte in Ravenna (5th century), the central disc of the dome with the scene of the Baptism of Christ bears the image of the JORDAN with the attribute of the green reed: rising from the waters, it offers the Saviour a cloth to dry himself. Again in Ravenna, in the Baptistery of the Arians, of the same period, the decoration of the centre of the vault with the same scene has the figure of the JORDAN seated on a rock and endowed with the attributes of an ancient river deity. In the cemetery frescoes and on the sarcophagi, anthropomorphism is generally not found, but well-defined landscape features appear. In all cases the waters of the JORDAN are visible, which symbolize the spiritual purification obtained through Baptism. With regard to the Old Testament, the personification of the JORDAN appears in the fresco of the lunette of an arcosolium in the cemetery of Domitilla (second half of the 4th century) with the scene of the assumption of Elijah into heaven (2 Kgs. 2:1 ff.; Ecclus. 48:8, 1-13): it also appears in the casket of Werden and in the "scroll of Joshua," preserved in the Vatican Library, and precisely in the episode of the crossing of the river by the Hebrew people led by the successor of Moses (Josh. 3:7; 4:14, 23).