Study Bekhorot folio 55B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
springs that are higher in the mountains than the Euphrates; how can their water come from the Euphrates? Rav Mesharshiyya said: These are ladders of the Euphrates, i.e., the waters of the Euphrates seep through the ground and are drawn upward to emerge from these springs.
The Talmud asks: But isn’t it written: “And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it was separated, and became 4 heads…And the name of the third river is Tigris; that is the one that goes toward the east of Ashur. And the 4th river is the Euphrates” (Genesis 2:10, 14)? This i
Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak said, and some say it was Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov who said: It is the Euphrates that the verse mentions initially as the river that went out of Eden, which divided into all the other rivers. After the other 3 branched out from it, the Euphrates continued to flow.
It is taught in a baraita that R' Meir says: Yuval is the name of the Euphrates River where it emerges from Eden, as it is stated: “For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreads out its roots by the river [yuval], and shall not see when heat comes, but its foliage shall be luxur
The Talmud adds that this supports the opinion of Shmuel, as Shmuel says: The river is blessed from its riverbed; the additional water in the river is not from rainfall but rather from subterranean sources. And this statement disagrees with the opinion of Rav, as Rav Ami says that Rav says: When r