Jerusalem, situated on Mount Zion, was majestic in beauty and a defensible fortress. To the east of Jerusalem, running from north to south, lay the valley of Kidron, dividing Jerusalem and Mount Zion from the Mount of Olives. With the setting sun darkness and gloom from the shadows of Jerusalem’s walls and Zion’s peaks would creep over this ravine. Flowing along the bottom of the valley was a brook known by the Hebrews as the brook Kidron. To the Hebrews the name Kidron meant black and full of darkness, and this for good reason. Scripture speaks of this brook in several passages.

In Leviticus 14:33–45 God instructed Moses and Aaron about what the priests were to do when the Israelites came to dwell in the land of Canaan and God put the plague of leprosy in a house. When a house was plagued with leprosy, after emptying the infected home and shutting it up for seven days, the priests were instructed to come back and inspect the home. If the plague had spread in the house, the infected stones were to be taken away, the house was to be scraped, and both the stones and the scraped-off dust were to be cast into “an unclean place without the city” (v. 40). And if the plague came yet again, they were to “break down the house” and remove the stones, timbers, and mortar of the house and cast them into the unclean place (v. 45). For the city of Jerusalem, the valley of Kidron was such a place. Every unclean thing that was infected with or touched by leprosy would be cast down her sides. In the Old Testament leprosy was a picture of sin, and the casting of all the material that was infected with the plague of leprosy into Kidron was seen as the removing of sin and uncleanness from before the face of God.

The brook Kidron is also mentioned in 2 Chronicles 15:16: “Concerning Maachah the mother of Asa the king, he removed her from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove: and Asa cut down her idol, and stamped it, and burnt it at the brook Kidron.” Godly King Asa, when purging the land of Judah of idols, took the idol that his queen mother had been worshiping in a grove and stamped and burnt the idol at the brook.

Another mention of the brook in scripture is during the beginning of the reign of Hezekiah over Judah. Hezekiah reopened the temple doors and commanded the priests and Levites to cleanse the temple because the worship of the Lord had been corrupted. “The priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord, to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of the Lord into the court of the house of the Lord. And the Levites took it, to carry it out abroad into the brook Kidron” (2 Chron. 29:16).

In 2 Chronicles 30, King Hezekiah issued a call to all the tribes to come to Jerusalem to keep the passover and turn unto the Lord. The faithful children of Israel came, and along with those from Judah, they carried away the altars that had been set up for false gods in Jerusalem. “They arose and took away the altars that were in Jerusalem, and all the altars for incense took they away, and cast them into the brook Kidron” (v. 14).

In Josiah’s reformation too the filth from the idol gods was taken from the temple and throughout Jerusalem and was cast into the brook.

4. The king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Bethel.

5. And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.

6. And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people. (2 Kings 23:4–6)

We see also in this text that the dead were buried in the valley of Kidron. The prophet Jeremiah speaks of this too in Jeremiah 31:40: “The whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and all the fields unto the brook of Kidron…”

The temple was positioned on the east side of Jerusalem, and the waste from all the temple sacrifices would have been discarded in Kidron. Even the city’s sewage and excrement would have flowed down the valley and into the brook. Kidron reeked of filth, foulness, and death.

A more well-known mention in scripture of the brook Kidron is when King David crossed this brook during his flight from his insurrectionist son, Absalom. David had escaped out of Jerusalem in the unfavorable direction of the valley of Kidron. The rejection of David as king by the majority of Israel, who had chosen Absalom instead, had been humiliating. The aged King David had been betrayed by his favorite son. He also had been spurned by his foremost counselor, Ahithophel, who had joined with Absalom to get his revenge. It is written in 2 Samuel 16:23: “The counsel of Ahithophel, which he counselled in those days, was as if a man had enquired at the oracle of God.” Denied by many friends and with only a few by his side, we read of David’s crossing in 2 Samuel 15:23: “All the country wept with a loud voice, and all the people passed over: the king also himself passed over the brook Kidron, and all the people passed over, toward the way of the wilderness.” The weeping king crossed through the brook. David’s crossing was a foreshadowing. Another was to come and cross over.

There is an organic unity to the scriptures. The old dispensation and all of history culminates in the Messiah. The types and shadows that can be gleaned from the Old Testament are brought to their full realization in Jesus Christ. John 17 records what is often called the high priestly prayer of Christ. Christ had just instituted the Lord’s supper, and he made this prayer while he was yet with his disciples in Jerusalem. “These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee” (v. 1). After Christ had prayed this prayer, “he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which he entered, and his disciples” (John 18:1).

The words “over the brook Cedron,” a small prepositional phrase that one might read right over, are found only in John’s gospel account. Jesus crossed over the brook, as this was the path to the garden of Gethsemane. The garden was on the hillside of the Mount of Olives, on the opposing side of the valley of Kidron from Jerusalem. At this time Judas, whom Christ would address as “friend,” was headed to the leaders to betray Christ. Like David’s counselor Ahithophel, who ended his own life after he betrayed David in favor of Absalom, Judas later also took his own life after his betrayal of Jesus. And just as the rejected King David had only a small band that stayed with him as he crossed the brook, so Christ crossed over the same brook with only the eleven disciples. Jesus, rejected by the world, walked through the darkness and gloom of the valley with the eleven, who also soon fled away. Christ had previously spoken to the disciples of Zechariah’s prophecy: “All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered” (Mark 14:27). Alone, Christ had to bear the wrath of God for the sins of his people.

In Jesus’ crossing of Kidron, we see our savior take up the filthiness of the waters of the black brook upon himself, even while his holy soul loathed our iniquities. He walked through the cemeteries of the dead on the pathway to his cross and tomb, where he would claim the victory over sin and the grave and give to his people life. He willingly took on all our uncleanness, idol worship, false gods, false worship, and death. “I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me” (Ps. 69:2). In the garden he spoke to his disciples: “My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch” (Mark 14:34). Carrying the burden of sin, bloody sweat was pressed from him in the garden. The cup of God’s wrath was full. The one who knew no sin carried the sins of his people to the cross. God smote his only-
begotten Son in the hours of darkness while he hung on that accursed tree. “And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). God cast Christ into darkness, removing his Son from his blessed covenant fellowship so that we might have all things in life and in death. “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21).