Swelling

The "swelling of Jordan" (Jer. 12:5; Zech. 11:3; also rendered "the pride of Jordan" in the Revised Version) refers not to flood-surge per se but to the dense thicket of tamarisks, willows, poplars, and reeds growing along the Jordan's banks in the lower valley near the Dead Sea. This lush jungle-like vegetation, sometimes twelve to fourteen feet high, was the haunt of lions and other predators and made the river crossing genuinely dangerous. The "pride" of Jordan thus denotes this luxuriant, threatening undergrowth.

Jeremiah uses the image rhetorically: if Jeremiah cannot run with men on foot, how will he contend with horses? If he stumbles in safe land, what will he do in the thicket of Jordan? The comparison moves from the manageable to the overwhelming, using the known danger of the Jordan jungle as a figure for greater trials ahead. Zechariah similarly uses the cedar and the lions in the Jordan's thicket as images of the lament of the proud at the fall of their protectors.