EUPHRATES RIVER

And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates, and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.

—Rev. 16:12

1384 An Old Dividing Line

The Euphrates River is about 1,800 miles long, one thousand feet to one mile at some points wide, and is on the average 57 feet deep, For a long time, this river was a formidable barrier to East-West communication and transportation. Although modern transportation systems can cross the river easily, the water has nevertheless become a subtle dividing line.

This drying of the Euphrates will serve as a sign to the kings of the east to begin a catastrophic invasion.

1385 Dam Over The Euphrates

On April 22, 1966, Syria and the Soviet Union signed an agreement in Moscow for the latter’s help in building a dam across “that great river, Euphrates.” The dam is now finished—the world’s largest earth-filled dam costing over $300 million—and the location is such that the dam’s closure can cause the entire Euphr ates to dry up. A news item as follows:

“The Middle East’s largest hydroelectrical project after the Aswan High Dam on the Nile has been inaugurated in Syria. … In a recent ceremony at Medinat Al Thawra, tons of cement blocks, released when Syrian President Al-Assad pushed a button, tumbled into the waters of the Euphrates River and stopped the flow of the river. Assad paid tribute to the thousands of Soviet engineers and technicians who have worked on the project for 4 years with 11,000 Syrian technicians and laborers. With the closing of the river, a reservoir began filling up behind the dam which rises 200 feet above the riverbed. The reservoir will form a lake stretching 50 miles upstream and storing 12 billion cubic yards of water. This will permit irrigation of more than 1.5 million acres of land.”

See also: Asian Invasion ; Rev. 9:14.