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the name of a place and of a rivulet.
1. ( ἡ Êåäñώí v. r. Êåäñώ .) A place fortified by Cendebaeus, under the orders of king Antiochus (Sidetes), as a station from which to command the roads of Judaea (1Ma_15:39; 1Ma_15:41; 1Ma_16:9). It was not far from Jamnia (Jabneh), or from Azotus (Ashdod), and had a winter-torrent or wady ( ÷åéìÜῤῥïõò ) on the eastward of it, which the army of the Maccabees had to cross before Cendebaeus could be attacked (16:5). These conditions are well fulfilled in the modern place Katra or Kitrah, which lies on the maritime plain below the river Rubin, and three miles south-west of Akir (Ekron). Schwarz (Palest. p. 119) gives the modern name as Kadrûn, but this wants confirmation. Ewald (asr. Gesch. 4:390, note) suggests Tell- Turmus, five or six miles farther south. The Syriac has Hebron, and the Vulg. Gedor, which some compare with the village Gedrus ( ÊÝäïõò ), mentioned by Eusebius and Jerome (Ozonmast. s.v. Ãåäïýñ , Gaedur) as lying ten miles from Diopolis, toward Eleutheropolis.
2. In this form is given in the N.T. the name of the brook Kidron ( ðִçִì ÷ַãְøֹï = "the black torrent") in the ravine below the eastern wall of Jerusalem (Joh_18:1). Lachman, with codices A and D, has ÷åéìÜῤῥïõò ôïῦ Êåäñώí ; but the Rec. Text with B has ôῶí ÊÝäñώí , i.e. "the brook of the cedars" (so, too, the Sept. in 2Sa_15:23). Other MSS. have the name even so far corrupted as ôïῦ êÝäñïõ (so à ), cedri, and ôῶí äÝíäñùí . The word, however, has no connection with "cedar." In English, the name in this form is often erroneously pronounced (as if written Kedron) with a hard C. SEE KIDRON.