Beth-nimrah

Beth-nimrah ("house of leopards") was a fortified Gadite town in the Jordan Valley near the eastern shore of the river opposite Jericho (Numbers 32:3, 32:36, Joshua 13:27). The site is securely identified with Tell Nimrin near the modern Jordanian village of Shuneh, where the Wadi Shu'eib enters the Jordan plain. The town was famous in antiquity for its abundant springs ("the waters of Nimrim" — Isaiah 15:6, Jeremiah 48:34) which Isaiah prophesied would dry up as a sign of Moab's coming desolation. Beth-nimrah's springs and floodplain made it one of the most productive agricultural areas in all of Transjordan. The town's proximity to Aenon and to "Bethany beyond the Jordan" (John 1:28) — Jesus's baptism region — has led some traditions to associate the wider Beth-nimrah area with the geography of John the Baptist's ministry.