Zarethan

Zarethan was a town in the Jordan Valley near the eastern edge of Manasseh, opposite the foothills of Gilead. As the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant stepped into the Jordan at flood stage, "the waters coming down from above stood and rose up in a heap very far away, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan, and those flowing down toward the Sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, were wholly cut off. And the people passed over opposite Jericho" (Joshua 3:16) — Israel crossed into the Promised Land on dry ground. Five centuries later, Zarethan was where Solomon set up his bronze foundry to cast the great furnishings of the temple: "In the plain of the Jordan the king cast them, in the clay ground between Succoth and Zarethan" (1 Kings 7:46, 2 Chronicles 4:17). It also appears in Solomon's fifth administrative district as one of the western Manasseh towns under Baana son of Ahilud (1 Kings 4:12).