ZERED zĭr’ ĭd (זָֽרֶד, KJV ZARED, Num 21:12). Probable meaning, torrent of the willows. The Trans-jordanian river where the Israelites, terminating their wanderings and by-passing Edom, encamped and crossed into Moab (Num 21:12, 13; Deut 2:13). It was prob. also the Brook of the Willows (Isa 15:7), the Brook of the Arabah (Amos 6:14), and the scene of the flash flood in 2 Kings 3.

Because Israel penetrated the wilderness E of Moab before crossing the Zered, some identify it with the Wadi Kerak or some tributary of the Kerak or the Arnon—the Ferranj or Seil Sa ’ideh perhaps. Others, postulating a journey eastward up the valley before the crossing, accept identification (here favored) with Wadi el-Hesa.

Like the Kerak and Arnon, the Hesa flows intermittently in a shallow valley across the plateau, but replenished by rainfall, tributaries and esp. springs, flows perennially to its terminal oasis through a canyon cleaving the fault-weakened escarpment. Steep-walled but broad-floored and flanked with cultivable terraces, this wadi formed both the historic divide between Edom and Moab and a difficult but practicable route to the plateau.