Brook Cedron: When David fled Jerusalem because of Absalom’s rebellion, the text says, “and all the country wept with a loud voice, and all the people passed over, the king also himself passed over the brook Kidron, and all the people passed over, toward the way of the wilderness.” II Samuel 15:23. It is there that he apparently wrote Psalm 3 and Psalm 41. Not only had his own son Absalom betrayed him, but so had his closest advisor Ahithophel, who like Judas Iscariot, hung himself when his conspiracy crumbled. II Samuel 17:23.
The brook Cedron, or Kidron, was a narrow channel of water running through a dark valley just outside Jerusalem, at the base of the Mount of Olives, east of the city. Its waters were blackened by the blood and refuse from the temple sacrifices, carried by a conduit down from the altar. What defiled the sanctuary was poured into this stream, so that its very name, Kidron, meaning black or murky, spoke of uncleanness. John Gill even mentioned that local farmers would purchase the soil and sediment of its waters to dung their fields. Gill went further than the mere historical detail, seeing in this brook a spiritual emblem. To him it pictured the world itself, its pollution, its darkness, its griefs and burdens, all lying between the believer and the heavenly Zion.
For David, the Lord’s anointed, to depart Jerusalem in tears and cross that brook was a striking picture of deep humiliation. It shows us the bitter fruit of sin, though forgiven, David’s past transgressions brought sorrow into his own house, and here he bears the weight of God’s chastening hand. Psalm 38:3-4. In the Book of I Kings, we learn how Asa, King of Judah, after taking away the sodomites out of the land, (either by driving them out of the land, or by putting them to death according to the law of God, Lev 20:13,) dethroned his own mother for her idolatry, and the idolatrous image she had set up he destroyed, reducing it to ashes by the Brook Kidron. I Kings 15:13. Thus, the brook itself becomes linked with sin and idolatry, its dark waters often receiving the ashes of false gods and the tokens of man’s rebellion against the Lord.
Approximately 900 years later another King crossed that same brook. On the night of His arrest, Jesus “went out with His disciples over the Brook Kidron, where there was a garden.” John 18:1. Through this brook the Lord Jesus passed on the night of His betrayal. And if this black torrent represented the defilement of sin, then how fitting that Christ, bearing the iniquities of His people, should tread its banks with such heaviness of soul. Psalm 110:7, speaks of Messiah drinking “of the brook in the way,” and here the shadow becomes substance. What David once knew in sorrow when he crossed the brook, fleeing from Absalom, Christ knew in fullness as the greater Son of David. Matthew 21:9. David passed over as an exile; Christ passed over as the willing Surety. David bore his shame; Christ bore our sin. MPJ