YARMUK, WADI EL Yär’ muk (Heb. unknown; Gr. ̓Ιερονύμικες, probably meaning sacred recess; Arabicized as al-Yarmūq, Lower course, Shari’at el-Menâdireh).

Mentioned only in the Apoc. (1 Macc), Canaan’s “second river” intermittently drains the Hauran-Bashan plateau and cuts a canyon to the Jordan which it equals at their confluence. Though the scene of Islam’s triumph (a.d. 636) and a current boundary for Israel, Syria and Jordan, it rarely formed a cultural-historical divide, being renowned rather for therapeutic springs, irrigation and (in Mandate days) power.