The Jordan River, a river in the Holy Land, is named in three passages of the Book of Mormon, all relating to events outside the Nephite world. Lehi prophesied that the Messiah would be baptized near it: “And my father said he should baptize in Bethabara, beyond Jordan; and he also said he should baptize with water; even that he should baptize the Messiah with water” (1 Nephi 10:9).
Nephi recounts the Israelites crossing the river on their way into the land of promise: “after they had crossed the river Jordan he did make them mighty unto the driving out of the children of the land, yea, unto the scattering them to destruction” (1 Nephi 17:32). The river also appears in Nephi’s quotation of Isaiah, where the Lord afflicts “by the way of the Red Sea beyond Jordan in Galilee of the nations” (2 Nephi 19:1; compare Isaiah 9:1).