Water
Water enters Scripture in the second verse of Genesis and runs without break to the closing chapter of Revelation. It is the daily necessity that names the Garden's rivers, the boundary that contains nations, the medium of cleansing, the agent of judgment, and finally the figure for the gift God himself gives to whoever is thirsty. The biblical writers treat physical water and figurative water as one continuous vocabulary: a literal cistern teaches the danger of self-supply (Jer 2:13), a literal river marks a boundary (Jos 16:8) and then becomes a vision of the city of God (Ps 46:4), a literal thirst on the cross (John 19:28) is answered by a fountain offered to all (Rev 22:17).
Water in Creation
The earth begins with water already present. "The earth was waste and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters" (Gen 1:2). On the third day God speaks the waters into bounds: "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so" (Gen 1:9). The waters above the firmament are themselves named in praise: "Praise him, you⁺ heavens of heavens, And you⁺ waters that are [by the Speech] above the heavens" (Ps 148:4); "Let them praise the name of Yahweh; For he commanded, and they were created" (Ps 148:5).
Sirach gathers the same theme into a hymn to creation. The cold of the north wind "hardens the pond like a bottle; Upon every gathering of waters he spreads a crust" (Sir 43:20). Healing dew is "the dropping from the clouds, The dew which speedily refreshed the parched ground" (Sir 43:22). Of the sea: "By his counsel he has stilled the great deep, And has planted islands in the midst of the deep" (Sir 43:23). "Those who go down to the sea declare its bounds, And when our ears hear it we marvel" (Sir 43:24). "In it are marvels, the wonders of his works, All manner of living things, and mighty things of the deep" (Sir 43:25).
The Daily Necessity
Water is the basic gift the body cannot live without. Sirach states it twice as a maxim: "The chief requisites for life are water and bread, And a garment, and a house to cover nakedness" (Sir 29:21). "The chief of all things necessary to the life of man Are water and fire, and iron and salt, And flour of wheat, and milk and honey, The blood of the grape, oil and clothing" (Sir 39:26).
Hospitality and survival turn on it. Abraham fits Hagar with bread and a bottle of water before sending her into the wilderness of Beer-sheba (Gen 21:14). Elijah at Zarephath asks the widow, "Fetch me, I pray you, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink" (1 Kings 17:10). The disobedient prophet of 1 Kings 13 takes back what he had been forbidden: "So he went back with him, and ate bread in his house, and drank water" (1 Kings 13:19). Daniel and his companions ask only for "pulse to eat, and water to drink" (Dan 1:12). Even a cup of water given to a disciple is a counted act: "For whoever will give you⁺ a cup of water to drink, because you⁺ are Christ's, truly I say to you⁺, he will in no way lose his reward" (Mark 9:41). When the prophet Ezekiel is told to ration himself under siege, the rationing is by water: "you will drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin: from time to time you will drink" (Ezek 4:11).
Drought, Thirst, and the Failure of Water
When water fails, life unravels. The wicked man "will be like the heath in the desert ... a salt land and not inhabited" (Jer 17:6). A people without knowledge becomes "an oak whose leaf fades, and as a garden that has no water" (Isa 1:30); their honorable men "are famished, and their multitude are parched with thirst" (Isa 5:13). David in the wilderness writes, "O God, you are my God; earnestly I will seek you: My soul thirsts for you, my flesh longs for you, In a dry and weary land, where there is no water" (Ps 63:1). The rebellious "stay in a parched land" (Ps 68:6); in the day of judgment "the beautiful virgins and the young men will faint for thirst" (Amos 8:13). "The poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue fails for thirst" (Isa 41:17).
Physical thirst is felt across the canon. Israel at Rephidim "thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses" (Exod 17:3). Samson, after slaying the Philistines at Lehi, is "very thirsty, and called on Yahweh, and said, You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your slave; and now I will die for thirst" (Judg 15:18). David, hiding from Saul, longs for "water to drink of the well of Beth-lehem" (2 Sam 23:15). The apostles "both hunger, and thirst, and are naked" (1 Cor 4:11). Jesus, at the well of Sychar, says to a Samaritan woman, "Give me a drink" (John 4:7), and from the cross says, "I thirst" (John 19:28).
The opposite is the promised shower. "My doctrine will drop as the rain ... as the showers on the herb" (Deut 32:2). "He will come down like rain on the mown grass, As showers that water the earth" (Ps 72:6). "He will come to us as the rain, as the latter rain that waters the earth" (Hos 6:3). "Sow to yourselves in righteousness ... break up your⁺ fallow ground; for it is time to seek Yahweh, until he comes and rains righteousness on you⁺" (Hos 10:12). "I will cause the shower to come down in its season; there will be showers of blessing" (Ezek 34:26). "Mercy is fitting in the time of their affliction, As rain in the time of drought" (Sir 35:26).
Water Miraculously Supplied
Yahweh repeatedly provides water where there is none. At Marah the bitter water is sweetened: "And [the Speech of] Yahweh showed him a tree, and he cast it into the waters, and the waters were made sweet" (Exod 15:25). At Horeb God says, "Look, [my Speech] will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb; and you will strike the rock, and there will come water out of it, that the people may drink" (Exod 17:6). At Meribah, "Moses lifted up his hand, and struck the rock with his rod twice: and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their cattle" (Num 20:11). After Lehi, "God split the hollow place that is in Lehi, and there came water thereout; and when he drank, his spirit came again, and he revived" (Judg 15:19).
Elisha in Moab promises water to Jehoshaphat's army without rain: "You⁺ will not see wind, neither will you⁺ see rain; yet that valley will be filled with water, and you⁺ will drink, both you⁺ and your⁺ cattle and your⁺ beasts" (2 Kings 3:17). And so it happens: "in the morning, about the time of offering the oblation ... look, water came by the way of Edom, and the country was filled with water" (2 Kings 3:20). At Jericho the bad waters are healed: "he went forth to the spring of the waters, and cast salt in it, and said, Thus says Yahweh, I have healed these waters; there will not be from there anymore death or miscarrying" (2 Kings 2:21).
The same God parts water for his people. At the Red Sea "Yahweh caused the sea to go [back] by a strong east wind all the night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the sons of Israel went into the midst of the sea on the dry ground" (Exod 14:21-22). At the Jordan "the waters which came down from above stood, and rose up in one heap, a great way off, at Adam ... and all Israel passed over on dry ground" (Jos 3:16-17). Elijah and Elisha cross the same river by the same miracle: "Elijah took his mantle, and wrapped it together, and struck the waters, and they were divided here and there" (2 Kings 2:8); and after his master is taken up, Elisha "took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and struck the waters, and said, Where is Yahweh, the God of Elijah, even he? And when he had struck the waters, they were divided here and there" (2 Kings 2:14).
Wells, Cisterns, and Springs
The patriarchal narratives are punctuated by the digging of wells. Abraham marks his rights at Beer-sheba: "These seven ewe lambs you will take of my hand, that it may be a witness to me, that I have dug this well" (Gen 21:30). Isaac dwells by Beer-lahai-roi (Gen 25:11) and reopens his father's wells: "And Isaac dug again the wells of water, which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father. For the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham. And he called their names after the names by which his father had called them" (Gen 26:18). Jacob meets Rachel at a well in Paddan-aram, the stone heavy on its mouth (Gen 29:2). Moses, fleeing Pharaoh, sits down by a well in Midian (Exod 2:15). Israel encamps by twelve springs at Elim (Exod 15:27). And Jacob's well still stands in the Gospel: "Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour" (John 4:6).
Cisterns are the household memory: "Don't listen to Hezekiah ... drink⁺ every one the waters of his own cistern" (2 Kings 18:31); the closing image of Ecclesiastes is "the pitcher is broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern" (Eccl 12:6). Uzziah "built towers in the wilderness, and hewed out many cisterns, for he had much cattle" (2 Chron 26:10). Solomon writes, "I made myself pools of water, to water therefrom the forest where trees were reared" (Eccl 2:6). Of the high priest Simon Sirach says, "In whose generation a reservoir was dug, A water cistern like the sea in abundance" (Sir 50:2). Hezekiah's tunnel is twice remembered: "how he made the pool, and the conduit, and brought water into the city" (2 Kings 20:20); "Hezekiah fortified his city By bringing water into the midst of it; And he hewed the rocks with iron, And dammed up the pool with mountains" (Sir 48:17).
Pools are also named for events. Joab and Abner meet "by the pool of Gibeon" (2 Sam 2:13); "they washed the chariot by the pool of Samaria; and the dogs licked up his blood ... according to the word of Yahweh which he spoke" (1 Kings 22:38). Shallun rebuilds "the wall of the pool of Shelah by the king's garden" (Neh 3:15). In the desolate Babylon "I will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools of water" (Isa 14:23); in the renewed wilderness "the glowing sand will become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water" (Isa 35:7).
Brooks, Rivers, and the Great Sea
Brooks and rivers thread the geography. Eden's rivers are named — "The name of the first is Pishon: that is it which circles the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold" (Gen 2:11); "the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it, which goes in front of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates" (Gen 2:14). Israel crosses "the brook Zered" (Deut 2:13) and the valley of the Arnon (Deut 2:36; Num 21:14). Spies bring back grapes from "the valley of Eshcol" (Num 13:23). Boundaries run to "the brook of Kanah" (Jos 16:8). The Kishon "swept them away, That ancient river, the river Kishon" (Judg 5:21); David ratifies the same memory, "Do to them as to Midian, As to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the river Kishon" (Ps 83:9). Elijah's hiding-place is "the brook Cherith, that is before the Jordan" (1 Kings 17:3); Baal's prophets are slain "to the brook Kishon" (1 Kings 18:40). David's flight crosses "the brook Kidron" (2 Sam 15:23); his men halt at "the brook Besor" (1 Sam 30:9); his thirty include "Hurai of the brooks of Gaash" (1 Chron 11:32). Jesus, going to his arrest, "went forth with his disciples over the brook Kidron, where a garden was, into which he entered" (John 18:1).
Other rivers carry their own freight. The Nile receives Israel's male children at Pharaoh's command: "Every son who is born you⁺ will cast into the river" (Exod 1:22). Naaman scoffs, "Are not Abanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?" (2 Kings 5:12). The northern exiles are placed "on the Habor, the river of Gozan" (2 Kings 17:6; cf. 1 Chron 5:26). Ezekiel sees visions "by the river Chebar" (Ezek 1:1); Daniel hears a voice "between [the banks of] the Ulai" (Dan 8:16). Jonathan's campaigns reach "the river, called Eleutherus" (1Ma 11:7), which the troops finally cross (1Ma 12:30). Sirach extols Wisdom in the same vocabulary: "Which fills [men] with wisdom, like Pison, And like Tigris in the days of new [fruits]" (Sir 24:25); "Which overflows, like Euphrates, with understanding, And as Jordan in the days of harvest" (Sir 24:26); "Which pours forth, as the Nile, instruction, And as Gihon in the days of vintage" (Sir 24:27).
The "great sea" is the Mediterranean boundary. It is the western border of the land (Num 34:6), the limit of Joshua's allotments (Jos 1:4; 15:12; 23:4), the meeting-place of the kings against him (Jos 9:1). Ezekiel's ideal land has its border running "to the great sea" (Ezek 47:20; 48:28), and along the same coast "fishers will stand by it: from En-gedi even to En-eglaim ... their fish will be after their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceedingly many" (Ezek 47:10).
The Deep and the Waves
Beyond the named rivers and the bounded sea is the deep. It is there at creation (Gen 1:2) and remains a vocabulary for everything beyond human reach. "Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls: All your waves and your billows have gone over me" (Ps 42:7); sailors "see the works of Yahweh, And his wonders in the deep" (Ps 107:24). At the Exodus God "dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep; who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over" (Isa 51:10); he "led them through the depths, as a horse in the wilderness" (Isa 63:13). In Habakkuk's theophany "The mountains saw you, and were afraid; The tempest of waters passed by; The deep uttered its voice, And lifted up its hands on high" (Hab 3:10). Paul's apostolic suffering touches it directly: "thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep" (2 Cor 11:25).
The waves of the sea are the type of force God alone restrains. To Job he says, "This far you will come, but no further; And here will your proud waves be placed" (Job 38:11). The Psalter answers in worship: "Who stills the roaring of the seas, The roaring of their waves, And the tumult of the peoples" (Ps 65:7); "He makes the storm be calm, So that its waves are still" (Ps 107:29). Yahweh "stirs up the sea, so that its waves roar: Yahweh of hosts is his name" (Isa 51:15). The same God says through Jeremiah, "Will you⁺ not tremble before my [Speech], who has placed the sand for the bound of the sea, by a perpetual decree, that it can't pass it? And though its waves toss themselves, yet they can't prevail" (Jer 5:22). In Zechariah's oracle of return "he will pass through the sea of affliction, and will strike the waves in the sea, and all the depths of the Nile will dry up" (Zech 10:11).
Water for Cleansing
Water cleanses what is unclean. The water of impurity in Numbers 19 is mixed with the ashes of the red heifer: "for the unclean they will take of the ashes of the burning of the sin-offering; and living water will be put thereto in a vessel: and a clean person will take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent, and on all the vessels, and on the souls who were there" (Num 19:17-18). The priest who handles the rite must himself "wash his clothes, and he will bathe his flesh in water" (Num 19:7). At Mizpah Israel "drew water, and poured it out before Yahweh, and fasted on that day, and said there, We have sinned against Yahweh" (1 Sam 7:6). Ezekiel hears the promise that gathers all of this up: "And I will sprinkle clean water on you⁺, and you⁺ will be clean: from all your⁺ filthiness, and from all your⁺ idols, I will cleanse you⁺" (Ezek 36:25). The waterpots at Cana are "set there after the Jews' manner of purifying" (John 2:6) before they become the vessels of the first sign: "Jesus says to them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim" (John 2:7), and the water becomes wine, and the disciples believe (John 2:9-11).
Water as Judgment
Water judges as well as cleanses. The waters of the flood are remembered through every later use of the word; the same God who set their bound (Job 38:11; Jer 5:22) also looses them. Isaiah describes the Assyrian invasion in just this way: "the Lord brings up on them the waters of the River, strong and many, [even] the king of Assyria and all his glory: and it will come up over all its channels, and go over all its banks" (Isa 8:7). David's deliverance from his enemies is told in the same image: "He sent from on high, he took me; He drew me out of many waters" (2 Sam 22:17); the psalmist cries, "Save me, O God; For the waters have come in to my soul" (Ps 69:1).
In Revelation the bowls turn the world's waters against it. "The second poured out his bowl into the sea; and it became blood as of a dead man; and every living soul in the sea died. And the third poured out his bowl into the rivers and the fountains of the waters; and it became blood. And I heard the angel of the waters saying, Righteous are you, the one who is and the one who was, the Holy One, because you judged these things" (Rev 16:3-5). A star called Wormwood falls and "the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter" (Rev 8:11). Even the dragon's pursuit takes this form: "the serpent cast out of his mouth after the woman water as a river, that he might cause her to be carried away by the stream" (Rev 12:15). The whore of Babylon "sits on many waters" (Rev 17:1), and the angel explains, "The waters which you saw, where the whore sits, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues" (Rev 17:15).
Water of Affliction
Beside judgment-water stands affliction-water — the same image, addressed to the suffering rather than the wicked. "Though the Lord gives you⁺ the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your teachers will not be hidden anymore, but your eyes will see your teachers" (Isa 30:20). And to those who pass through it: "When you pass through the waters, [my Speech] will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you: when you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, neither will the flame kindle on you" (Isa 43:2).
The Fountain of Living Waters
Behind the well, the cistern, and the river stands a single figure: the fountain of living waters, which is Yahweh himself. "For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns, that can hold no water" (Jer 2:13). Jeremiah repeats the charge: "all who forsake you will be put to shame ... they have forsaken Yahweh, the fountain of living waters" (Jer 17:13).
The Wisdom writers extend the same figure outward. "For with you is the fountain of life: In your light we will see light" (Ps 36:9). "The law of the wise is a fountain of life, That one may avoid the snares of death" (Prov 13:14); "The fear of Yahweh is a fountain of life, That one may avoid the snares of death" (Prov 14:27). Marriage shares the figure: "Drink waters out of your own cistern, And running waters out of your own well" (Prov 5:15). The bride of the Song is "a fountain of gardens, A well of living waters, And flowing streams from Lebanon" (Song 4:15). Zechariah promises that "in that day there will be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness" (Zech 13:1).
The same figure feeds the Psalter's vision of the city. "There is a river, the streams of which make glad the city of God, The holy of the tabernacles of the Most High" (Ps 46:4). "They will be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of your house; And you will make them drink of the river of your pleasures" (Ps 36:8). The repentant nation hears, "Oh that you would have listened to my commandments! Then your peace would have been as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea" (Isa 48:18). Sirach speaks the same in the first person of Wisdom: "And as for me, I [was] as a stream from the river, And I came forth as a conduit into a garden ... I will water my garden, I will abundantly water my garden beds; And look, my stream became a river, And my river became a sea" (Sir 24:30-31).
Wells of Salvation
The prophets give the figure an explicitly redemptive turn. "Therefore with joy you⁺ will draw water out of the wells of salvation" (Isa 12:3). "Ho, everyone who thirsts, come⁺ to the waters, and he who has no silver; come⁺, buy, and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk without silver and without price" (Isa 55:1). Of the redeemed: "They will not hunger nor thirst; neither will the heat nor sun strike them: for he who has mercy on them will lead them, even by springs of water he will guide them" (Isa 49:10). Joel hears it eschatologically: "all the brooks of Judah will flow with waters; and a fountain will come forth from the house of Yahweh, and will water the valley of Shittim" (Joel 3:18). Zechariah speaks to the day itself: "in that day, that living waters will go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the eastern sea, and half of them toward the western sea: in summer and in winter it will be" (Zech 14:8). The royal psalm carries the same picture in miniature: "He will drink of the brook in the way: Therefore he will lift up the head" (Ps 110:7).
Ezekiel sees the picture become a temple. Waters issue out from under the threshold of the house eastward (Ezek 47:1); they reach to the ankles, then the knees, then the loins, then the swimmer's depth (Ezek 47:3-5). The prophet is brought back to the bank, "look, on the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other" (Ezek 47:7). The waters flow into the Arabah, into the sea, "and the waters will be healed" (Ezek 47:8). Wherever the river comes, "every living soul which swarms ... will live" (Ezek 47:9); "fishers will stand by it: from En-gedi even to En-eglaim" (Ezek 47:10); "by the river on its bank, on this side and on that side, will grow every tree for food, whose leaf will not wither, neither will its fruit fail: it will bring forth new fruit every month, because its waters issue out of the sanctuary; and its fruit will be for food, and its leaf for healing" (Ezek 47:12). From this river the new land is measured for inheritance (Ezek 47:13-23).
The Living Water Given
Jesus picks up this whole vocabulary and places it on his own hand. To the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well: "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, Give me a drink; you would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water" (John 4:10). And: "whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of living water forever" (John 4:14). The promise is reissued in Revelation. "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to him who is thirsty of the fountain of the water of life freely" (Rev 21:6). "And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, that proceeds out of the throne of God and of the Lamb" (Rev 22:1). And the book ends with the figure as invitation: "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And he who hears, let him say, Come. And he who is thirsty, let him come: he who will, let him take the water of life freely" (Rev 22:17). The Lamb himself "will guide them to fountains of waters of life: and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes" (Rev 7:17).