Choose Living Water

At the Well

“Yeshua answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14).

One day in Samaria, the land in the northern kingdom of Israel, modern-day West Bank, Yeshua sat at a well.  He and a local woman discuss two different types of water: water that quenches physical thirst and water that quenches spiritual thirst.

The woman Yeshua all of his words to heart. Though she had been an outcast in the community, probably due to numerous husbands and inability to bear ‘fruit,’ she becomes the first person in Samaria to testify that Yeshua is the promised Messiah and begins producing ‘spiritual fruit.’ 

“Many people from that town in Shomron put their faith in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all the things I did” (John 4:39).

Water Pouring Ceremony

On the last and greatest day of the Feast of Tabernacles, a Temple priest would pour out a pitcher of water he had gathered from the Pool of Siloam.  While the Jewish people shouted and danced at this joyous ceremony, he would cry out the words of the prophet Isaiah:

“With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3).

In John chapter 7, during this water pouring ceremony ‘on the last and greatest day of the festival,’ Yeshua stood and cried out in a loud voice: “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them” (John 7:38). Jews from all nation who had gathered in Jerusalem heard his words. They had to make the same decision as the woman at the well.  Is Yeshua the promised Messiah?

Many believed he was speaking for Adonai Himself and that he was a great prophet like Isaiah.  They could even hear Adonai’s voice through Yeshua crying out the very words of Isaiah: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!  Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.  Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy.  Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,  and you will delight in the richest of fare” (Isaiah 55:1). Others heard the words of Isaiah spoken by the Temple priests.  They observed the waters from the well of salvation being poured out.  Then, they heard the voice of Yeshua.

Immediately they recognized the One spoken of by the prophets, the One who was to bring forth living water for the world,  the One who was the vision of the everlasting covenant with David, the One who would bring blessing of redemption to all nations, the One who spoke of the mountains and hills bursting forth with joy,  the One who spoke of thirst-quenching living water, and many in the crowd declared, “He is the Messiah.”

©2013 Tentstake Ministries Publishing, all rights reserved.  No copying or reproducing of this article without crediting the author or Tentstake Ministries Publishing. For a hard copy of this article,  please purchase Journey with Jeremiah: Nourishment for the Wild Olive or learn more about the Feasts by purchasing the study guide, Yeshua in His Father’s Feasts.