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The "WATER's" of the Bible
 

(Keep in mind as you glance over these references to the "waters" of prophecy, we're introducing all of these concepts so that we can understand the expression: "And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman" (Rev. 12:15a).

The Bible has a lot to say about "water" in it's natural state. This shouldn't be surprising since the human body is comprised mostly of water and since the abundance of water on the earth keeps our planet from being a dry, dead asteroid. But the word "water" is also used quite often when speaking of the "spiritual" life on our planet. Even for the newcomer to the Bible, it should be soon evident that "water" in the Bible has its spiritual counterpart.

In the natural we see water all around us.  We drink it. We wash in it. When it doesn't rain, we pray for it.  And we love to look upon it in the sea, the rivers, the streams, etc.  The study of our seas and how water gets to them is very interesting.  The major suppliers of water to the seas / oceans are the rivers, but the incoming waters really begins with the brooks which are fed by fountains in the earth and / or run off from melting snow or rain storms in the hills and mountains.   The brooks then give their waters to the creeks which in turn run into streams; and the streams then contribute to the larger rivers.  Finally, the rivers of the continents give their waters to the sea. 

The counterpart of all this in the language of prophecy goes something like this.  The sea is the mass of humanity that live apart from God and outside of any covenant with Him.  The rivers are the nations of the world.   The brooks and creeks are the communities that make up the nations.  The springs are the individuals.  And the fountains are the sources of all this: i.e., they are the men and women that establish the communities.

Lev. 20:
18 And if a man shall lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover her nakedness; he hath discovered her fountain, and she hath uncovered the fountain of her blood: and both of them shall be cut off from among their people.

Prov. 5:
15 Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.
16 Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, [and] rivers of waters in the streets.
17 Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.
18 Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

(Note that the first mentioning of the rivers of Scripture is found in this symbolic language from the second chapter of Genesis.

Gen. 2:
10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
11 The name of the first [is] Pison: that [is] it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where [there is] gold;
12 And the gold of that land [is] good: there [is] bdellium and the onyx stone.
13 And the name of the second river [is] Gihon: the same [is] it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
14 And the name of the third river [is] Hiddekel: that [is] it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river [is] Euphrates.

The river that came out of the Garden of Eden from the first fountains on the earth [Adam & Eve] divided into four (the number of the earth) rivers that watered the rest of the world.
There is a different set of terms that have to do with water as it applies to the Churches: i.e., fountains, springs, wells, pools, cisterns, vessels, and rivers.  (Note that in the religious realm, Satan has his false gods and religions and sometimes these prophetic terms apply to them.  Each term must be examined in its context to rightly discern the meaning.)

FOUNTAIN(S)
(Christ Himself is the Fountain.)

The LORD's word to backsliding Israel:

Jer. 2:13 For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water (cf. Joel 3:18; Psa 36:9; Deut. 33:27).

The LORD's word to the Church:

Rev 21:6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.

 

 

 

SPRING/SPRINGS
(The individual Hebrew/Christian is a spring.)

A word to the Hebrews:

Pro 25:26 A righteous man falling down before the wicked is as a troubled fountain, and a corrupt spring.

Isa 58:
10 And [if] thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness [be] as the noonday:
11 And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

A word about the New Testament Church:

Songs 4:12 A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

WELLS

(A collective term for Israel in the ages when the Holy Spirit abode in the Holy of Holies in the temple and only acted upon men as He saw fit. In our New Testament Age, each believer is a temple of the Holy Ghost and Christ is a well of life in each of us springing up into everlasting life.)

John 4:
5 Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
6 Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with [his] journey, sat thus on the well: [and] it was about the sixth hour.
7 There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.
8 (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.)
9 Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
11 The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?
12 Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?
13 Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:
14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

POOLS

John 9:
1 And as [Jesus] passed by, he saw a man which was blind from [his] birth.
2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
4 I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
6 When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,
7 And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

The key to interpreting the spiritual application of "pool" in the Bible was given to us by Jesus Himself in this passage: "(which is by interpretation, Sent.)"  The first "pool" (reservoir to hold "spiritual water") was the nation Israel; and it was God's intention for there to have always been healing in Israel.  Because the Israelites hearts were usually "far from God," this wasn't possible very often.  So the Son of God was Sent to take the office of "representatives of the Most High" from Israel and give it to another — i.e., the Gentile Church..  Today, it is the Church that is Sent into all the world as representatives of the Most High.  However, Jesus will return to the earth again to set up His kingdom on the earth and during the Kingdom Age, once again, Israel will be a pool of water.

Isa 41:18 I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.

CISTERNS / VESSELS

The cisterns differed from the wells and pools in that the wells and pools were for the community's use, but each family could have its own cistern to catch rain water. 

Easton's Bible Dictionary

Cistern: the rendering of a Hebrew word _bor_, which means a receptacle for water conveyed to it; distinguished from _beer_, which denotes a place where water rises on the spot (Jer. 2:13; Prov. 5:15; Isa. 36:16), a fountain. Cisterns are frequently mentioned in Scripture. The scarcity of springs in Palestine made it necessary to collect rain-water in reservoirs and cisterns (Num. 21:22). (See WELL¯T0003803.) ...

________ _ _ _________

2Ki 18:31 Hearken  not to Hezekiah: for thus saith the king of Assyria, Make an agreement with me by a present, and come out to me, and then eat ye every man of his own vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his cistern:
Pro 5:15 Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.
Ecc 12:6 Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.
Jer. 2:13 For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

As we've already pointed out, prophetically, each individual is a vessel for "water" be it good water or bad water.  If would follow, then, that the family's cistern would be symbolic of the spiritual household.  Remember, the first institution was the family wherein the father was to be the head and the priest. 



RIVER

There are too many references to "rivers" meaning "nations" to list them all. Here are a few key Scriptures.

Ecc 1:7 All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

Isa 42:15 I will make waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs; and I will make the rivers islands, and I will dry up the pools.

Isa 50:2 Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver? behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness: their fish stinketh, because there is no water, and dieth for thirst.

Ez. 29:3 Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.

Jer. 46:8 Egypt riseth up like a flood, and his waters are moved like the rivers; and he saith, I will go up, and will cover the earth; I will destroy the city and the inhabitants thereof.

Ez. 6:3 And say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD; Thus saith the Lord GOD to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys; Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places.

Psa 36:
7 How excellent [is] thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. 
8 They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.

This summary is purposely brief.  We have not touched on how that the Holy Spirit is referred to as Water, nor how the "water of the Word" cleanses us in our daily walk, etc.  In fact, a thorough study of the "waters" of the word would yield at least one good-sized book.  To see how this understanding can add dimension to our understanding of the Scriptures.  Let's look,of the following verse written about our Lord's crucifixion:

John 19:34 But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.

If you'll recall, it was with His shed blood at Calvary that Christ, the WORD OF GOD incarnate, validated the New Testament portion of the Word (Mt 26:28) and fulfilled the types of the Old Testament animal sacrifices (See Hebrews chapter 9) which were offered to take away sin.   Also, Paul tells us that it is by the washing of the water of the Word that the Church is cleansed in its daily walk (Eph. 5:26).  So, here on the cross we see the blood and the water pouring from our Lord's side thereby inaugurating the Word of God and making provision for eternal righteousness and cleansing in our daily walk.  

But let's go now to the expression that brought us to this page: "And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman" (Rev. 12:15a). 

"And the serpent (Satan) cast out of his mouth (stirring up the nations with the mouth of the "beast") water as a flood (the armies of many nations) after the woman (against Israel).

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