Woman at the Well, Part 5: Living Water Flows Where She Flows, Baby
An angelic tour guide takes the prophet, Ezekiel, on a trippy journey through a restored temple gushing with Living Water. John clearly digs the imagery because he uses it over six centuries later in his story of the Woman at the Well to reveal God's groovy side. Right on, Holy Spirit!
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Water Flowing from the Temple
Then he brought me back to the entrance of the temple; there water was flowing from below the entryway of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east), and the water was flowing down from below the south side of the temple, south of the altar. 2 Then he brought me out by way of the north gate and led me around on the outside to the outer gate that faces toward the east,[a] and the water was trickling out on the south side.
3 Going on eastward with a cord in his hand, the man measured one thousand cubits and then led me through the water, and it was ankle-deep. 4 Again he measured one thousand and led me through the water, and it was knee-deep. Again he measured one thousand and led me through the water, and it was up to the waist. 5 Again he measured one thousand, and it was a river that I could not cross, for the water had risen; it was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be crossed. 6 He said to me, “Mortal, have you seen this?”
Then he led me back along the bank of the river. 7 As I came back, I saw on the bank of the river a great many trees on the one side and on the other. 8 He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, and when it enters the sea, the sea of stagnant waters, the water will become fresh. 9 Wherever the river goes,[b] every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish once these waters reach there. It will become fresh, and everything will live where the river goes. 10 People will stand fishing beside the sea[c] from En-gedi to En-eglaim; it will be a place for the spreading of nets; its fish will be of a great many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea. 11 But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they are to be left for salt. 12 On the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.”
The New Boundaries of the Land
13 Thus says the Lord God: These are the boundaries by which you shall divide the land for inheritance among the twelve tribes of Israel. Joseph shall have two portions.
Footnotes
[a] Meaning of Heb uncertain
[b] Gk Syr Vg Tg: Heb the two rivers go
[c] Heb it
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Genre Alert!
This is prophecy! Prophecy is a message received directly from God through dreams, visions, moments of ecstasy, or hearing a voice. Prophets who had these encounters then had the role of sharing the message with God’s people, not always a fun job. The message Ezekiel has been tasked with regards issues like God’s apparent abandonment and the Israelites’ loss of their homeland during the Babylonian exile (Coogan et al, 1180). The first 24 chapters of Ezekiel contain prophecies of the impending fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, the dwelling place of God. The section we’re looking at today is Ezekiel’s ultimate message of hope after these devastating events have occurred. Ezekiel has a vision of being placed on a mountaintop. From that view, an angelic being who affectionately calls him “Mortal” gives him an 8 chapter tour of the restored temple and surrounding land, pointing out all its best features.
These verses may feel like a huge detour from the Samaritan Woman at the Well. We’re in a very different genre, and a very different time period, but prophecies like this one were both familiar and relevant to the Gospel writers. As Joel B. Green and editors point out, they were “to be understood as having abiding significance and were to be applied to contemporary events” (p. 638).
Literary device of the day: imagery
One of the most prominent features of Ezekiel’s prophecy is its striking imagery. That’s English major speak for vivid description that appeals to the reader’s senses. Ezekiel is working hard to describe a place only he can see, so he uses imagery to paint a mental picture for us. Interestingly, John uses the two most prominent of Ezekiel’s images in the story of the Woman at the Well: water, and the temple. As we unpack these common images, we’ll see how John uses them to reveal the presence of the Holy Spirit. Warning: I have tried to hammer this episode into a linear formation as modern, western, thinker-types like to do. But it won’t go. Prophecy isn’t linear. Neither is the Holy Spirit. My suggestion is to let the imagery wash over you and see how it comes together.
The first image we need to notice is the temple, a pervasive theme throughout much of the Hebrew Bible as well as John’s gospel. It was central to God’s people as the place where they experienced God’s presence, where they worshipped, and where they made sacrificial offerings. At its best, it was a holy place. Through the prophets, God continually expresses a desire to dwell with the people, but God doesn’t always seem like a big fan of the temple itself. When King David first offers to build God a temple in 2 Samuel chapter 7, God’s response is basically, “Nah. I’ll build something for you, instead.” In Ezekiel 10, God flat-out leaves the temple because the people are worshipping false gods there. The prophet Jeremiah helps us understand another angle of God’s perspective in Jeremiah 7:4. “Do not trust in these deceptive words; ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.” In other words, “Don’t keep reassuring yourself with the temple if you’re pulling all kinds of bad behavior. Show me your hearts belong to me by doing justice and following only me.” Part of God’s resistance to a temple seems to be that it gives God’s people false security. God doesn’t want them thinking they can show up on the Holy Days and do the Holy Things, but that their hearts can be far from God and they can behave however they want. God is interested in a covenantal, mutual belonging relationship with the people. When the people turn away, God turns away, too, but always with a reunification plan in mind.
Water is also a central part of this prophecy, and guess what? It’s a theme in John’s Gospel, too. In antiquity, all life in Israel depended on sporadic, seasonal rainfall. Drought was a constant threat, so water was treasured. Its value added meaning to important expressions of hospitality like foot-washing and to its symbollic use in ritual handwashing, bathing, and baptism. Because it was rare, essential, and required work to obtain, its worth is hard to understand for those of us who simply turn on the faucet. Green et al. say that in the scriptures, “water symbolized life, cleansing, refreshment, and renewal” (869). Because of these characteristics, water was also a perfect symbol for the Holy Spirit, which is why the Spirit is described as being “poured out” and “filling” believers. John knows this symbol well and uses it 21 times in his Gospel, while the three other gospel writers use it only a combined 18 times. Nine of John’s uses occur in the Woman at the Well, so it’s good we’re noticing it.
Here’s where it gets trippy.
We start with the prophecy. In Ezekiel 47:1, the vision-tour continues at the temple entrance, where Ezekiel notices water flowing out in multiple directions. Its single source is the Temple, the dwelling place of God. As he and his angelic tour guide journey through the water Ezekiel sees that it’s rising. It goes from ankle-deep to uncrossable in less than a mile and a half. Ordinary water doesn’t do that. We’ve got a supernatural gusher here, people. Even the tour-guide is impressed, turning to Ezekiel, saying, “Mortal, have you seen this?” in verse 6. Tour-guide Angel tells Ezekiel that the waters flow to the sea where stagnant waters become fresh, swarming creatures live, and all kinds of fish become abundant. We need to understand that Tour-guide Angel isn’t talking about any old sea. He’s referring to the Dead Sea which is almost 1,000 ft deep and is 9.6 times saltier than the ocean. It is a great place to float, but you wouldn’t want to live there. Nothing does. Hence the name. But there’s so much life flowing in the river Ezekiel sees that “everything will live where the river goes” even in this deadest of seas (vs. 10). The water transforms more than just the sea. In verse 12 we hear that trees grow on the banks, fruit-bearing trees that never cease to bear fruit, with leaves that never wither. Just look what water flowing from Ezekiel’s renewed temple can do.
So does this beautiful prophetic blueprint ever come to fruition? No. But it wasn’t intended to. Coogan et al. explain, “This section of Ezekiel does not prophesy a literal future for the Temple; rather, it offers a Temple plan as an embodiment of the community’s values. Though it has never actually been built, Ezekiel’s “literary temple” has proved more enduring than physical temples” (p. 1238). Ah, music to my ears. An enduring literary temple embodying the life-giving values of God and God’s people. It’s not the only one. There are many passages about living water flowing from the temple, though it seems such a literal building has never been built.
Back to the woman at the well?
Let’s return to where this series began. The Samaritan woman goes to the well every day to get water for her household. Jesus offers her living water, the life-giving Holy Spirit water that flows from the temple. How do we know the water he offers is the Holy Spirit? First, he promises her she’ll never be thirsty again, but that water will gush up inside her, too, all the way to eternal life (vs. 14). Ordinary water doesn’t do that. We’ve got a supernatural gusher here, people! We also know because John just tells us in chapter 7, verse 38. Jesus says, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water,” and then explains in verse 39. “Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive.” Sometimes it’s that easy. Thanks for the help, John.
What do Jesus and the woman start chatting about next? Not coincidentally, they move on to a conversation about the temple. The Jews and Samaritans had different ideas about where the House of God should be. After the woman begins to get a glimmer of who she’s talking to, she asks which temple is the right one. Jesus’ answer is surprising: Neither. Ooooooh, if the temple authorities could see him now!!!! This is not a good Jewish rabbi's answer. What is up?
Like the Covenental Parent God who speaks through the prophets, Jesus wants the temple to be a true place of worship, a place where God dwells. He wants this so vehemently, in fact, that in John chapter 2 he braids a whip and clears the temple of the loan sharks. He flips tables and dumps their profits, scattering sheep, cattle, and coins everywhere! This, my friends, is some righteous anger. Jesus is a one-man riot. When the temple authorities ask, “Who the beep do you think you are?” Jesus says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” ( vs. 19). Gasp! Fighting words! John softens things in verse 21 by explaining Jesus was speaking of the temple of his body being raised three days after his death, but that’s not the whole story. He’s also critiquing the temple and proclaiming a shift in the way Israel experiences God’s presence. The temple building will again be torn down, but Jesus now replaces that temple as the dwelling place of God. John is continuing his rhetorical pattern of replacing facets of Judaism with Jesus. He doesn’t stop there, though. When the living water gushes up to eternal life in the Samaritan woman, she also becomes God's dwelling place, the temple of the Holy Spirit. No longer do God’s people need to go to a Temple to be in God’s presence. God has come to dwell in their very bodies, even the body of a Samaritan woman.
In the spirit of prophecy, instead of coming to a conclusion, let’s come to an image. Imagine a loving God whose very being overflows with life-giving water. The water gushes up inside those who ask for it, and flows out of them, too, bringing life wherever they go. It is good water that revives the dead places within us and in the world. It stares down death and says, “you have no power here.” The life and love of God flows to all people, and honors all humanity. The life and love of God wants our full, honest selves and is less condemning of our dark places than we are. The life and love of God is unsurprised by failure and responds, every time, with grace. The Holy Spirit that gushes through God’s people brings life so strong it causes what is dead to live. If it’s not life, if it’s not love, there’s a very good chance it’s not God.
Works Cited
Green, Joel B., et al., editors. Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels. Intervarsity Press, 1992.
Coogan, Michael D., et al., assoc. editors. The New Oxford Annotated Bible Third Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001
