Blessed Are They Who Thirst

The Old Testament Headwaters of Jesus’ Living Water

Originally published October 4, 2022 and written as part of my M.F.A.

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“On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”’”

– John 7:37-38 esv¹

When Jesus spoke these words among the crowd gathered in Jerusalem, they were timed and tuned to resonate with everything happening around them. The Feast of Booths was on its final day. The city was filled with worshipers. There were booths lining the streets, horns being blown, palm branches being waved, Psalms being sung, citrus smells filling the air, and a golden pitcher of water being walked up to the temple by the priests with everyone’s eyes on it. Jesus’ words disrupted everything.

The immediate reactions were both divided and strong. Some called Jesus the promised Prophet (7:40), some the promised Christ (v. 41), and some a great deceiver (v. 47). The religious experts called for his arrest (v. 44), cursing the rabble’s ignorance of the Scripture (v. 49), and scorning any among their own ranks that were inclined to give Jesus a hearing (v. 52). At issue was the right understanding of the Scripture. Every side was appealing to it’s authority. What did it really have to say regarding all of this?

The contemporary reader is in danger of being rightly accused of these charges from all sides. On the one hand we are guilty of the Pharisees’ charge, being truly ignorant of the Scripture like the crowd. And that is especially true when it is pointed out that the Scripture at issue here is the Old Testament. Many simply have no knowledge or familiarity with vast swaths of the first two-thirds of their Bibles. But on the other hand we’re susceptible to the Pharisee’s error. For even where a search of the Scripture is attempted and something of an understanding is gained, it often leaves us short of recognizing that “it is they that bear witness about [Jesus]” (5:39).

This is a glorious text², but it is buried and blurred by our distance from its historical, canonical, and theological contexts. We read Christ’s words dislocated from the mines they were discovered in, glimpsing them now safely protected behind a thick glass display. We are in no danger of anything more than a passing glance on our way through the museum tour that is our typical Bible reading. We have no memory of the treasures of the Old Testament, those rich depths abandoned, quiet, and cold, with a red dragon sleeping upon their golden mounds. This essay will attempt to burgle a few forgotten gems regarding the living water which sparkle when held in the light of Jesus’ words here in John 7:37-38.

The Feast of Booths

Our passage begins with “On the last day of the feast, the great day…” (John 7:37a). The feast being referred to is the Feast of Booths, also called the Feast of Ingatherings in the Old Testament and the Feast of Tabernacles in other English translations. This was the last of the three major feasts the Jews would observe during the religious year.³ This feast was observed in the Fall, starting on the fifteenth day of Ethanim (Tisri after the Exile), the seventh month of the Jewish sacred calendar.⁴ In Hebrew the name Ethanim means “perennial streams” or “constant flowings”, a reference to the Autumn rains that would swell the streams of Israel at that time of year. It was a feast to celebrate the completion of the year’s harvests and God’s provision, both past and present. During the week-long celebration, the Jews would construct booths to dwell in as a reminder of their humility in the wilderness, while enjoying their current blessings in the Promised Land.⁵

As Practiced in Jesus’ Day

At the time of Jesus, Israel was in much the same condition as it was during the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. The nation had gone from slaves to Persia to slaves of the Greek empire, and was now under the dominion of the Romans. Jerusalem was no longer a barren city surrounded by a wall with a ramshackle temple in its midst, but was still a construction project very much in progress. It was a place of renewed renown, especially the temple complex, which the disciples of Jesus described as full of wonderful stones and buildings (Mark 13:1). Herod had been engaged in a forty-six year long renovation of the temple that had been rebuilt in Ezra and Nehemiah’s day (John 2:20), a process that would continue for several more decades. As subjects of Rome, the fruit of the Jews’ labor was still paid out to their overlords, which included not only Caesar but also the religious leaders of this rebuilt temple enterprise. This Jewish exploitation of other Jews was the same kind of usury and exploitation that boiled Nehemiah’s blood in his day.⁶

The Feast of Booths was still practiced as prescribed in the Law of Moses with the notable addition of a water rite likely added during the Intertestamental Period.⁷ Every morning of the Feast, after the daily sacrifices were offered, the priests would lead a procession from the Pool of Siloam, where a pitcher of water was drawn and carried up to the temple through the Water Gate. The procession included joyful blasts from the shofars, loud singing of the Hillel (Psalms 112-118), and the waving of cypress, myrtle, and palm branches together with citrus fruits. The crowds would shout, “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3), and sing together, “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!” (Psalm 118:29).⁸ The priests, upon reaching the temple’s altar, would pour out the daily drink offering together with the water drawn from Siloam, drenching the still warm and blackened altar in water and wine. God had provided their rains and their harvests, just as he promised to do from the time of their wilderness wanderings. Yet just as in the days of Nehemiah, there still remained here a mixture of unsatisfied longing and sorrow together with the joys of the harvest. Jesus sets his finger on the nerve when he cries out on the last day of the Feast, “If anyone thirsts…”

An Abiding Thirst

There is a bit of rhetorical assumption in Jesus’ appeal. His “If” was not a testing of the waters to see if, perhaps, despite all of the joyful fanfare, symbolism, and celebration associated with the past eight days of the Feast of Booths, that there might be someone out there in all that crowd that felt left out, unsatisfied, or somehow unfulfilled. It would not have fallen flat, as if it were a bad attempt at a joke among the satiated masses. The “If anyone thirsts…” given on this day at this place during this feast would have gone off as a slap in the face for some, a splash of cold water for others, and a bomb of controversy for everyone present. The “If anyone” was a call to everyone within earshot, as much as to say, “Despite all this, you are all still thirsty, but let he who has a tongue to cleave feel it cleave.”

A Routed Army

The Feast of Booths, while also a joyful celebration, was also intended to prevent the people from forgetting things that should always be remembered. Deuteronomy 8 commands that the people remember where they came from, especially once they’ve come into the blessings of the Promised Land,

A land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you (Deuteronomy 8:7-10).

To arrive in this land they first had to be delivered from the bondage of Egypt (v. 14), and then humbled in the wilderness for forty years, tested and taught to trust in the Lord (vv. 15-16). Their blessings were to be associated with deliverance from the curses of sin. They were to remember the “great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water” (v. 15). The curse upon Adam’s race had unleashed on the world an enemy that craves to bring men down in death to the thirsty dust that he might lick them up as he roams about on his insatiable belly. His daughters are “Give and Give,” and over these four maws he presides: “Sheol, the barren womb, the land never satisfied with water, and the fire that never says, ‘Enough’” (Proverbs 30:16). The wilderness would gobble up an entire generation of the Lord’s people, an entire wave of his army’s advance into the Promised Land.

The people coming up from the Pool of Siloam when singing Psalm 114 in the Hallel, would remember the martial procession of Israel as God led them out of Egypt as a triumphant army. Despite their faithless beginnings and their generation of wandering, God upheld their every need in that unforgiving waste.⁹ After forty years they were a humble, disciplined, and terrifying army. They bore the reputation of having walked out of the smoking ruins of the world’s mightiest empire, through the midst of a sea clambering aside out of fear, and over mountains and valleys that rolled over on their backs and tucked their tails “at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turns the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of water” (vv. 7-8). The sight of this army in their tents and booths brought fear to the surrounding nations, as sung about by Balaam despite Balak’s pleadings to curse them.¹⁰

Yet the Israel of Jesus’ day was no army of freed men. Their booths lining the streets of Jerusalem bore no resemblance to the tents of Moses and Joshua’s day. Their tents had more in common with those in present-day San Francisco than those in Valley Forge, out from which the reforged Continental Army marched in 1778. The Jews of Jesus’ day lived like the returned exiles of Ezra and Nehemiah’s time, as slaves on their own ground. And despite the proud denials of the religious leaders that stubbornly declared themselves to “have never been enslaved to anyone” (John 8:33), the rest of the crowd would have had a tangible thirst for the freedom that Jesus offered. They were under the boot of Rome, the greedy burden of the religious class, and the tyranny of their own sins. They were an army used to frustration, treachery, and defeat.

A Shattered Marriage

Since the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, the Feast of Booths should have carried the additional memory of Israel’s unfaithfulness, the reason why they were now in their bondage to a foreign power. As the people left Egypt they were led by God’s presence, which he spread out over them in a cloud by day, a fire by night. The marital language here, that of God’s husbandry over Israel his wife is explicit when he says through his prophets, “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown” (Jeremiah 2:2), and:

When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine. Then I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil (Ezekiel 16:8-9).

The intimate language here reflects that of the Shulamite, who says of Solomon her husband, “With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love” (Song of Songs 2:3-4). Such covering language is meant to be evoked when remembering the cloud of the Lord’s presence. God spread his protection over Israel, and when they entered the Promised Land and were established under Solomon, his presence came to dwell in the temple with his people.

As the people feasted, rested, and worshiped under the cover of their tents during this feast, they were to remember this loving covering God held over his people. And yet Jeremiah and Ezekiel both decry Israel’s whoredom in spite of God’s intimate presence. Their idolatry led God to declare “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” (Jeremiah 2:13).

It would be possible, as the procession coming up from the Pool of Siloam sang through Psalm 115’s dismissal of the idols of the nations, that some took pride in the fact that Israel was no longer a nation of open idolatry. And while this was technically true, it was indicting that the God of Abraham could walk among them, work miracles in their midst, and speak the truth to them without being recognized. The same religious leaders that argued with Jesus that they had never been slaves to anyone, in the same conversation could not recognize that their religious traditions and customs had more in common with Satan than Abraham. Their idolatry was more insidious than at earlier periods of Israel’s history, provoking Jesus’ intense rebukes for their hypocrisy and religious adultery, codified and glossed over in their strict traditions.¹¹ They had turned to worshiping the father of lies¹², and become great liars themselves, putting on a show of religion which produced no satisfaction. Like the fiery serpents of the wilderness, this brood of vipers made constant demands of the people like broken cisterns, leaving the people with nothing to satiate their thirst. Oh the irony for those singing the words, “Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them” (Psalm 115:8).

Underneath the pageantry of this Feast, and of this water ritual in particular, laid a subtext of longing. Nothing the Israelites were celebrating did they actually have anymore. They were not free, either as a nation or as individuals. Their harvests were gathered into bags with many tribute-sized holes in them. The presence and intimacy of God was no longer over them, but had been buried under the formality and pomp of religious rituals that had long since become detached from their meaning and purpose. And when Jesus stood up in the middle of all this and declared “If anyone thirsts…” there had to be many in the audience that could feel it all the way down in their dry bones.¹³

The Promised Living Water

On this great day of the Feast of Booths, at issue was what did the Scripture say. The crowds were in various states of confusion and ignorance, while the religious authorities were confidently resigned to their errors. Yet Jesus authoritatively declares to all, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:38). If a Pharisee then (or even now) would have objected to Jesus, requesting chapter and verse for where such a statement was made¹⁴, I could imagine the Lord placing his forehead into his palm. They had had this conversation numerous times already, and at every skirmish the same issue came to the surface:

And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life (John 5:37-40).¹⁵

They, despite diligently searching the Scripture, had made their peace with the digging itself, being happy to dwell in the dark dirt of religious work, blindly leaving behind the gems that were promised to sparkle uniquely in the face of the Messiah. Jesus’ claim regarding the living water was a purloined letter, set upon the mantle of numerous Scripture passages.

As the Scripture Has Said

The image of living water occurs all over the Scripture. Jesus is not quoting a single verse, but appealing to a common image. John helpfully connects the symbol to the promised Holy Spirit to avoid any possible confusion (John 7:39). The Spirit is frequently referred to as being “poured out”¹⁶ in the Old Testament, and this especially in the context of God’s people being a dry and thirsty ground. Isaiah pairs these two directly with a Hebrew parallelism saying, “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants” (Isaiah 44:3).

Its uses in the post-exilic prophets frequently associates this water with a stream flowing from the rebuilt Messianic temple. For example, the prophet Zechariah ends his prophecies describing a day to come upon Jerusalem. This day will be preceded by the nations having gathered together against the city, making war against the people of God, plundering, ravishing, and enslaving them (Zechariah 14:1-2). But then on this unique day the Lord will come, and the earth beneath him will tremble as he sets foot upon the Mount of Olives with his angelic army (v. 5). It shall be a day undefined by daylight or darkness, but by the light that dawns in its evening (v. 7). Zechariah promises that “On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem...and the Lord will be king over all the earth” (vv. 8-9). Though “Jerusalem shall dwell in security” (v. 11), the nations encamped against her shall be struck with panic and plague, having their wealth surrendered as plunder for the people of God. The terms of their defeat will require that “all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths” (v. 16) Failure to do so with the people of God will exchange the rain of God’s blessings for his plagues, those reminiscent of Egypt (vv. 18-19).

The prophet Joel has a nearly identical prophecy about a coming day of war against Jerusalem, on which God will judge his enemies and deliver his people. He too speaks of a fountain flowing forth from Jerusalem, filling the dry streambeds and valleys of Judah, locating its source as coming “from the house of the Lord” (Joel 3:18). This house of the Lord will be built by a messianic Branch who is both king and priest (Zechariah 6:12-16), and it will attain greater glory than those that stood before (Haggai 2:9). No longer will the temple be a place where the people are plundered by money-changers and religious hucksters (Zechariah 14:21), being instead filled with the plunder of the nations (Haggai 2:7).

Ezekiel describes this temple in intricate detail (Ezekiel 40-48), culminating in his description of an ever-increasing flow of water proceeding from under its altar and out to the Dead Sea (47:1-2). Every mile it flows it deepens and widens (vv. 3-5), and everywhere it flows becomes fresh and enlivened (vv. 8-9). On either side of this river of living water will stand fishermen, bringing in diverse and abundant hauls (v. 10), and trees of all kinds, whose produce will serve to feed and heal all needs (v. 12).

Five hundred years later, the temple at the time of Christ looked little like the glorious one foretold by these Old Testament prophets. Nations were not streaming into it, for the court of the Gentiles was choked up with religious hucksters and profiteers bent on fleecing the poor that gathered to worship. It was not the desire of the nations but rather a pet project of the Idumaean house of Herod, complete with a Roman garrison permanently stationed on its grounds. It was not the fountain of living water, but a thirsty ground whereon the priests continually offered rivers of sacrificial blood and wine and pitcher after pitcher of water walked up from the Pool of Siloam. The priests were like the prophets of Baal during Elijah’s time, performing on Mt. Carmel their ritual pageantries and genuflections year after year. Yet no fire fell on their sacrifices, no cloud of glory filled their temple, and no fountain of living water sprang up from beneath their altar.

Jesus’ words on the last day of the Feast had the bite of Elijah’s on Carmel, and it is no wonder that the idolaters in both cases wished for these righteous men’s arrest and murder. These prophets had the stones to declare that the religious leaders had no clothes. It’s likely why the crowds could not help but sense that someone like Elijah was here. During the ministry of John the Baptist the crowds sensed the same thing.¹⁷ A showdown was coming, and as Elijah’s forerunners were tasked with soaking his altar with water in preparation for the fire that would fall from heaven, so too did the forerunner of the Christ. John the Baptist declared, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11).

Now This He Said About the Spirit

The Apostle John adds a note for his readers immediately after Jesus’ mention of living water, saying “Now this he said about the Spirit” (John 7:39a). As already argued, Jesus’ audience had the problem of either misunderstanding or being totally ignorant of the Old Testament Scripture, but the readers of John’s gospel have a further problem to guard against. Being on this side of Pentecost and the giving of the Spirit it is possible to hear Jesus’ words as having nothing to do with the Old Testament at all. John tells his readers, “as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (v. 39b), reminding the reader to not forget to follow Jesus in connecting the giving of the Holy Spirit all the way back to its Old Testament types, images, and promises. Rather than woodenly equating living water with what happens in Acts 2 at Pentecost, we should read back from Pentecost through the shorthand of living water to all of the richness associated with that term in the Law and Prophets. We have access to the answers in the back of the book, but should still be able to show our work.

Nicodemus is an example of someone who could not connect the dots, despite being a teacher in Israel. When Jesus told him he needed to be “born of water and the Spirit” (John 3:5) he was dumbfounded, having no idea what Jesus was talking about. Jesus was equally astonished, asking “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?” (v. 10). He was speaking in shorthand for the New Covenant promises:

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules (Ezekiel 36:25-27).

Like Nicodemus, the Jews during the first Passover in John’s gospel had Jesus’ words go right over their heads (2:13-22). When Jesus crafted a whip and drove out the traders, merchants, and money-changers from the temple, the religious leaders demanded a sign to justify his audacity. When he responded, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (v. 19) they scoffed, pointing to the architectural wonder that Herod had dealt them. They were completely missing the flush of passages from the Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah Jesus was holding before them, both in word and deed.¹⁸ Like their colleagues who would later dispute with Jesus over the healing of the lame man by the Pool of Bethesda, these religious Jews were guilty of Jesus’ charge, “you do not have [God’s] word abiding in you” (5:38).

The Samaritan woman at the well had a similar fixation on temples and holy hills (John 4:20), but she, though a Samaritan and a sinner, picked up on something the religious Jews did not. Jesus dismissed her red herring by telling her “the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father” (v. 21). At first she assumed him to be a bothersome prophet, but now recognized that there was something more to his talk about “living water” (v. 10) that had begun their conversation. She could hear in his voice the voice of the prophets, and all this talk of “the gift of God” (v. 10), an internal “spring of water welling up to eternal life” (v. 14), and worshiping “in spirit and truth” (v. 24) took her mind naturally to “Messiah” (v. 25). Jesus responds in the next verse by basically saying, “Bingo.” Somebody was finally getting it.

This was not the usual reaction. When Jesus spoke of the living water that cures a person’s thirst, the Samaritan woman responded by saying, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water” (4:15). Similarly when he spoke to the 5,000 Galileans about the bread of God that comes down from heaven, they responded by saying, “Sir, give us this bread always” (6:34). Yet when Jesus went on to explain that it is he that is the bread of life, claiming “whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (v. 35), it did not take long before they, like their fathers in the wilderness who ate the manna from heaven, began to grumble against him (v. 41). As in all the other cases, Jesus appeals to the Prophets, declaring that “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me” (v. 45). Just as he had attempted to show the religious leaders that his body is the true temple, so too does he try to show these Galileans that his flesh is the true bread and his blood the true wine. It is a hard saying that winnows even the ranks of his disciples. But there were some, like Simon, who recognized that these were the words of life spoken by the promised Messiah of the Old Testament (vv. 68-69).

The Waters of Siloam

The Samaritan woman’s townspeople likewise heard Jesus’ offer of living water and believed “that this is indeed the Savior of the world” (John 4:42). In the Old Testament God’s saving reputation was a key part of who he revealed himself to be to his people. It was a point he had to continually remind them of, for the Jews were continually tempted to forsake him, “the fountain of living waters” (Jeremiah 2:13) in exchange for other saviors. Rather than remembering his salvation in the Exodus, the wilderness wanderings, and the conquest of Canaan (v. 6), Israel’s priests, shepherds, and prophets all turned to worthless idols (v. 8). The Lord asks them, “what do you gain by going to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile? Or what do you gain by going to Assyria to drink the waters of the Euphrates?” (v. 18). Who the people trusted in was pictured by the waters they fled to and drank from in times of trouble.

Judah under king Ahab is chided for a similar infidelity. When threatened by an alliance of the northern kingdom of Israel and Syria, Ahab turns to Assyria for help rather than the Lord. The Lord responds through Isaiah saying, “behold, the Lord is bringing up against them the waters of the River, mighty and many, the king of Assyria and all his glory” (Isaiah 8:7). Assyria will invade like an overflowing river, flooding into Judah, drowning them up to their neck, and this all “because this people has refused the waters of Shiloah that flow gently” (v. 6). These waters of Shiloah are those that flow in the valley between Mount Moriah and Mount Zion. It is this same spring that forms the pool of Siloam, which is the closest source of water to the temple. Judah would rather seek Assyria for salvation than the Lord on Zion, and they would be punished for it.¹⁹

These are the waters that Isaiah refers to at the end of this extended messianic prophecy (Isaiah 7-12). The righteous Branch upon whom “the Spirit of the Lord shall rest” (11:1-2)²⁰ will overcome the enemies of the Lord and come to reign. At that time the people will sing “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation” (12:2). As the priests of Jesus’ day drew the pitcher of water from the pool of Siloam, the people would quote the next verse: “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation” (v. 3).

The sad irony is that the ones bearing the water from Siloam in Jesus’ day, despite quoting the right verses, inwardly had put their fear and trust in the waters of the Tiber. Jesus’ words were a continual offense to their ears and the miraculous signs he performed were a source of much stumbling, none more so than the raising of Lazarus from the dead. After this they feared something similar to the overflowing Euphrates, saying “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation” (John 11:48). As Isaiah foretold about him, Jesus had “become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling” (Isaiah 8:14) It was time for the Jews to call Jesus’ earlier bluff, tearing down this sanctuary he claimed he could rebuild in three days. They revealed their own cards, crying out “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!...We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15).

To Fulfill the Scripture

After the last supper, where Jesus gave his disciples an extended explanation of how the Holy Spirit would work in and through them²¹, Jesus is betrayed and set upon by his enemies. In response to Peter’s attempts to defend him, Jesus orders him to put away his sword, saying “shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?” (John 18:11). Arrested, scourged, and delivered over to be crucified (Zechariah 13:7), Jesus proceeded to embody the messianic cries of David:

Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God (Psalm 69:1-3).

It was his zeal for God’s house that began this controversy between himself and the Jews, and now they were heaping their reproaches on him (v. 9, cf. John 2:17), saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” (Matthew 27:40). He was drowning in the gathering fury and contempt of God’s enemies, awaiting the fire to fall as it had in the days of Elijah. A drowning man, dying of thirst. The images are dripping with paradox, just as Elijah’s alter on Mt. Carmel was before the scoffing and reviling prophets of Baal. In the midst of such a flood, “Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), ‘I thirst’” (19:28).

His reference to thirst is not a mere reference to physical need, as those at the foot of the cross assumed when they offered him the sour wine to drink (John 19:29, cf. Psalm 69:21). In the parallel passage in Matthew it wasn’t the expression of physical thirst that prompted the offer of sour wine, but his outcry of “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (27:46-48). It was not wine he thirsted for, but his Father. Here on the cross, Christ identified with our deepest thirst by being forsaken by his Father (Psalm 22:1), taking upon himself the sins of his people. The crowds mocked this man who hung alone, just as they had done in the days of king Ahab against Elijah (Matthew 27:47, 49). Then Jesus said, “’It is finished,’ and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30). The fire of God’s wrath fell on the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29).

The soldiers at the foot of the cross pierced Jesus’ side (19:34, cf. Zechariah 12:10), and out of the man who had just died of a deeper thirst than anyone has ever experienced came a flow of blood and water. Rather than marching it up from the Pool of Siloam, Jesus marched it up from the wells of salvation (Isaiah 12:3). Unlike the thousands of times previously during the Feast of Booths when this drink offering of water and wine was poured out, when Jesus’ libation reached the thirsty ground below “a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness” (Zechariah 13:1). As Zechariah foretells elsewhere, this righteous branch, this high priest and king, the one foretold to rebuild the temple has laid its foundation stone with his body and blood, cleansing the land in this single day (3:9). This stone that had proven to be such an offense to the religious leaders, being rejected and laid in the ground, has “become the cornerstone” (Psalm 118:22, cf. Isaiah 8:14, 1 Peter 1:4-8) of the true temple.

In the murder of Christ, Jesus’ enemies dealt themselves their own defeat. This extended beyond the condemned sinners, Jews, and Romans all the way down to the father of the antipathy, Satan himself. The one who held the power over death, enslaving mankind in the fear of it all their days, was dealt a deathblow on the cross, and counted out in three days when Jesus rose from the grave. He entered into a drinking game with the wrong man (cf. Revelation 12:15-16), and found one who could drink up an ocean of condemnation whose shores reached from east to west (cf. Micah 7:19, Psalm 103:12), and still stand upon his own two feet atop the mountains of Jerusalem, splitting the world in two (Zechariah 14:4). Then he led captive a host of redeemed captives, the living stones of the temple he is rebuilding (cf. Psalm 68:18, Ephesians 4:8f.f., 1 Peter 2:5). The hand he put before the religious leaders at the beginning of John’s gospel that started all of this proved to be a royal flush, and the pot that he won was the world.

But in winning the world, he also won himself a bride. The living water that sprang from his side, like the rib from Adam, was used to create his wife, the church. These are those breathed on by Christ, that they might receive the promised Holy Spirit (John 20:22). They are the New Jerusalem, those that:

have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes (Revelation 7:14-17).

The marital language of covering, as it was richly used during the events in Israel’s history and the celebration of the Feast of Booths, is extended and expanded to speak of the wife of the Christ. Rather than merely a shade by day and lamp by night, and rather than being confined to fill a separated place in the center of his people, now there is “no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Rev 21:22-23, cf. 22:5).

This rebuilt temple that is a picture of the union of Christ and his church, is also the source of the living water, which flows out like an ever-widening river. John repeats the language of Ezekiel 47 in a veiled way at the end of his gospel²², but more explicitly at the end of his apocalypse, where it is shown to be:

the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:1-2).

The redemption accomplished by Christ in the cross, the resurrection, and the ascension to the Father’s right hand is the good news sent out to the world, baptizing those nations thirsty for his mercy and grace, “for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9). Just as the Lord Jesus declared to the crowd in his day, “If anyone thirsts, let him come” (John 7:37), so now does the Spirit and the Bride join the chorus call that ends the canon:

“The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.”

– Revelation 22:17

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Appendix: The Feast of Booths in the Old Testament

As Prescribed in the Law of Moses

The Feast of Booths is directly prescribed in four of the five books of Moses. It is briefly mentioned in Exodus 23:16, and described as an end of the year celebration after the fields have been gathered. More detail is found in Leviticus 23:33-43. There the feast is referred to as a “holy convocation” (v. 35), as a week of “solemn rest” (v. 39), and eight days of sacrifices offered to the Lord from the harvest. Also added here is the instructions to construct booths from “the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook” (v. 40). Every Israelite observing the feast is commanded to spend the week living out of these temporary structures for the express purpose of reminding them that God “made the people of Israel dwell in booths when [He] brought them out of the land of Egypt” (v. 43). Numbers 29:12-39 gives an extensive and detailed list of the specifics for each day’s sacrifices and offerings, by far more than any of the other yearly feasts in light of the blessings of the finalized harvest. Finally, Deuteronomy 16:13-17 adds the tone of the festival. Every family in society was to participate, from the least to the greatest, even to the inclusion of slaves, sojourners, orphans, and widows (v. 14). Everyone was to come with what they were able to offer from the harvest that God had supplied them, and to do so rejoicing. This feast was indeed a grand celebration of God’s blessings on his people, who blesses them that they would “be altogether joyful” (v. 15). Eight days of more food, fellowship, and worshipful merrymaking than any other time of the year, and all by command from a gracious God. As Matthew Henry says, “It is the will of God that his people should be a cheerful people”²³, and this feast was the year’s greatest occasion for hearty obedience.

As Perfected in the Time of Solomon

In the Old Testament there is no grander or more joyful celebration of this feast than that celebrated under King Solomon in conjunction with the dedication of the temple. Solomon spent seven years constructing the temple, finally completing the project in the eighth month (Bul in Hebrew) of his eleventh year as king (1 Kings 6:38). Of interesting note is his decision to not dedicate the temple immediately upon its completion, instead delaying this for at least another year²⁴ so that the celebration would occur in concert with the feasts of the seventh month of Ethanim (8:2). Though the Feast of Booths was normally only a week-long celebration, Solomon stretched the event into twice that, sacrificing so many animals that their number could not be counted (v. 5). The tabernacle, all its holy furnishings, and the Ark of the Covenant were moved at this time to the completed temple (v. 4). Once the Ark was in its appointed place in the Holy of Holies, God’s presence descended and filled the temple with a cloud, just as he had at the time of Moses when the tabernacle was first dedicated in the wilderness.²⁵

This particular feast of dedication and remembrance was also accompanied by great works of music. King David had prepared the priesthood for this service, constructing the instruments and the orders of priests skilled with their use. In the parallel passage of this dedication in 2 Chronicles 7:1-10 the people respond with songs of congregational praise to God’s fire and smoke filling the temple. Verse 3 in particular shows that they were singing the 136th Psalm, responding together with shouts of, “For he is good. For his steadfast love endures forever.” This psalm records God’s faithfulness to Israel, delivering them from Egypt, providing for them in the wilderness, triumphing over their enemies in Canaan, and providing their food in its season. It was the perfect song for celebrating the Feast of Booths, highlighting the points in Israel’s life and history that the feast likewise commemorated.²⁶

The atmosphere in Jerusalem was at a zenith. The nation was blessed abundantly, as the aroma of barbecued meat, aromatic branches, citrus fruits, and rich spices filled the city with the pleasing aromas of plenty. The streets were lined with booths, the air was filled with singing, and the wonder of the world at the heart of the city was now filled and overshadowed by the very presence of God. Israel, just as their fathers before in the wilderness, were witnessing the Lord’s abiding presence in their midst while dwelling in their booths. This was a spectacular event, full of memory, fulfilled longing, and deep gratitude, by the end of which Solomon “sent the people away to their homes, joyful and glad of heart for the prosperity that the Lord had granted to David and to Solomon and to Israel his people” (2 Chronicles 7:10). It was the feast of all feasts, so legendary that it is later mentioned during the time of Hezekiah as the great benchmark for how to throw a party to remember.²⁷

As Rekindled After the Exile

After the exile and return of Israel to the Promised Land under Ezra, Zerubbabel, and Nehemiah, the Feast of Booths would come to have a renewed importance to the people of God, being referred to in Ezra 3:4, Haggai 2:1-9, Zechariah 14:16-19, and Nehemiah 8:13-18. Those that returned from Persia to rebuild the temple and Jerusalem were wrestling with fear in the face of the enemies encircling them (Ezra 3:3), despondency over the memory of the kingdom’s former glory (Ezra 3:12, Haggai 2:1), and deep remorse over the weight of their fathers’ sins (Nehemiah 8:9). Progress rebuilding was at times slow, at times resisted, and at times abandoned or ignored for other pursuits. The returned exiles had become accustomed to disappointing harvests, either because of droughts from God or raids from their enemies. Even with the completion of the second temple, there was a diluted mixture of praise with the bitter tears of remorse for what was lost.

During the later mission of Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, this spirit remained. At the project’s completion, Ezra was summoned to Jerusalem in order to help the people celebrate the occasion. It was scheduled for the seventh month²⁸, beginning on the first day with the observance of the Feast of Trumpets, also known as Rosh Hoshana. Ezra read to the gathered people²⁹ from the Law of Moses, and there was so much weeping among the worshipers that commands of “do not mourn or weep” (Nehemiah 8:9) and “do not be grieved” (v. 11) were heaped upon them by the Levites. Nehemiah exhorted the despondent people with “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (v. 10). This event was supposed to be one of great joy, but by day’s end the best the leaders could hope for was at least an agreement to “be quiet, for this day is holy” (v. 11).

The next day the heads of the families and the leaders gathered to study the Law in preparation for the next feast, and one wonders if part of that preparation was simply how to prevent another gathering of gray clouds. This next feast would be the Feast of Booths, a feast meant for rejoicing over the faithfulness of God. The returned exiles were instructed to gather palms, olives, myrtle, and other leafy boughs to build their booths. Earlier in Nehemiah 7:4 the city of Jerusalem, newly encircled in its reconstructed wall, is said to be “wide and large, but the people within it were few, and no houses had been rebuilt.” Yet on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, it was filled with the tents and booths of the fifty thousand returned exiles for the celebration of God’s continued deliverances, mercies, and faithfulness to his people. A gathering of this kind had not occurred since the days of Joshua (Nehemiah 8:17), where every Israelite dwelt before God in tents within the Promised Land. It must have been a sight like that seen by Balaam:

How lovely are your tents, O Jacob, your encampments, O Israel! Like palm groves that stretch afar, like gardens beside a river, like aloes that the Lord has planted, like cedar trees beside the waters (Numbers 24:5-6).

And on this occasion there was indeed “very great rejoicing” (Nehemiah 8:17). God had not forgotten his people, but, as he promised in the Law of Moses, remembered them in the land of their exile and responded to their earnest repentance.

This instance is the final recorded observance of the Feast of Booths in the Old Testament, and though it officially ended with the wine of joy, it was quickly mixed with the vinegar of sadness. Nehemiah 9:1 states that on the twenty-fourth day of the month, just after the conclusion of the Feast, the exiles gathered together for a day of fasting and repentance, another day for reading the Law of Moses, for confessing together their sins and the sins of their fathers, and for making a renewed covenant with God. In this lengthy prayer (vv. 6-37) the returned exiles recount the covenant faithfulness of God from the time of Abram extending to the Exodus, the forty years in the wilderness, and the conquest of Canaan. The exiles of Nehemiah’s day, after a week of feasting and rejoicing in the memory of these things, go on to pray,

So they ate and were filled and became fat and delighted themselves in your great goodness. Nevertheless, they were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their back and killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you, and they committed great blasphemies (Nehemiah 9:25-26).

This is an echo of Deuteronomy 32:15, “But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked; you grew fat, stout, and sleek; then he forsook God who made him and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.” The Feast of Booths was specifically meant to remind the Jews of their humiliation in the wilderness, that they not forget that it was only on account of God’s grace to them that they ate, drank, and were merry.³⁰

Yet the rest of Nehemiah 9 is an admission that they had broken the covenant in exactly the ways that Moses had foretold in his final song at the close of the Law.³¹ The people spend verses 26-35 admitting to the repeated unfaithfulness of the Israelites against the steadfast faithfulness of God. This culminates with the exiles declaring:

Behold, we are slaves this day; in the land that you gave to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts, behold, we are slaves. And its rich yield goes to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins. They rule over our bodies and over our livestock as they please, and we are in great distress (Nehemiah 9:36-37).

The final observance of the Feast of Booths, as recorded in the Old Testament, shows the people having come full circle from what the Feast celebrates. They have entered the Promised Land, as they once did under Joshua, but this time they do so as slaves in a subjugated land and their harvests go to their masters. The Feast that celebrates how God delivered, fed, and watered his people through the wilderness³² has now taken on a note of longing, dissatisfaction, and want. As Haggai puts it,

You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes (Haggai 1:6).³³

The period of Ezra and Nehemiah ends with a deep thirst that the sour wine of this Feast could not slake. Yet God, in his steadfast love for his people, promised to send relief by a savior. Ezra and Nehemiah’s contemporary Zechariah calls this promised one the Branch, a king and priest who will rebuild the temple when he comes (Zechariah 6:12-13). This rebuilt temple would not be like the diminished one they had rebuilt and wept over. Haggai, another contemporary prophet, says, “The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former” (Haggai 2:9). The thirst they suffer will cease, for from this house will flow living water (Zechariah 14:8, cf. Ezekiel 47:1-12) to quench the thirst of his people and “remove the iniquity of this land in a single day” (Zechariah 3:9).

1. All Scripture quotations will be from the English Standard Version for consistency’s sake.

2. J. C. Ryle says of this text that it “contains one of those mighty sayings of Christ which deserve to be printed in letters of gold. All the stars in heaven are bright and beautiful; yet even a child can see that one star excelleth another in glory. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God; but that heart must indeed be cold and dull which does not feel that some verses are peculiarly rich and full. Of such verses this text is one.” Ryle, J. C. Holiness: Its Nature, Difficulties, Hindrances, and Roots. Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2021, p. 373.

3. Though there were numerous feasts and holy days prescribed and observed in the Law, there were three major feasts that framed the religious year (see Exodus 23:14). In addition to the Feast of Booths there was the Feast of Unleavened Bread (also called the Feast of Passover) and the Feast of Harvest (also called the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Firstfruits, or, later, the Feast of Pentecost).

4. Ethanim roughly corresponds to late October/early November.

5. See the attached Appendix for an extended look at this feast and its relevance to Jesus’ words here.

6. See Nehemiah 5:1-6.

7. According to D. A. Carson there are no mentions made to this rite until several centuries before Christ in Rabbinic tradition. It has no direct mention in the Old Testament. Carson, D. A. The Gospel According to John. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991. p. 322.

8. Carson, 321-22.

9. See Deuteronomy 8:1-6.

10. See Numbers 24.

11. See Matthew 15:7-9.

12. See John 8:44.

13. Thirst is one of the most common images the Old Testament uses to describe the state of being separated from God. See Psalm 42:2, 63:1, 143:6, Isaiah 41:17-18, 44:3, 55:1, and Amos 8:11-13.

14. Spoiler alert, there is no singular verse he is referring to.

15. Whenever Jesus spoke to the crowds, his audience could not help but pick up aromas from all over the Old Testament. He was appraised to be the reincarnation of everyone from the Prophet foretold by Moses, to Elijah, to prophets like Jeremiah, and even to the recently murdered John the Baptist (see Matthew 16:13-16; Mark 6:14-16, 8:27-29; Luke 9:7-9, 18-20). On rare occasions like with Simon or here in John 7 he was even suspected of being the promised Messiah (John 7:41). This is because what the people recognized was not the voice of the prophets in Jesus’ mouth, but Jesus’ voice in theirs. All of these Old Testament writers bore witness to him, and the reason the people had trouble hearing Jesus’ words was actually because they had trouble hearing the words of the Old Testament itself (see John 5:46-47).

16. See Proverbs 1:23, Joel 2:28, Isaiah 44:3, Ezekiel 36:24-26, and Zechariah 12:10.

17. See John 1:19-21.

18. Psalm 69:9; Isaiah 56:6-7; Jeremiah 7:11; Zechariah 6:12-13; 13:7; 14:21.

19. Overflowing rivers and waters are a common image of wrath being poured out, whether by God himself or by the enemies of God’s people, and also of death. An obvious example is Noah’s flood, but also see Psalm 88:7, Isaiah 8:7-8, Jonah 2:3-5, Revelation 12:15.

20. Quoted by John the Baptist with regards to how Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit (John 1:32-33).

21. See John 13-17...this paper is going to be 100k words at this rate.

22. One of only two references to fishermen in the Old Testament occurs in the prophecy of Ezekiel 47:1-12 with reference to the river flowing out from the temple. They will stand on either side of the river, casting their nets and hauling in great catches of diverse fish. This fishing will specifically take place between “Engedi to Eneglaim” (v. 10). John has a penchant for playing with the numerical meanings of names (e.g. 666 and Nero), and seems to have learned the trick from Jesus, who sovereignly enabled the disciples to pull up exactly 153 fish in John 21:11. As Doug Wilson explains: “John was among the disciples that Jesus summoned to be fishers of men. At the end of the gospel of John, the resurrected Lord gives His disciples a fishing haul, 153 fish, to be exact. That number is the triangular of 17 (meaning that 17 + 16 + 15, etc. will result in 153)...The numerical value of Gedi was 17 and Eglaim was 153. The prefix En simply meant spring. Ezekiel prophesied that healing water would flow to that place where men who were fishers of men would stand, from the Spring of 17 to the Spring of 153. And so here we are” (see Surveying the Text: Ezekiel, https://dougwils.com/the-church/s8-expository/surveying-the-text-ezekiel.html).

23. Exodus 16:1-17 entry. In Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible.

24. Keil and Delitzsch argue that the delay could have extended thirteen years after the completion of the temple, with the dedication occurring at the conclusion of his broader 20 year construction project. See their note on 1 Kings 8:1-21.

25. See Exodus 40:34.

26. There is no mention of David, Saul, Samuel, or the Judges in Psalm 136, though these are all important points in Israel’s history. Only those events and figures that played a role in Israel’s exodus from Egypt (vv. 10-15), their desert wanderings (v. 16), and the conquest of the Promised Land (vv. 17-22) are remembered, all of which are commemorated directly by the Feast of Booths. In addition to these, the Psalm also sings of God’s wisdom and providence in creation, particularly emphasizing his work on the second, third, and fourth days. In verse 5 God is praised for creating the heavens, his work on the second day where the skies were filled with the rains needed for watering the land (see Genesis 1:6-8). This land was created the next day, sung about in verse 6, and included the filling of the earth with all the vegetation that would make it fruitful (see Genesis 1:9-13). The next day of creation was sung about in verses 7-9 where the sun, moon, and stars were created for “signs and for seasons” (Genesis 1:14). It is again important to note the absence of any mention to the other three days of creation, which do not directly pertain to the harvest. Days two, three, and four are highlighted because by them “he…gives food to all flesh” (v. 25). Just as some songs can be sung anytime, but are particularly intended for the Christmas season, I feel this Psalm has the same kind of relation to the Feast of Booths.

27. See 2 Chronicles 30:21-26.

28. The seventh month of Ethanim came to be called Tisri after the Exile. Though the seventh month of the religious calendar, it was the first of the civil, making the observance of Rosh Hoshana naturally the Jewish new year.

29. As many as fifty thousand based on Nehemiah 7:66-67.

30. See Deuteronomy 8.

31. See Deuteronomy 32.

32. See Nehemiah 9:19-21.

33. Compare Haggai 1:6 to Nehemiah 9:19-21: “You in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. You gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.”