The Great River and the Waters of Life
SHILOAH’S SOFT WATERS
Deep beneath Jerusalem there is a stratum of hard, impervious rock sloping gradually towards the southeast. All the rain that falls upon the city and filters into the ground finally gathers upon that unyielding shelf only to reemerge as springs upon the hillsides outside the city. The most famous of these springs is the “Virgin’s Fountain” located halfway down the steep sides of the valley of Jehoshaphat. This spring never fails. From Jebusite times when these waters were utilized during sieges until relatively recent times, it has formed Jerusalem’s most reliable water supply.
Probably in between the period of David and Ahaz the Israelites built a covered aqueduct just under the ground to carry the water from the Virgin’s Fountain to the Pool of Siloam. These waters were to be used especially in times of siege and we read of them in 2 Chronicles 32:11 and Isaiah 7:3. When Sennacherib invaded Judah in the reign of Hezekiah the son of Ahaz (2 Kings 18:13-16) it seems this aqueduct had been blocked up and knowledge of its course lost, for Hezekiah excavated another tunnel through the mountain to carry the water to the Pool of Siloam. By then the spring was inside the city walls (2 Chronicles 32:30, 4-8, Isaiah 22:9, 2 Kings 20:20). In recent days both Hezekiah’s tunnel and the remains of the earlier aqueduct have been found.
It was this lost aqueduct to which Isaiah refers in Isaiah 8:6, 7: “Forasmuch as this people refuse the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son; Now therefore, behold, the Lord brings up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria, and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks.”
This water of Shiloah coming from the mountain’s heart was never failing, always fresh and clear. It was the real Divine Provision for the people, a literal counterpart to the spiritual provision of sustenance, refreshment, and protection. Quietly, unobtrusively, and safe from all attack by enemies, the waters of Shiloah flowed softly to meet the needs of the city. God’s provision is always there; and always effective to meet all his people’s needs; to shield them from all harm, if they but exercise faith.
THE GREAT RIVER TIGRIS
Across the desert, in the land of Assyria, was “the great river, which is Hiddekel [Tigris]” (Daniel 10:4). Nineveh where Jonah preached nearly a century before Isaiah’s day stood upon the Tigris. Its tributaries were dammed at various places creating artificial lakes from which canals were cut leading in every direction to irrigate the desert soil. This harnessing of their great river made Assyria one of the most fertile and prosperous countries in the world.
Many Israelites visited Assyria as merchants and brought back reports of its grandeur so different from their own rugged and austere Judea. They compared this earthly beauty – a beauty whose continuance depended upon the dazzling system of Assyrian canals only kept in operation by tremendous labor – against their own modest stream. Yet when the Assyrian labor failed, as all human effort and organization must eventually fail, those skillfully designed canals failed. Today the great dams on the Tigris are in ruins, the canals are full of sand and silt, the fields have become desert land, and the river once alive and bustling with activity in stead flows sluggishly. In contrast the waters of Shiloah continue to flow as abundant, fresh and pure as in the days of Isaiah. The women of Jerusalem still draw water from the pool and the gardens around the southeast corner of the city are still watered from it.
ASSYRIA THE INSTRUMENT OF DESTRUCTION
Assyria eventually became the instrument of great destruction to Israel because the people had refused the waters of Shiloah. God brought upon them the waters of the great river – an image for Assyria – to overflow and submerge them. This fulfilled the word of the Lord in Isaiah 8:7, 8: “Now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria, and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks: And he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.”
We find scriptural reference to the invasions of Tiglathpileser, king of Assyria (2 Kings 16:7-10, 2 Chronicles 28:16-20), followed by Shalmaneser and his eventual capture of Samaria (2 Kings 17:3-5, 18:7-11), and lastly by Sennacherib (2 Kings 18:13-19:37, Isaiah 36-37). This is always the fate of the people that turn away from God’s guidance. The waters of destructive trouble overflow them. The stream that was the river of God always remains full of water, but not destructive water. This water always made glad the city of God as Jeremiah saw clearly. When speaking for God he cried: “… 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” (Jeremiah 2:13).
How many times since Jeremiah’s day have God’s people repeated that tragic mistake! Isaiah, speaking for God, lamented: “O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandment,” and then comes the regretful voice of the Most High God, sad and pleading, “then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea” (Isaiah 48:18).
LEAD BESIDE STILL WATERS
Can we not see in that eloquent appeal the picture of the waters of Shiloah flowing softly and quietly, but steadily and surely, through their narrow channels so that they might supply all the needs of the people of God in the holy city? Spiritually we may enjoy those waters if we only rely upon them and refuse the waters of the great river that have been gathered together and remain held together by the mind and power of man.
In the 23rd Psalm David sings of his being led by Yahweh beside the still waters, where his soul became restored and where he found the quiet pathways of righteousness. Perhaps he too followed the course of that crystal stream and saw in it a symbol of the Divine sustenance. His soul needed a lesson necessary to fleshly Israel, but more so to spiritual Israel. For we live in a day that offers more attractions and distractions. Today there are more theories abroad, more subtle reasonings that tend to turn our minds away from “the truth [as it] is in Jesus” (Ephesians 4:21). This is especially so at this time of the world’s trouble and judgment, a time when the most brilliant of human minds are desperately devising programs to restore balance to the world, but not looking for God’s help. Is this why, in the midst of world Judgment, we are reminded in the 46th Psalm of the river of God that will supply all our needs?
“Though the earth be removed … the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea … though the waters thereof roar and foam … though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof,” yet, for all this, “There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God” (Psalm 46:1-4).
Shiloah’s spiritual waters still yield refreshment and strength to all who put their faith in them. “In quietness and confidence shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15). In Psalms 65:9, 10, a psalm of praise, David appears to have brought that underground “river of God” into his song. “Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water.” Verse 10 indicates David had the waters of Shiloah in mind. “Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly: thou settlest the furrows thereof …”
The Hebrew word for “furrow” (S.1417,geh-dood; see also Young’s Concordance) signifies a cutting, thus a man-made channel or an aqueduct, of the sort made all over the land to carry precious water without risking its loss by evaporation. “Settlest” (S.5181, nichath) means to go down, or to deepen, or descend. This depicts the life-giving water descending or flowing down an excavation towards its beneficent work. This is an apt description of the stream of the Virgin’s Fountain flowing through the underground aqueduct to the Pool of Shiloah.
Pool of Siloam (upper left)
At the continued providence of God thus manifested, David cried with joy: “Thou crownest the year with thy goodness … the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing” (Psalm 65:11-13).
Spiritually, the background of praise should always be evident. We may not at all times see the river flowing; we may not continually hear the murmur of its waters, 0n occasion gushing forth from the system of hidden caves under the city. But the river is always there and can never fail, for it comes forth from God.
MESSIANIC BLESSINGS
Isaiah also praises God for the blessings of the river, but he extends his view far beyond into the Messianic Age. He is not yet finished with those Assyrian canals on which he previously poured such scorn. The prophet knew and declared that the great river would triumph temporarily over the river of God insofar as unfaithful Israel was concerned. But Isaiah also knew that the great river “Tigris” would be rolled back and the river of God come into its own again, in due time.
Then, by a reversal of imagery, he sees the quiet waters of Shiloah expand and increase and invade the territory of the great river and reach all the world with its life giving waters. “Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken. But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby” (Isaiah 33: 20, 21).
Those “broad rivers and streams” are the ship channels Assyria used both for agriculture and transportation of men and goods. Isaiah compares these with the quiet little stream bubbling out of the hillside below the temple. Isaiah’s words signify that when Jerusalem is pronounced “Holy to the Lord” he will cause the quiet waters of Shiloah to become great rivers and canals, overspreading all the land and bring ing life wheresoever they come (Joel 3:17, Zechariah 8:3, 14:20-21). But there will be no ships. The “galleys with oars” and “gallant ships” were the merchant ships and war galleys of Assyria’s day. The prophet plainly declares that the evils of commercialism and militarism will have no place in this new land of living waters which the Lord God is to bring forth.
EZEKIEL’S VISION
The waters of Shiloah will one day flow forth to meet the needs of all the world. Ezekiel, in his vision of the Millennial Temple (Ezekiel 47:1-12), saw waters emerging from underneath a sanctuary at the south side of the altar, flowing eastward, and emerging again under the outer wall at the south side of the east gate. It is remarkable that the literal stream has its source in some undiscovered subterranean recess deep down below the place where Solomon’s Temple stood on Mount Moriah. Even today it emerges below the city wall, halfway down the side of the valley, on the south of the Eastern Gate. From there it flows into the Virgin’s Fountain and onward to the Pool of Siloam.
Ezekiel’s description accurately depicts the stream that actually exists at Jerusalem and we cannot avoid the thought that he had that well-known stream in mind when he saw the vision. As he looked, the prophet saw this stream going outward into the country, growing wider and deeper all the time until at last, as a mighty torrent, it reached the eastern sea, the Dead Sea. Here it healed those salt-laden waters so that they too became fresh and pure: “Everything shall live whither the river cometh” (Ezekiel 47:9).
As he continued to look, he saw trees on both sides growing rapidly and coming to maturity. Trees whose leaves never faded and whose fruit was born continually. The fruit was for food, and the leaves for medicine, for healing the nations. The source of virtue that resided in both fruit and leaves was the river of life, in which the trees were rooted. This mighty flood eventually will encompass all the world and reach every man. These blessed waters of Shiloah flowing out from the sanctuary will become a river of the water of life to which all are invited (Revelation 22:1, Zechariah 14:8,9, Isaiah 28:17, Matthew 10:26).
At this time the Great High Priest, head and body, as depicted in the Tabernacle type, will emerge from the Sanctuary in the garments of glory and beauty. Raising both hands and by the authority of Him that liveth forever this High Priest will invoke the healing benediction to Israel first and through them to the nations (Isaiah 52:9, 65:18-19, 66:10-12, 2:3, Jeremiah 3:17).
As Pastor Russell notes: “[The] Law … in due time will serve its purpose to bring them [Israel] to Christ. Though it brought only a remnant of them at the first advent, it will bring them as a people at the Second Advent, and as a people they will be a first-fruit among the nations. Ultimately every blessing promised to Israel, except those pertaining to the elected classes, will have, not only its actual fulfillment in that people, but also its antitypical fulfillment in all the families of the earth. Under that government ‘God will render to every man according to his deeds – glory, honor, and peace to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile; for there is no respect of persons with God’ (Romans 2:6, 10, 11)” (A298).
What will this blessing be? It shall be the fullest accomplishment of Number 6:24-27: “The LORD bless thee, and keep (or preserve) thee, The LORD make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious to thee, The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace … And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them.”
All are invited to come, all are urged to partake of the water of life freely. “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ And let him that heareth say, ‘Come.’ And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:17, 21:6, Isaiah 55:1).
What a great honor and blessed privilege to be accounted worthy to be part of the Great High Priest and reign with him, ministering the water of life to the world of mankind. What an unprecedented blessing and joy awaits this poor groaning creation in the Millennial reign of the Christ. As 1 Chronicles 16:31-34 says (cited from Psalms 96:10-13): “Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice: and let man say among the nations, Yahweh reigneth. Let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof: let the fields rejoice, and all that is therein. Then shall the trees of the wood sing out at the presence of Yahweh, because he cometh to judge the earth (in righteousness) and the people with his truth.”
The waters of Shiloah will flow to all eternity, for life can only be sustained by the continuing power of God. Then man will depend upon God for life, he will look to God for life, and that life will come ceaselessly, abundantly, and surely out of the sanctuary where God dwells. It will reach God’s entire material creation. The waters will never cease, for man himself will never cease to be. God’s will shall be done on earth even as it is done in heaven and the earth shall then be gloriously beautiful (Numbers 14:21, Isaiah 11:9, Habakkuk 2:14, D656).
As it is written: “As truly as I live, the whole earth shall be filled with the glory of Yahweh.”
– David Skein