Carey Griffel: Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and welcome to the first episode about actually getting into the topic of baptism. And here's what's kind of funny. I started this theme well over 20 episodes ago. Now, of course, I've done a few rabbit trails in between there, especially with Walton's work and hermeneutics and interpretation and all of those kinds of ideas. And don't forget the female nephilim or lack thereof. Plus, in all of that time, I have started my biblical theology community.
[00:00:49] So I've had a lot going on. But let's go ahead and get back to the flood and get back to baptism. One of my biggest trails this year has been into the theme of alcohol, wine specifically, which is of course, connected to Christian communion. All of that is going to be related directly to what we'll talk about with baptism.
[00:01:12] I had also decided to get into the theme of covenant before we got into the proper theme of baptism. These things are all connected, so it felt premature to explain baptism without explaining some more fundamental things like covenant and communion with God, because without those things, well, what's the point of baptism at all?
[00:01:35] My hypothesis is that water forms a bridge amongst the many topics that we are really concerned about, specifically God's purposes for and actions within creation. Water forms a core theme of all of these things.
[00:01:53] We've got chaos and order, we have provision and the life-giving aspects of water. We have a covenant. We have the idea of God dwelling with us. Which is absolutely core, and you would almost think that that has nothing to do with water, but it really does. Then of course we have judgment. We have cleansing and purification, we have renewal and return, and water flows through all of those elements.
[00:02:26] So before we get into baptism proper, I want to really understand what water is and what it does and how Scripture understands it and presents it as a metaphor and as something that is connected to both judgment as well as the flourishing of life.
[00:02:44] Now, I don't promise that this is going to be absolutely comprehensive. But I'm going to do my best to get into a lot of things that maybe you have never heard of or thought about yourself as far as connecting these things.
[00:02:59] But first a caution. What we are not going to do is we are not going to try and find all of the themes and all of the ideas and then compress them and pretend like they are always present in every aspect of water as it's presented.
[00:03:17] That's not a proper use of metaphor and ideas. We want to really keep things crisp in our understanding of conceptual domains. So I'm sure we're gonna be getting into frame semantics.
[00:03:31] But what we don't know yet is how many of these things may or may not intersect in the idea and the ritual of baptism.
[00:03:42] We have some very clear parallels with baptism and creation and the flood and the exodus, but we really want to ask what those connections are. How do they relate to one another? And what does it mean to be a baptized Christian? What is baptism supposed to be for us?
[00:04:05] Of course, we'll talk about different traditions and their approaches and ideas about baptism. I'm going to try to situate those in their contextual historical contexts. Why do we think the ways that we do? How has baptism changed throughout time? What does that mean? These are really big questions and it's gonna take a while to dig into.
[00:04:31] I will, of course, as always, sprinkle other topics within this, so we won't just be heading into it and then getting all through it without interruption. There is a lot to think about and I hope it's going to be an interesting and fruitful exploration for all of us.
[00:04:50] if you have any questions or ideas of things I could hit within this series, please do let me know, and I will give you a quick invitation into my biblical theology community where it would be easy to talk about all of these things. You can find
[email protected], but you gotta hyphenate those words on hyphen this hyphen rock.com.
[00:05:18] But I won't spend any time here talking about what all that community is for, but you can go check it out.
[00:05:24] Alright, so let's get into the conceptual theme of water. And of course we have water showing up directly in the first pages of our Bible.
[00:05:34] The fact that we have waters in creation right at the beginning confuses us when we're looking at creation as a story of creation out of nothing. But suffice to say for this episode that the way that Genesis one presents creation is very much in line with ancient Near Eastern ideas in general.
[00:05:56] We have what we like to call the primordial deep. Genesis one verse two introduces the tehom or the deep, the chaotic waters over which God's Spirit hovers. So already we have a connection with water and spirit. And water here is both a symbol of life potential and a symbol of disorder that is awaiting God's ordering word.
[00:06:25] Water also serves to be a symbol of division and boundaries. God separates the waters above and the waters below, and he gathers seas so that dry land may appear. Order emerges when water is set in its limits.
[00:06:43] Then in Genesis two, we have waters as being presented as part of the sustenance of life. We also have rivers that flow from Eden to water the garden and elsewhere.
[00:06:57] What we see here is that creation is framed by waters, and I would suggest that all later water stories echo what we have in Genesis. So these are very important themes to look at.
[00:07:12] But water also bookends the entire Bible. And indeed, the entire narrative of creation from the beginning to the end. Water plays a very important part in the eschaton. In the last chapter of our Bibles, we have water in multiple formats, just as we have it in Genesis one.
[00:07:34] Revelation 22 verses one through five, say, quote, " And he showed me the river of the water of life clear as crystal coming out from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on both sides of the river is the tree of life producing 12 fruits, yielding its fruit according to every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations and there will not be any curse any longer. And the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it and his slaves will serve him and they will see his face. And his name will be on their foreheads. And night will not exist any longer. And they will not have need of the light of a lamp and the light of the sun because the Lord God will give light to them and they will reign forever and ever." End quote.
[00:08:29] Now of course, a lot of people will see this as being literal, wondering why there's no sun.
[00:08:36] But I think if we read this instead in a narrative fashion and we're connecting what we read here with the beginning of our Bibles, then what we have is this full, complete picture of what's going on in creation. What are God's purposes from the beginning?
[00:08:52] A little bit later in Revelation 22, we have verses 12 through 15 and it says, quote, " Behold I am coming quickly. And my reward is with me, to repay each one according to what his deeds are. I am the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are the ones who wash their robes. So that their authority will be over the Tree of Life, and they may enter into the city through the gates. Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the sexually immoral people, and the murderers and the idolaters and everyone who loves and who practices falsehood." End quote.
[00:09:36] Of course, there's a lot more to this chapter than these verses, but I just want to highlight that water plays a really distinctive role. In the verses I just read, the ones who wash their robes are called blessed. They will have authority over the Tree of Life.
[00:09:52] Alright, I'm not gonna go into any exegesis of this passage right now. I just want to highlight that we really ought to be paying attention to a lot of these themes and asking what are they telling us?
[00:10:05] so for today's episode, I want to look at water as humans use it and we're gonna look at how those are metaphors for wider pictures. So we'll look at water as something that involves daily life, but also as a larger symbol.
[00:10:23] The most obvious need for water is for drinking. But water is also used as a symbol for hospitality in the form of washing feet. In Genesis 18, verse four, we have Abraham who offers water for feet washing food to the three mysterious visitors by the Oaks of Mamre. We have combined themes here. Water plus bread is basic hospitality, but those things are also connected deeply to covenant and relationship between people.
[00:10:58] I think sometimes we tend to leave this idea of hospitality outside of the realm of covenant, but it fits in so perfectly within this ancient framework.
[00:11:09] What we have going on in Genesis 18 is actually a story of divine visitation, but along with that, we have human acts of welcome. And I would suggest this is a basic paradigm. Giving of water is participating in God's purposes and the coming together of the divine and the profane.
[00:11:32] So talking about drinking water, I could get into the story of Hagar. But we'll put that one to the side for the moment. And let's look at Genesis 24, verses 11 through 20 where we have Rebekah at the well. Here we have the servant that is sent by Abraham to find a wife for Isaac. Abraham's servant prays for a sign. In fact, he's the one who suggests the sign, and this sign revolves around hospitality at the well. And the servant is asking God to reveal the appointed bride for Isaac in the form of hospitality given.
[00:12:09] Gordon Wenham in Word Biblical Commentary tells us that watering camels here is a kind of shrewd character test. It reveals Rebekah's fitness to marry into Abraham's family. Hospitality really is a covenant marker here, and the servant is explicitly connecting her generosity to God's loyal love.
[00:12:33] But not only do we have a picture of hospitality, we also have a pattern of marriage. This is a pattern that Robert Alter and some others have brought out. The well becomes the place where covenant lineages are extended through marriage.
[00:12:51] This is a pretty key text. So let me go ahead and read to Genesis 24, 11 through 23, quote, " And he made the camels kneel outside the city at the well of water at the time of evening, toward the time the women went out to draw water. And he said, oh, Yahweh, God of my master Abraham. Please grant me success today and show loyal love to my master Abraham. Behold, I am standing by the spring of water. And the daughters of the men of the city are going out to draw water. And let it be that the girl to whom I shall say, please offer your jar that I may drink and who says drink and I will also water your camels. She is the one you have chosen for your servant for Isaac. By her, I will know that you have shown loyal love to my master.
[00:13:44] " And it happened that before he had finished speaking, behold Rebekah, who was born to Bethuel, son of Milkah, the wife of Nahor, the brother of Abraham came out and her jar was on her shoulder. Now the girl was very pleasing in appearance. She was a virgin. No man had known her. And she went down to the spring, filled her jar and came up. And the servant ran to meet her and he said, please, let me drink a little bit of the water from your jar. And she said, drink my Lord. And she quickly lowered her jar in your hand and gave him a drink. When she had finished giving him a drink, she said, I will also draw water for your camels until they finished drinking.
[00:14:28] " And she quickly emptied her jar into the trough and ran again to the well to draw water. And she drew water for all his camels. And the man was gazing at her silently to know if Yahweh had made his journey successful or not. And it happened that as the camels finished drinking, the man took a gold ring of a half shekel in weight and two bracelets for her arms, 10 shekels in weight, and said, please tell me whose daughter are you. Is there a place at the house of your father for us to spend the night?" End quote.
[00:15:01] When he asks her for a drink, he is asking her not for a normal drink, but just for a tiny sip. And what does she do? She doesn't just give him a tiny sip. She intentionally gives him enough until he is completely full and done drinking. And after that it is Rebekah's suggestion to water the camels.
[00:15:23] So she is a picture of abundant giving. And the idea of her going down and coming up and running. This is a picture of enthusiasm and the fact that she's coming down and going up probably means it's not an easy task to go down into the well and come back up to where they were at. And of course, the idea of camels. We have camels drink a lot, right? So this was not a small task and she was offering it freely. Her actions were a picture of God's loyal love to Abraham.
[00:15:58] Like I said, Gordon Wenham suggests that this is a test. And the reason for the test is to make sure that she is the one who is truly appointed by God. In response, she's given very handsome gifts for a task that was freely undertaken. And that probably told her that the servant was coming from a very generous patron. And that would help those later negotiations for marriage as well.
[00:16:26] And it's interesting because Wenham also suggests there's kind of a tit for tat here. The servant asks her for a small bit. She gives abundantly. Then he gives abundantly, and with each giving, they're kind of putting each other in debt. Because when you do somebody a favor, then that favor ought to be repaid. And that is just the picture of hospitality that we have here.
[00:16:52] But again, it is a wider picture than just hospitality. It is very much a picture of marriage and covenant. Let's move into the New Testament. Many scholars have found parallels between the story of John four and the Samaritan woman at the well, and these stories of women and wells and water in the Old Testament that are connected to marriage.
[00:17:19] Let's read John four 17 through 16. It says, quote, " A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me water to drink. For his disciples had gone away into the town so that they could buy food. So that Samaritan woman said to him, how do you being a Jew ask for me water to drink since I am a Samaritan woman? For Jews, have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, if you had known the gift of God and who it is, who says to you, give me water to drink, you would've asked him and he would've given you living water.
[00:18:01] " The woman said to him, sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. From where then do you get this living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are you, who gave us the well and drank from it himself and his sons and his livestock. Jesus answered and said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of this water, which I will give to him, will never be thirsty for eternity, but the water which I will give to him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or come here to draw water. He said to her, go call your husband and come here." End quote.
[00:18:49] Of course we could continue reading about her conversation with him and how she has multiple husbands and all of these ideas, right?
[00:18:56] But what are the parallels that we have between this story and the story in Genesis 24? Initially, we are not thinking of marriage as a theme here. Even the parallels in the Old Testament with women and wells and marriage is that the woman is unmarried and she's going to be married. Here in John four, the woman is already married. In fact, she's married several times. And of course she's not literally going to marry Jesus or even one of his disciples.
[00:19:29] But we do have Jesus as being described literally as the bride groom. So this isn't a picture of literal marriage between the woman of Samaria and Jesus, but there is definitely the undertone of marriage and faithfulness here.
[00:19:48] In addition to the context of Genesis and other stories in the Old Testament, what we have being pulled up is the story of the exile and what happened with the exile and how the people of the Old Testament were unfaithful to God. That is presented over and over as an analogy of marriage and adultery.
[00:20:09] Some people will come into the story and think that he is blaming her for what's going on. But really, I think this is more a story of grace extended and this idea that yes, even though my people have been unfaithful to me and have married many times, I will still take them in and I will still care for them and I will still provide this living water to them, which is a picture of life with Christ and the abundance of God's provision and forgiveness.
[00:20:41] And all of that wrapped up in this simple story and related to water, to hospitality, to marriage and covenant, and all of these ideas. You see, this is why I love narrative stories as opposed to just looking at things in a strict doctrinal fashion.
[00:20:59] And I don't know as though you'd even be able to encompass what this story is telling in general, because this small story and many others in the New Testament are little pictures of the coming together of this vast stream of history, and God's working with his people in different ways.
[00:21:19] So when we just boil it down into doctrine and chronological ideas of, first you have to confess, and then you have to be baptized, and then you're given the Spirit or whatever order you wanna put those in. If we're doing that, we're kind of missing this whole complete matrix of things that we are given in narrative fashion.
[00:21:41] I've seen a lot of really bad takes when we talk about this story here, or Genesis 24 and marriage. In fact, I have a copy of the Analytical Bible Expositor of Genesis. This is by John G. Butler, and this is what he says of Genesis 24 11. He calls it a dependability requirement.
[00:22:07] He says, quote, "He made his camels to kneel down without the city by a well of water. At the time of the evening, even the time that women go out to draw water. The servant would choose a girl who came to the well. The girls who would come to the well at evening would be dependable girls. You could count on such girls to do their duty when it was to be done. If a marriage is going to be successful, it must have a lot of dependability in it. If couples are not faithful before marriage, they will not be faithful after marriage." End quote.
[00:22:41] I mean, yes, when we're in relationship to one another, we should be dependable and we should be faithful to one another. But if we're boiling it down to, he is trying to find a girl who is going to be a really good servant wife at home.
[00:22:58] We are missing so much here.
[00:23:01] We are missing the broader picture of not just our relationship to each other, but our relationship to God and all of that reflects each other. So don't get me wrong, it's not like there's no point to be made here, but I'm sorry, it just sounds like he's saying that the servant's main concern is to find a woman who is going to be able to do her proper womanly duty in the household.
[00:23:29] As important as it is that we fulfill the roles that we have in life, whatever those are, I just think we're missing a whole lot here.
[00:23:39] We have the story of Jacob and Rachel as well in Genesis 29.
[00:23:44] Let me go ahead and lay out the five elements in this type scene that Robert Alter has identified as the betrothal at the well. Number one, we have a man who journeys. Number two, he meets a maiden at a well. Number three. Water is drawn. Number four, the woman runs home with the news. And a betrothal follows.
[00:24:13] We have this in Genesis 24. We have it in Genesis 29. We have it with Moses and Zipporah in Exodus two. And so it seems like wells are covenantal turning points where marriages secure the promise.
[00:24:29] In addition, we have other places in Scripture that connect marriage and water.
[00:24:35] Proverbs five verses 15 through 18, say quote, " Drink water from your own cistern and flowing waters from inside your own well. Shall your springs be scattered outward in the streets? Shall there be streams of water? May they be yours alone and not for strangers who are with you. May your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth." End quote.
[00:25:02] That's a picture of covenantal faithful marriage. Song of Solomon uses the image of a well of living water and flowing streams from Lebanon and a garden fountain.
[00:25:15] So spouses are compared to wells and fountains. And the picture is of hospitality, intimacy, and sure dependability. This is a picture of covenantal union, and that's why we have marriage as a picture in general of God with his people.
[00:25:36] Now let's see how many of these points line up with a story in John four. Number one, the future bride room or his proxy takes a trip. Check. We've got that in John 4. Point two, by a well he meets a woman described as a maiden or as someone's daughter. Well, we kind of have that there. The Samaritan woman at the well is not described as a maiden or someone's daughter. She's described as already married. But again, there's a reason for that and it's pointing to the exile and unfaithfulness of Israel.
[00:26:15] Robert Alter's third point is that water is drawn from the well, and we don't actually have that in the story in John four. We don't have the woman who is drying water. Rather, we have the tit for tat exchange that we see kind of in Genesis 24, but it's different. I think in the story of John four, it is Jesus who is drawing the water.
[00:26:39] He is offering her living water. So I think we can check that point off even though it's a little bit different. Number four, the woman hastens home to announce the man's coming. We certainly have that in the story. Point number five, a betrothal ensues.
[00:26:59] Do we have that? Well, I would say that we do, because Jesus is the ultimate example of the bridegroom. It's just not the usual picture of him marrying the actual woman there.
[00:27:13] So in other words, I think we have enough points to make the connection very firmly. The points that do not align are there because they make a very distinctive point. The lack of faithfulness and Jesus who is the one who is drawing water, is the ultimate picture of forgiveness and provision, even in spite of things that go wrong.
[00:27:38] This is God's covenantal faithfulness.
[00:27:42] Now let's ask the question, what might this have to do with covenant and baptism? Well, of course, marriage is a type of covenant. And again, while the Samaritan woman does not herself become a bride, she becomes a messenger whose story defines covenant identity.
[00:28:02] Being a Samaritan, she would of course, remind people of the entire narrative of the exile, and in particular you can go read Second Kings 17, the story of the northern exile and all of the things that have happened from then forward.
[00:28:19] So the Samaritan Woman's multiple husbands are a type that points towards spiritual union of God and the church even in spite of all of the unfaithfulness and all of the things that have gone before.
[00:28:33] What is the connection here with the baptism? I mean, we have the drawing of water. Sure. We have provision and giving of life in that.
[00:28:42] I mean, it's kind of a covenant reversal because the Samaritan woman embodies the broken covenant identity and yet she becomes a messenger announcing the true bridegroom.
[00:28:54] How does this connect to baptism? Well read before this chapter. John three. We have the story of Nicodemus. Born of water and the Spirit. John 3 29 explicitly mentions the one who has the bride is the bride groom. And so the well scene is framed between baptism and bridegroom language.
[00:29:18] John three is very strongly calling back to the exodus and signaling that water is an entry into covenant union with Christ.
[00:29:28] So before the story of the Samaritan woman in John four, one through six, we have, quote, " Now, when Jesus knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself was not baptizing but his disciples, he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And it was necessary for him to go through Samaria. Now, he came to a town of Samaria called Sichar, near the piece of land that Jacob had given to his son, Joseph. And Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, because he had become tired from the journey, simply sat down at the well. It was about the sixth hour." End quote.
[00:30:11] So why did Jesus even come to this well? He came because people were complaining about the fact that he was baptizing so much.
[00:30:22] At the most basic level, water offered to a guest is hospitality. We have Abraham, Rebekah, Jacob, Moses, and countless other stories of households that model covenant love in this way. But in the biblical imagination, hospitality at a well becomes marriage, a lifelong covenant that is sealed where water is drawn.
[00:30:48] Rebekah, Rachel, Zipporah. They all enter Israel's story at the well. Proverbs and Song of Songs equates faithful marriage to drinking from one's own well. So by the time we reach John four, the type scene explodes into new meaning. Jesus as the true bridegroom meets a Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. All of these different pieces of history are coming together in one. Instead of individually betrothing her, he offers living water, the gift of the Spirit, the sign of new covenant life. And her broken marriages recall Israel's covenant unfaithfulness, yet she becomes an evangelist, testifying that the Messiah has come.
[00:31:37] So in other words, the hospitality of water at a well becomes a covenantal sign of marriage. And in Christ, that marriage is fulfilled in the union of God and his people. The Son of Man arrives as the bridegroom, offering living water that becomes baptismal participation in eternal covenant.
[00:32:00] Alright, so how much the metaphor and imagery of water in all of these individual types of pictures, how much of that do we bring into the idea of baptism?
[00:32:12] In the idea of hospitality and marriage, there's a lot there. Again, we want to be very careful not to bring all of the individual elements in as if we have to pack it all into one symbol, especially when we have a lot of different ideas that are also associated with a baptism. Baptism is not just about water. It has connections with repentance, it has connections with faith, it has connections with our union with the Spirit.
[00:32:44] Okay, but that is all just kinda setting things up for the moment. Let's move on to another idea, another image of water. This one is very different from the last one. We were just talking about, hospitality, covenantal love, bringing together people and living out of God's promises.
[00:33:05] Now let's turn to water as being the center of conflict and control.
[00:33:12] Here we will continue to see water as life, but it is going to be associated with power. Let's turn to Genesis 26 with Isaac and the wells. Here in this part of the story, Isaac is reopening Abraham's wells that had been filled in by the Philistines after Abraham's death.
[00:33:34] Isaac renames them with their original names and his servants then have to dig new wells. But each one of them is contested until one remains uncontested. And all of the names of the wells here are going to play a big part in the story.
[00:33:51] Genesis 26, 12 through 22 says, quote, " And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in that same year, a hundred fold. And Yahweh blessed him. And the man became wealthier and wealthier until he was exceedingly wealthy. And he possessed sheep and cattle and many servants so that the Philistines envied him. And the Philistines stopped up all the wells that the servants of his father had dug in the days of Abraham, his father. They filled them with Earth. And Abimelech said to Isaac, go away from us for you have become much too powerful for us. So Isaac departed from there and camped in the valley of Gerar and settled there.
[00:34:37] " And Isaac dug again the wells of water, which they had dug in the days of his father, Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after the death of Abraham. And he gave to them the same names which his father had given them. And when the servants of Isaac dug in the valley, they found a well of fresh water there. Then the herdsman of Gerar quarreled with the herdsman of Isaac, saying, the water is ours. And he called the name of the well Esek, because they contended with him. And they dug another well and they quarreled over it also. And he called its name Sitna. Then he moved from there and dug another well and they did not quarrel over it and he called its name Rehoboth and he said, now Yahweh has made room for us and we shall be fruitful in the land." End quote.
[00:35:30] Alright, so when we're looking at this story, what we see are key themes of legacy and rights. Isaac's act of reopening the wells represents reclaiming covenantal inheritance, and renaming the wells asserts continuity with Abraham's legacy and God's promise. But there's conflict here. I mean, this is not an unusual story to have a conflict over resources, especially water.
[00:35:57] He names the wells Esek, contention, and Sitna, which is enmity, and this reflects how the life-giving resources can still provoke disputes. But we also have a picture of divine provision and peace. The third well, Rehoboth, which means broad places, symbolizes divine protection, enabling flourishing without conflict.
[00:36:25] I mean, I think we can all understand that in the ancient Near East, wells would be precious survival necessities and would obviously be fiercely contested. But Isaac's persistence, his faith, and his covenantal hope is what secures access to life-giving water, rather than sheer, monumental force.
[00:36:49] Let's look at another story in two Chronicles 32. Here in this chapter, we have King Hezekiah, who is facing Assyrian threat. He gathers his officials to stop the external springs and he diverts Gihon's spring water into the city via a tunnel or a conduit, and he secures the city's water under siege.
[00:37:13] Now let me give you a broader picture of this story. In chapters 29 to 31 of two Chronicles, we have the story of Hezekiah's reforms after the reign of Ahaz, who was one of Judah's most unfaithful kings, his son Hezekiah, comes to the throne. And he immediately sets about reform. He reopens and cleanses the temple. He restores proper worship, and he reinstitute the Passover. He extends the invitation beyond Judah to the remnants of Israel, showing concern over covenant unity.
[00:37:50] Chapter 31 emphasizes his organization of priests and Levites and his faithfulness in reestablishing tithes and temple service. Judah becomes spiritually renewed and Hezekiah is portrayed as a king who seeks God wholeheartedly. So then we get to chapter 32, and Hezekiah has laid the groundwork. Judah's restored in worship, but now its faith will be tested in crisis.
[00:38:18] So we have Assyria, and as Assyria invades Judah. Hezekiah's response is to strengthen Jerusalem's defenses. And he stops up the water outside the city, but diverts it. He rebuilds walls. He prepares weapons. He appoints military leaders. And he rallies the people with a speech, telling them to be strong and courageous, telling them that the Lord our God is with us and will fight our battles.
[00:38:47] Of course, the Assyrian envoy launches a propaganda campaign and they start taunting the people. They claim that Hezekiah is misleading them by trusting in God and that no other gods have ever saved their nations from Assyria. Their goal here is to undermine Judah's confidence in God and Hezekiah.
[00:39:09] What actually delivers the people is that Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah pray and cry out to heaven. In response to their prayer, the Lord sends an angel who destroys Assyria's warriors and officials. The Assyrians retreat in disgrace and Sennacharib, their king, is later assassinated by his own sons. Now, of course, in response, Hezekiah gets a little bit prideful and he falls sick, but he prays to God and he's healed. It is actually a really interesting story all around.
[00:39:46] So let's look at the themes here. Before the crisis, faithful reform and covenant renewal are crucial to what's going on. During the crisis, we have the invasion and we do have human preparation. We have fortifications, and we have a concern about diverting water. All of that is paired with faith in God. The resolution is that God's deliverance comes through prayer and not military might, but quite likely this image of diverting the water is part of the picture here.
[00:40:21] It seems like there's a real contrast between the provision of water coming into the city and the preparation of military might, because the story is that an angel is the one who does their fighting for them, not their actual military. The control of water is part of the preparation and the provision of the people.
[00:40:42] Now, we could always ask, would they have been saved even without any of their preparations? How much do those preparations have to do with the fact that God literally stepped in and sent an angel?
[00:40:55] We have faith plus engineering. And a thing to note is that we have a spring coming in. This is the idea of living water. Living water is water that is moving, and if it's moving, it's usually more healthy to drink, and it becomes a source of life giving. But even with the water flowing in deliverance flows from God as he is the one who sent the angel to cut off all of the Assyrians. What that actually looked like in person is anybody's guess.
[00:41:29] Here's a really interesting connection back into the Torah that we might make. Let's go ahead and read Deuteronomy 11, 10 through 12, quote, " For the land that you were entering to take possession of, it is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come where you sowed your seed and irrigated it like a garden of vegetables. But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, a land that the Lord your God cares for. The eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year." End quote.
[00:42:08] The chapter goes on to talk about obeying commandments, serving God and how he will give rain for the land in its season. The contrast between the land being watered from heaven and the land of Egypt is such an interesting one because if you're familiar with Egypt and you're familiar with the Nile, the Nile will flood and then it will flow back, but the people still had to use actual irrigation.
[00:42:35] The Hebrew says that they watered it with their feet. So they probably had like a foot pump that they would use in order to take the water into the field. Now, of course, a foot pump is only going to go so far. That's why we have the idea of you are watering a garden of vegetables versus your watering fields upon fields that are going to provide for all of the people, right.
[00:43:00] There's a different picture here. In Egypt, you had to work really hard and the toil of water is another theme that we'll talk about probably next time, and human toil is as opposed to God's free provision. Now, that doesn't mean that humans aren't supposed to also toil. Again, we'll get into a little bit more of that later, but that's an interesting connection to bring back into Second Chronicles 32 and the story of war and control of water.
[00:43:31] All right, I will do one more story here for this episode. We're gonna talk about Second Kings three. Yes. It's such a strange chapter. And it's very hotly disputed in biblical circles.
[00:43:44] But let's look at this story in light of how the Moabites were conflating blood and water. In this battle against Moab, we have pools or a lake of water, and from a distance, the Moabites see it reflecting sunlight, and they mistake it for blood. Assuming the Israelite alliance has turned on itself and killed each other. They advance prematurely and their army is defeated.
[00:44:10] Of course, part of the argument here is that maybe they weren't entirely defeated, but we'll talk about that here in a second. Let's just read the small core text here of Second Kings 3 22 through 23. We'll get into the aftermath later. Quote, " When they arose early in the morning, the sun on the waters, and Moab saw the waters from the opposite side as red as blood. Then they said, this is blood. Certainly the kings have fought one another and each has killed his neighbor. Now to the war booty, oh, Moab!" End quote.
[00:44:47] It's really quite a strange couple of verses really. Did they actually think it was just flowing rivers of blood? It's a bit weird, but again, we can read this in a narrative fashion and see what the point is.
[00:44:59] But the context here is that Moab had rebelled against Israel after the death of King Ahab. King Jehoram of Israel forms an alliance with Jehosaphat of Judah and the king of Edom. They march through the wilderness of Edom. The armies run out of water, and there's a crisis point, Elisha's called and he prophecies that God will provide water without rain or storm.
[00:45:24] And so the next morning water miraculously flows into the valley, saving Israel's coalition armies. Moab looks out from a distance, sees the morning sun on the fresh water, they mistake it for pools of blood.
[00:45:38] Interesting key theme is deception of the enemy. God turns the natural world into both a benefit to the people of God, but also a weapon, using the appearance of the water as kind of a psychological warfare. So water is both an aid and a trap. For Israel, water is providing survival and to confidence, and for Moab, it becomes a fatal illusion.
[00:46:05] The reflection of the red water hints at the overlap between life and death. What Moab sees as covenant collapse, where we have the allies killing one another is what they're thinking is actually covenant strength. Israel's alliance is united under God's provision. So in the biblical imagination, blood and water together often signal judgment and salvation intertwined.
[00:46:34] We can go to John 1934 where blood and water flow from Christ's side. So the irony is that they cry to the war booty, but they end up with loss. And this misperception is their undoing. God flips the battlefield through a trick of the light on water. So again, we have a picture of Israel being saved by water, and Moab dies because of it.
[00:47:01] Remember, we're looking at the idea of water as being a controlling factor, being something that is wrapped up in the idea of power. For one group, water is life for the other, water is deception and death. And it's not the water itself that changes anything, but it's what God does with it and it's the perception that we have of it .
[00:47:24] God is taking an ordinary wadi filled overnight and he turns it into deliverance for his people into judgment for their enemies. Interestingly enough, we also have the sun involved. The sun is something that makes crops grow, but can also scorch them and can provide this weird kind of deception. Water is just such an interesting theme that has so many layers to it. Water can revive and give life. It can also drown and kill.
[00:47:54] So that's really interesting and kind of strange, but let's go on in this chapter because this is what everybody's really obsessed with and we want to know what's up with the wrath that shows up later on. Let's go back to Second Kings three. We're gonna read verses 24 to 27, and we're gonna ask, who really won here? Did Israel truly win or were they defeated?
[00:48:23] Quote, "But when they came to the camp of Israel, Israel stood up and killed Moab so that they fled from before them. They came at her and defeated Moab. The cities they tore down. On every good tract of land, they threw stones until it was filled up. Every spring of water, they stopped up and every good tree they felled. They let the stone walls at Kirhereseth remain, but the slingers surrounded and attacked it. When the King of Moab saw the battle was too heavy for him, he took with him 700 men who drew the sword to break through to the King of Edom, but they were not able. He took his firstborn son who was to become king in his place. And offered him as a burnt offering on the wall. Great wrath came upon Israel and they withdrew from him and returned to the land." End quote.
[00:49:15] So this is a very, again, strange twist to an already strange story. So the Moabites came, Israel defeated them, and Israel came and tore their cities down. And then on all of the good tracks of land, they threw stones so that the land could not be farmed.
[00:49:35] They stopped up the springs of water, they chopped down all of the good trees, but they left the stone walls of one place remain. And so that was a place where the Moabites basically went back to, and the King of Moab sacrificed his son on the wall as a burnt offering. And then the text says that great wrath came upon Israel and they withdrew and returned to the land after this incident.
[00:50:03] So it seems like they were winning and they were winning. And then the King of Moab did this gruesome sacrifice on the wall, and Israel ran away. What does great wrath came upon Israel mean? That's our main question here.
[00:50:20] Now here is the puzzle. Whose wrath is it and why did it come? What actually happened here? Because we have a whole lot of description and then we have this one statement and it's just so strange. Why isn't there more description? What is this wrath and what does it look like?
[00:50:39] Here's where people typically land. The wrath could actually be Moabite wrath or national fury. So an argument here could be made that the Hebrew means that indignation rose against Israel, meaning that the Moabite people were enraged and they fought with renewed fury, forcing Israel's retreat. So that's a possibility. It fits the context. The horrific act of the king could have galvanized the defenders into being so strongly attacking Israel again, that they were driven back.
[00:51:17] There are some scholars who suggest that Israel may have been complicit in accepting the sacrifice as a vassal payment or a form of reparation. That would be a problem because God is not gonna be happy with his people for accepting a human sacrifice. And so the wrath could describe Israel's negative reaction or moral fallout of participating in or sanctioning such an act. In either direction, we could have the Israelites being involved in what's going on in some way, and that's why there's wrath here.
[00:51:55] A really common, more skeptical position of scholars is that this wrath is not God's but it's the Moabites god's wrath. So this is like cosmic wrath, not of God, but from Chemosh. And so the idea here from some scholars is that Yahweh was defeated by an enemy deity.
[00:52:19] I would describe this as a minority position and I would say it doesn't really fit the story personally, but some scholars will say that this is the obvious reading, that the child sacrifice worked, that their god was appeased and he turned the tide of battle himself.
[00:52:39] So again, this view is used to claim that Yahweh was actually defeated and lost to another deity. And I think if you read the whole thing, that doesn't make sense because really what we have is Israel's winning, but something happens to still turn them back. There's really no defined winning of the Moabites here. It's just the Israelites leave.
[00:53:04] Okay, so another idea of the wrath is that it is Yahweh's wrath. Is this God himself expressing anger at Israel's brutality or his divine displeasure at the child's sacrifice in general? So this would frame the wrath as God stepping in to halt further devastation.
[00:53:26] Now, some claim that the Hebrew word here for wrath almost always refers to Yahweh in the Old Testament, and so the narrator is intending divine anger from Israel's own God. So a possible reason here is that Israel failed to carry out Elisha's prophecy fully because they left the walls of one place standing and their leaving the wall standing is what enabled the sacrifice to happen. So because they were complicit in enabling the sacrifice to happen because they didn't tear down the walls, then Israel's disobedience to Elisha provoked Yahweh's anger.
[00:54:07] In the end, there is no consensus to the interpretation here. Everybody pretty much acknowledges that it's really frustrating and controversial. The claims that Chemosh or the other god won are definitely overstated. The text simply is not clear enough to state anything like that.
[00:54:29] I do think that the idea that Israel didn't actually fulfill Elisha's prophecy is a really strong contender to our interpretation here. Because they left the wall intact, the Moabite king was able to use it as a high place to sacrifice on. So the wrath is Yahweh's anger at Israel for failing to obey fully, allowing the child sacrifice to occur. And so they retreat under Yahweh's displeasure, not because a foreign god overpowered them.
[00:55:02] Regardless of whose wrath it is, the narrative underscores a pattern that we can see in water stories about control and power. God provides water, which is life for his people. Sometimes death for the enemy, but the enemy will still respond with violence and this can shift the momentum.
[00:55:24] I would say that in a lot of these stories wrath is not always clean cut. It's chaotic, it's disturbing, and I think it's meant to be disturbing. It's almost like all of these stories want us to feel the unresolved tension of holy war.
[00:55:42] We're gonna be getting into more about wrath and water, no doubt. But there's the twin sides of God's mercy and God's judgment. That's very crucial to see. And even when God provides mercy, that does not mean that wrath just disappears. So water can save, but blood can still be shed. And the line between salvation and judgment or mercy and punishment is really thin.
[00:56:14] In fact, it seems like there are two sides of the coin, and so this is going to anticipate a bigger biblical pattern where water events often combine life and wrath. We'll see it in the flood where Noah is saved and the world is judged. We'll see it in the Red Sea where Israel's delivered and Egypt is destroyed.
[00:56:36] We'll see it in the story of the Jordan, where Israel enters life and the Canaanites are displaced. The Moab story really forces us to admit that things are very complicated.
[00:56:50] We're going to be looking more into ideas of blood and water being mixed together, but one of the things I will point out here is that control of water is control of life. Isaac gains life giving wells by claiming ancestral covenantal rights, entrusting God's provision. Hezekiah preserves life under siege by securing and managing the city's water supply. He provides a faithful leadership that safeguards covenant identity, but God is still the one who's acting here in the end.
[00:57:24] And the Moabite mistake shows that water can be weaponized or misperceived turning the medium of life into judgment. So water is consistently portrayed not just as a necessity, but as a locus of power, whether that is in continuity of promise and provision and hospitality, physical survival, or it is an aspect of divine strategy.
[00:57:52] Water can be offered in hospitality at a well, and that can symbolize and signify covenantal marriage. But on the other side of things, it can be a political instrument where control over the water means control over life. That can also preserve covenant lineage. It can defend Jerusalem, and it can unleash divine judgment.
[00:58:15] We will see all of that flowing into the coming of the Son of Man as the true bridegroom and the sovereign who controls the life giving water. He is the one in whom all control of life, both covenant intimacy and cosmic order is in ultimately realized. Thus, from hospitality and marriage to strategic control, the biblical water story flows toward fulfillment in the Son of Man who brings living water, establishes the new covenant and reigns over every domain of life.
[00:58:50] We will be continuing to explore the theme of water, and ultimately, hopefully all of this will end in our better understanding, these ideas for our covenantal life in Christ.
[00:59:04] We have a long ways to go still, to get to that point, and hopefully along the way, we can better understand each other in Christian life. Because it's certain that different Christian traditions are approaching these things in vastly different ways. The question is, is there somebody who's right versus everybody else is wrong, or is it more complicated than that?
[00:59:30] My guess is going to be that it's going to be more complicated than that, but I welcome you into that complication and I actually think the complication can help further and deepen our life. It gets a little bit scary because we want really firm, really solid answers, right?
[00:59:49] We just want one thing to be true, but in reality, most of the time, multiple things are true at the same time. So let's go ahead and dig into that together. I am pretty excited about seeing what we can find out here. And I hope you are too.
[01:00:08] But at any rate, I will go ahead and wrap up for today, again, inviting you to my
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[01:00:21] And if you guys want to contact me for questions in this episode or this series in general, you can find me at On This Rock. You can find me on Facebook. You can also ask me questions directly through my website at genesis marks the spot.com, where there is a form that you can send in You can email directly to me.
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[01:01:19] At any rate, I want to thank all of you who have joined my community and who support me financially. You guys are such an incredible blessing and I just want to give you a big shout out and say thank you. At any rate, that is it for this week. I wish you all a blessed week and we will see you later.
