Water
Photo by Javon Swaby on Pexels.com
Water is a powerful force running through the Bible. Sometimes the water is just water: the oceans of creation in Genesis, historic rivers, streams, or water for drinking from wells. At other moments, the water is a metaphor for something else. In this way, the authors of the Biblical texts were not overly creative. They lived in semi-arid desert lands. If water was anything, water was life. Water was like life. Water dictated the terms of your day. Finding water, storing water, and protecting your water was your primary task. Water was your life. The greatest thing one could compare water to was life. One could survive without many creature comforts, even Canaanite and Israelite nomads, but without water, you would quickly die.
Water is essential to life, and water is also sacred. The ancients believed water must come from God, the source of all life. If the sky would not rain and the wells ran dry, it must be because God was angry. God withheld the source of life from us because of his displeasure with our behavior. Life could be withheld if God so chose. This is what our ancient Israelite forebearers believed. The people who wrote Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy believed God controlled the weather as a sign of his pleasure, displeasure, or wrath. If God commanded the weather, specifically the water, God could control every aspect of society. The country with the most powerful army, the greatest God, and the most powerful priests to manipulate the water (Egypt and the Nile, Babylon with the Tigris and Euphrates) called the shots. Who would fear a refugee kingdom with a tiny river (Jordan) running through a worthless desert? Israel’s rise into a water-starved world seemed entirely improbable. Yet, it happened.
In the Torah, water could bring either life or death. The effects of dehydration in the desert are apparent. However, too much water is also deadly. We can drown. We forget (according to Genesis) that God destroyed every man, woman, and child on Earth with water. Water in God’s hands can kill. Noah’s family was saved. However, if you adhere to a literal reading of the text, you must accept that thousands of innocent children died in flood waters. When I think about this interpretation of scripture, it really bothers me. In fact, it shakes me to my core. Humanity walks a fine line when trying to please a God in charge of actual water. If anybody screws up, we might die of thirst or be drowned. No wonder I’m so exhausted.