Saved by the Well – Isaiah

Saved by the Well – Isaiah.

“And you shall draw water with rejoicing from the wellsprings of salvation.” (Isaiah 12:3).

SAVED: The Hebrew word for save is “Yasha,” which means to be set free into the wide open; to be delivered in a time of desperate need; to be saved from destruction and certain death. “Salvation” literally means to become spacious, and refers to “the sense of deliverance from an existence that had become confined, compressed, or cramped.” (Eugene Peterson). When Jesus delivers us from our inner spiritual confinement, we are liberated into a wide open, broad, expansive place. The word for “wide open space” is the opposite of a straitjacket. Without Jesus, our soul will never be freed from our spiritual straitjacket. There are three passages in Psalms that describe this freedom deliverance beautifully:

1. “From my distress, I called upon the Lord. He answered me and set me on a large place. After being in a tight spot, the Lord placed me into a broad space. Because I was hemmed in, I called on Lord Yahweh. He answered me and gave me room.” (Ps. 118:5);
2. “Lord, you have not given me over into the hands of the Enemy; You have liberated me and set my feet in a wide expanse, a good and spacious land. You have given me the freedom to roam at large, where I can freely move. You have given me room to breathe.” (Ps. 31:8);
3. “The Lord rescued me because He delighted in me. He brought me out to freedom into a wide-open space. My soul has been delivered because of God’s love for me, and my soul finally has some elbow room!” (Ps. 18:19).

THE WELL: There are four Hebrew words used in the Jewish Bible to describe the different kinds of ancient wells. There was the traditional well that was a deep hole dug in the ground to tap into an underground source of water. Another type of well was a fountain spring that had naturally broken through the earth’s surface on its own without man’s help. The wellspring is another version of well in Scripture in which fresh water flowed out of the ground in any number of ways to become available for cleansing, nourishment, refreshment, for survival itself. Life-giving wells of water have always been a powerful picture of our dependence upon God for spiritual survival. Just as Creator God has designed the human body to completely depend on water to live, our spiritual life totally relies on His presence in us to not just survive but to flourish. God is our spiritual well of fresh water, the only stable source of nourishment and purity. He is our fountain of life that gushes forth to replenish and cleanse us. God is our eternal wellspring of living water that will never run dry. Each of us is born spiritually dehydrated, and God alone is the constant, reliable water source to bring us back to life. As the silly joke goes, wells are a deep subject, and the biblical wells involve such stalwarts as Hagar and Abraham; Isaac and Moses; Samson and Solomon; the psalmists and the prophets. And of course, the glorious fulfillment of all these ancient stories of wells… Messiah Jesus and the woman at the well.

WANTED: An imaginative scribe who can write exquisite poetry. A faithful, articulate believer in Yahweh who can switch from one extreme to another at the Lord’s command… from a sublime vision of God’s glory, to a ridiculous demonstration of shameful nakedness; from confronting the people over their sinfulness, to comforting people with hopefulness; from being an outspoken messenger one minute, to a living object lesson the next; from having one foot in the immediate surroundings one minute, to one foot in the future messianic realm the next. Must be adaptable, thick-skinned, and extraordinarily brave. Person who answers “Here I am. Send me!” will be especially considered. (from The Jerusalem Post, 740 BC).

Isaiah-At-A-Glance. Isaiah, whose name means “Lord Saves,” was a young, highly literate, and well-educated scribe in the royal palace of Jerusalem, sometime around 750-740 BC. He was married with children, his wife being a prophetess. His prophetic ministry lasted many decades, with some scholars estimating as many as 60 years. He was committed to staying close to home in Jerusalem for all that time, serving as prophet during the reign of five different kings of Judah. He started his ministry during times of relative peace and prosperity, and so because there wasn’t as much of a hard edge to his messages, he was initially well-liked and generally popular with the people. But soon Isaiah spoke words of the Lord’s judgment and coming punishment for their sins. He was very active in addressing the shortcomings of those five different kings during his ministry, and continued to call them to repentance. Because his messages from the Lord became very difficult to hear, the people and the kings often rejected what he had to say. Isaiah grew to be quite unpopular during much of his ministry, especially the first few decades when he warned them of God’s judgment for rebellion (1:2), abandoning God (1:3), corruption (1:4), violence (1:15), injustice (1:16-17), apostasy (1:10-23), materialism (2:7), idolatry (2:8), immorality with women (3:16-26), and occultism (1:6 and 8:19).  Hosea and Micah were contemporaries of Isaiah during this time and they spoke much the same messages. Nonetheless, he also continued to speak powerful words of comfort and encouragement to his people in the last part of his book in chapters 40-66. He was considered by most Biblical scholars to be the greatest of all the prophets, and his book is the first of the writings of the prophets in the Hebrew Bible. Isaiah was by far the most quoted prophet in the New Testament, over 50 times. He was highly gifted as a poet, and his writings are considered literary masterpieces. He combined the simple and the complex into what has been called a “Salvation Symphony.” His writings are still accepted as unsurpassed works of art, and they poetically, prophetically point to events that would happen soon, and events that would happen in the distant future. Isaias has been called “the Prophet of God the Son,” just as Jeremiah was the Prophet of God the Father, and Ezekiel the Prophet of God the Holy Spirit.  Isaiah discusses Messiah more than any other book of the Hebrew Bible, referring to the Anointed One in many ways, from the Suffering Servant to the Sovereign Lord to the Everlasting Savior. As Eugene Peterson once wrote, “Isaiah is the supreme poet-prophet to come out of the Hebrew people.” Jewish tradition has Isaiah dying a martyr’s death, executed under the reign of the wicked king Manasseh. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the last thing Isaiah saw in his life was the very first thing he witnessed all those years before… Yahweh in all His glory, high and lifted up. fiery angels attending Him, shouting praises to the King on His throne. That would truly be a sight for sore eyes.

Mr. Flexibility. Much like so many of the other prophets, the people refused to take his words to heart. They wouldn’t listen to Isaiah’s messages from God. He would announce God’s judgment only to be ignored. But Isaiah was adaptable. He would both confront the people and comfort the people. Sometimes he was harsh and condemning, and sometimes he was soothing and hopeful. His encouraging words were based on God’s promise of a future Messiah who would redeem and heal them, and save them from permanent judgment. So Isaiah spoke of God’s justice one minute and God’s mercy the next. He spoke more about the coming Messiah than any other prophet in the Hebrew Bible. His poetry painted a picture of both woe and hope, and is probably the finest in all of Scripture, so the reader has to be adaptable as well and get ready for metaphor, simile, analogy, exaggeration, symbol, and imagery.

A Poetic Prophet of Divine Wellsprings. The image of divine water is prominent throughout Isaiah and was one of his favorite pictures of God. The high priest, for example, always quoted from Isaiah 12:3 during the highly important water ceremony at the Feast of Tabernacles: “And you shall draw water with rejoicing from the wellsprings of salvation.” And let’s not forget that it was just as that water ceremony was reaching a climax in the Temple on this last day of the Feast when a young man from Galilee stood up, got everybody’s attention as He interrupted the water ritual, and shouted for all to hear Isaiah 55:1, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me! Let anyone who believes in me come and drink! For as Scripture says, ‘From his heart shall flow streams of living water!” Other memorable prophetic references to the divine waters in Isaiah include 35:6, “Gushing waters will spring up in the wilderness and streams will flow through the desert.” And the beautiful poetry of 41:17-18, “I the Lord will respond to the cry of the poor and needy when they are thirsty and their tongues are parched with thirst! When they seek a drink of water but there is none, I, the God of Israel, will not abandon them. I will open up refreshing streams on the barren hills and springing fountains in the valleys. I will make the desert a pleasant pool and the dry land springs of water.”  And this prophecy about Pentecost in 44:3-4, “I will pour refreshing water on the thirsty and streams on the dry ground. I will pour out my Spirit on your children, my blessing upon your descendants. They will spring up like grass blanketing a meadow, like poplar trees growing by gushing streams.” Finally, we can’t forget Isaiah’s anticipation of God’s favor in 49:10, “They will never be hungry or thirsty. Neither scorching sun nor desert wind will hurt them, for He, the Loving One, will guide them and lead them to restful, renewing streams of water.”