Precious water, essential for life

All life forms on Earth depend on water, a combination of hydrogen and oxygen (H2O). It can be ice, liquid, or vapour.

We absorb water in many forms, and cleanse clothes, dishes, cars, and ourselves with it. All foods are produced with the help of water. Fires are controlled with water.

About 70 percent of this planet is covered with water. Evaporation from salty oceans and seas causes rain and snow to fall on land, providing fresh water for land life.

Man-made systems of reservoirs, canals, and pipelines preserve and convey water, bringing it to homes, industry, and agriculture.

Some areas have abundant water; others suffer the lack of it. In deserts and semi-deserts, rivers and aquifers make life possible.

Since ancient times, towns and cities were founded near permanent water sources. When pipes systems were not available, people carried water to homes in containers.

Water was drawn from wells by hand or pullies. Counter-weighted levers (shadufs) or waterwheels with buckets hoisted water from streams to higher levels. More recently, windmills brought water up from underground.

Plants and wildlife flourish in rainy seasons, and struggle in dry periods. Grazers (like buffalo) drink daily; browsers (like giraffe) can go without water for days.

The Bible refers 480 times to water. Genesis 1:2 mentions water before the first creation day, and it ends with an invitation to drink the water of life (Rev. 22:17; Is. 55:1).

Israel escaped from slavery when God parted the sea for them. It symbolized baptism (1 Cor. 10:1-2). Jesus instructed his disciples to preach the gospel everywhere and baptize believers (Matt. 28:19).

Israel often yearned for water in their 40-year wandering in the desert. It showed them how dependent they were on God’s spiritual water (Ps. 42:1-2).

Jesus said to the Samaritan woman that those who drank from Jacob’s Well would thirst again, but those who drank his spiritual water would never thirst again, because his water would become a fountain in them (John 4:13-14; 7:38).

Jesus sailed by boat on the lake of Galilee, and sometimes preached from a boat to the people on shore. He walked on water, and gave his disciples two miraculous catches of fish on the lake. He stilled a storm on that lake when his disciples feared they would drown.

Pilgrims to the temple submerged themselves in the water of mikvahs for ritual cleansing. At the Pool of Bethesda, north of the temple, Jesus healed a man who had been sick for 38 years (John 5). Jesus put clay on the eyes of a man born blind, and told him to wash himself in the Siloam pool, south of the temple (John 9). Bethesda was fed by rainwater, and Siloam by a spring.

Jacob Van Zyl of Lethbridge is a retired counsellor and the author of several faith-based books.