Wells aren’t just the centerpieces for great horror stories. There are a few wells in the Bible. Can you think of any significant biblical accounts taking place around wells? I never would have given it much thought, but upon further study, one sees they have great significance to the narrative of Scripture.
Man and Woman in the garden
It all starts in Genesis 2. Let me point out two important points from the chapter:
A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. (Genesis 2:10)
We see water coming from the earth.
And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” (Gen 2:22-23 ESV)
We see man and woman in the garden.
The Bible has a habit of repeating the same types of scenes for various reasons. Typically, these things will in some way point back to Adam or the garden of Eden, and simultaneously point forward to the New Creation, which is essentially a return to the re-created garden. What you’ll see throughout Scripture is a man and a woman near water, sometimes with animals. Wells are essentially water flowing up from the ground, so we see them used many times to recapture garden scenes.
Noah and the Flood
One blurry example of this garden imagery would be Noah’s story, where God preserves him, his family, and select animals from the flood. Instead of looking down on creation and seeing it is “good” like it was at creation, God looks down and sees corruption (Genesis 6:5). Instead of breathing life into animals and man, he takes it away from every living thing on the planet (Genesis 6:17). God chooses Noah and his family as a remnant to be saved from the judgment to come.
On that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth… (Genesis 7:11)
The water of the flood comes from within the earth just like wells, and just like the garden’s rivers. Although the world isn’t left in a perfect state like the garden, it is pointing forward to the New Creation by eliminating evil on the earth. It may not have lasted long, but that’s what it is signifying.
After the flood, God causes a wind (like the breath of God previously taken away) to blow over the surface of the earth and the waters recede (Gen 8:1). Then God tells Noah to
“Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh–birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth–that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” (Genesis 8:16-17)
Does that command to be fruitful sound familiar? It should, because God commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful in the garden. The post-flood world is a re-creation. Not the re-creation, but a re-creation. Man and wife, water, animals, and a command to be fruitful — this is a garden scene.
Men and Women by Wells
Many men in the Bible meet their wives near wells. Isaac meets Rebekah near a well while giving water to his camels (Genesis 24:10-15). Isaac will later reopen Abraham’s well which had been stopped up by the Philistines after Abraham’s death. That well — and the one to follow — were commandeered by some who felt entitled to it, but the third well Isaac digs is claimed by no one but himself, so he and Rachel settle there saying “We shall be fruitful in the land.” (Genesis 26:22). There’s that talk of fruitfulness again. Isaac’s constant determination to dig wells to provide water for his family and animals points back to God’s command for man to work the earth. It’s an attempted return to the garden.
Jacob met Rachel near a well where sheep drank (Genesis 29:1-6), and Moses met Zipporah near a well after rescuing her from some belligerent shepherds (Exodus 2:16-21). This was a repeating pattern of new Adams and new Eves; although none of them would turn out to be the last Adam.
The New Covenant and Living Water
In John 4, the last Adam, Jesus, waits by a well in Samaria (Jacob’s well, by the way), until a Samaritan woman comes to get water. They have an interesting, if not confusing conversation about the interaction between Jews and Samaritans, worship, marriage, and living water.
When she redirects the conversation toward worship, Jesus tells her two important things about the New Covenant: the type of worship that takes place in it, and the type of worshiper who partakes in it.
“…the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.” (Jhn 4:21 ESV)
“But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.” (Jhn 4:23 ESV)
The New Covenant won’t be geographical or physical. He’s telling her that God is going to reunite the split kingdoms of Judah and Samaria, as well as the entire world. He’s seeking people to worship him in spirit and truth, the same way he sought this woman by the well. He will continuously save individuals and unite them together into one people of God. This woman becomes part of the Church — the bride of Christ. In this garden scene, we have a man and a woman by a well, and the restoration of creation is being proclaimed.
As a foreshadowing of that restored creation, Jesus renews the souls of every covenant member with his living water.
“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (Jhn 4:13-14 ESV)
This is not a drink you take every day — this is one and done. This isn’t like the Old Covenant, being repetitious and never satisfied. It is finished. We are brought into this covenant and kept in this covenant by the grace of God without us needing to continually atone for our sins, or drink again to quench our thirst.
A few chapters later, Jesus gives this promise:
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” (Jhn 7:37-38 ESV)
He again uses garden imagery of flowing rivers to foreshadow the re-creation of the universe.
Revelation says:
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev 22:1 ESV)
This flowing water comes from God. It was in the garden, lost in the fall, used in judgment to cleanse the earth of wickedness, afterward there was incessant well-digging to try to regain it, the spiritual reality of it is given back to us in the New Covenant, and in the newly resurrected creation we will experience it flowing directly from the throne of God.