HAVE you ever noticed in your general reading, that if a quotation is made, however brief, from the Scriptures it seems to lend a force all its own, to the passages, like a scintillating gem among stones of lesser value? This was my experience lately when reading an article in a weekly, and the words which arrested me were those written at the head of this paper.
The tragedy wrapped up in those simple words gripped my heart. They started a trend of thought which led me to familiar passages, to ponder anything that Scripture tells us about wells.
There are many references to wells in Genesis, and in glancing at a few of them we cull some significant instruction, but first let us ask ourselves, what is a well? and how comes it to be in any given snot?
A well speaks of man’s skilled effort to garner God’s most precious gift of water. If God withheld His water, it would be futile to dig wells — a spring must exist ere is well is called for.
And whence comes the spring? From heaven’s plentiful showers of rain, uniting over a wide area drop by drop, and streamlet by streamlet, till a spring, a perennial spring, comes into being underground. No one streamlet, far less one drop, will fill a spring, it must drain from many trickling streams and over a wide area.
Man’s wisdom, industry and skill in priding a well make God’s gift available for human necessity, yet water never ceases to be God’s gift, whether we draw it from a well or from a tap.
Gen. 21:25,25And Abraham reproved Abimelech because of a well of water, which Abimelech's servants had violently taken away. (Genesis 21:25) tells us that the wealthy sheik Abraham reproved Abimelech, the king, “because of a well of water which Abimelech’s servants had violently taken away.” Rulers negotiated with each other in those days as to the possession of a well, much as they would today about a railhead.
Chapter. 26 tells us that Abimelech’s people stopped the wells dug by Abraham’s household and that rival herdsmen fought for the possession of “a well of springing water.”
Chapter. 29:1-8, tells of three flocks of sheep assembled round a well waiting to be watered when the stone was removed. What a tragedy had they found it to be a “well without water.” Have you ever experienced this?
In those Eastern lands princes did not disdain to dig wells, or nobles to help “with their staves” (Num. 21:1818The princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digged it, by the direction of the lawgiver, with their staves. And from the wilderness they went to Mattanah: (Numbers 21:18)). But you can follow the trail through many books of the Old Testament, not failing to notice the significant allusion in Proverbs 10:11,11The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life: but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked. (Proverbs 10:11) “The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life”— not necessarily a learned man, but a righteous man.
This crisp statement brings us to the figurative use of the term, “well,” in Scripture and leads us on in thought to the wonderful scene in John 4, when the Lord gently guides a seeking soul away from Jacob’s gift of earthly refreshment, to His own priceless gift, “The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life”— Himself the eternal source of the life, that is life indeed.
How does the Lord, now absent, minister refreshment and vitality to His people as they journey through arid lands? Surely it is by the Spirit’s ministry in the countless companies of God’s people all over this world, groups large and small, enlightened and simple, isolated or otherwise, His resources reach out through human channels each contributing his share toward the whole; as the drops and streamlets combine to fill the living spring.
How ideal it sounds; mutual refreshment, help, encouragement. But what if the well proves to be without water? Oh the pity of it. How angels must weep to see “wells without water” dotted over this world! Elaborate arrangements made for the dispensing of God’s water, but alas! no water flowing. Does it not challenge any but a heart of stone to inquire of Him who is the searcher of hearts, whether by any chance we personally—you and I—are contributing to the tragedy in a dry and thirsty land of our “well” being without water?
E. M. Pollock.