The River of Life

[Sung Psalm: 46]

Where does your water come from?

Psalm 46 says, “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.”

This is a curious thing to say – because there is no river in Jerusalem!

Indeed, the main problem with Jerusalem in times of siege was that there was no water supply that could “gladden” the city of God.

A city without water cannot survive, and so King Hezekiah went to great lengths to dig a 1600 foot tunnel through solid rock in order to connect the Gihon Spring with the Pool of Siloam.

But the Gihon Spring is hardly a river! Nonetheless, the Gihon Spring points us in the direction of the answer.

The Gihon Spring seems to have been named after the river Gihon from Genesis 2 – the river that flowed around the whole land of Cush.

In Genesis 2 there is a river that flows out of the Garden – out of the sanctuary in Eden – and waters the whole earth.

Ezekiel 47, like Psalm 46, looks forward to the eschatological city – the heavenly temple – and the river of living water that will make glad the city of God.