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Waters Above, Waters Below: An Exegetical Study of Water in the Bible

Posted by expedition44 on

Water is one of Scripture’s most elastic and theologically charged images. In the Bible it is never merely “background.” It is creation material, boundary marker, threat, judgment, mercy, provision, cleansing, wisdom, Spirit, and eschatological gift. The biblical writers return to water again and again because water sits at the intersection of life and death. It nourishes fields and fills wells, but it also swallows armies and returns ordered creation to chaos. The result is a motif that cannot be flattened into one meaning. Water in the Bible is polyvalent, but it is not random. Across the canon, the motif develops in discernible patterns: waters of chaos, waters restrained, waters crossed, waters provided, waters purifying, and finally waters transformed into the river of life.[1]

A faithful reading should resist both sentimental reduction and wooden literalism. In the Hebrew Bible especially, water is bound to ancient cosmology, covenant memory, liturgical imagination, and temple symbolism. It also sits inside the shared symbolic world of the ancient Near East, where primeval waters often represented the unstable deep from which ordered life had to emerge.[2] Yet Israel’s Scriptures repeatedly subvert that wider world. Genesis does not portray YHWH as one deity among others struggling against an equal rival. The deep is there, but it is already under God’s sovereign presence. The Spirit hovers. The word speaks. Chaos is not God’s competitor. It is raw material beneath divine rule.[3]

Waters of the Deep in Genesis and the Ancient Near East

Genesis 1 begins with darkness over “the deep,” tehom (תְּהוֹם), and the Spirit of God hovering over the waters.[4] Much has been written about the relation between tehom and older ANE watery imagery. At minimum, the comparison helps us see the conceptual world in which Israel spoke about cosmic waters. Mesopotamian and West Semitic traditions often imagined a primordial watery reality, sometimes personified, from which ordered space emerged.[5] The biblical text participates in that larger symbolic world while sharply refusing mythic dualism. There is no theogony in Genesis 1, no divine combat scene, and no uncertainty about the outcome. God does not become sovereign by defeating the waters. He is sovereign before the first fiat.[6]

This matters because Genesis frames creation first as an act of distinction and boundary. The waters are separated, the sea is gathered, dry land appears, and only then do fertility and habitation flourish.[7] The logic is profoundly theological. To create is not only to make matter but to assign place, limit, and vocation. Water is thus linked to the question of order. When it remains unbounded, it threatens inhabitable life; when it is bounded by the Creator, it becomes the condition for fruitfulness.[8] The ANE background sharpens this point. In surrounding cultures, the cosmic sea could signal the unstable margin of reality. In Genesis, those same cosmic associations are absorbed into a monotheistic confession: the waters are not divine, not ultimate, and not free to transgress the speech of God unless he permits it.[9]

The imagery of “waters above” and “waters below” also belongs within that ancient cosmological frame. Psalm 148 can still summon “the waters above the heavens” to praise YHWH because the biblical writers share, at the level of phenomenological cosmology, the older picture of a structured world with waters above the firmament and seas below the land.[10] The interpreter must let the text inhabit its own symbolic universe before domesticating it into modern meteorology.[11] The point is not whether Israel possessed modern hydrology. The point is that Israel confessed the God who rules every level of the cosmos as they understood it. The upper waters, lower waters, springs, seas, rivers, and rains all belong to his kingship.[12]

Water, Chaos, and the Return of Uncreation

Because water is tied to primordial disorder, the flood becomes more than punishment. It is de-creation. Genesis 7 does not merely say that it rained a lot. The “fountains of the great deep” burst forth and the windows of heaven open, as if the separations of Genesis 1 are reversed.[13] Ordered space collapses back toward the watery abyss. This is why flood language in Scripture often carries more than historical memory; it becomes a grammar of undoing. When human violence fills the earth, creation itself seems to retreat toward the deep.[14]

Second Temple literature extends this line of thought. Jubilees retells the flood with intensified cosmic structure, speaking of the opening of the floodgates of heaven and the mouths of the great deep until the whole world is filled with water.[15] 1 Enoch likewise uses abyss imagery to describe terrifying zones of divine judgment and cosmic disorder.[16] These texts do not invent the symbolism; they amplify what is already present in Genesis. The deep is not neutral. It is a place where God’s judgment is revealed against corruption and rebellion.[17]

This also helps explain why drowning imagery in the Psalms can function as more than a metaphor for personal distress. When the psalmist cries, “the waters have come up to my neck,” or asks not to be swallowed by the deep, he is not merely describing emotional overload.[18] He is speaking from within Israel’s symbolic world, where water can signify the collapse of stable life into the anti-world of chaos, shame, abandonment, and death.[19] In Psalm 69, the drowning image is existential, yes, but it is existential because it is cosmological first. To be overwhelmed by the waters is to feel creation itself coming apart around you.[20]

Sea, Empire, and Deliverance Through the Waters

If Genesis and the flood establish water as a symbol of chaos, the exodus reveals another crucial pattern: God saves not only from the waters but through them. Israel’s crossing of the sea is a new creation event. Waters divide. Dry land appears. A people emerges alive on the other side while the imperial power that sought to unmake them is swallowed by the same waters.[21] The sea is thus double-sided. For Pharaoh it is judgment; for Israel it is deliverance. The same element that destroys the oppressor becomes the corridor of covenant freedom for the oppressed.[22]

The prophets and poets draw deeply on this memory. Isaiah can speak of YHWH making a path through the sea and link that memory to future redemption.[23] Psalm 74 and Isaiah 51 also connect watery chaos with dragon imagery, presenting YHWH as the one who masters the sea and breaks the heads of the monsters.[24] These texts do not simply repeat Canaanite combat myths; they repurpose chaotic-sea language to proclaim YHWH’s unrivaled kingship in history. Pharaoh can be described as a dragon in the Nile because empire itself becomes a historical embodiment of the chaotic waters.[25]

In Scripture, chaos is not always private. Sometimes it is political. Sometimes the waters are imperial. Sometimes the flood comes with chariots, brick quotas, propaganda, and bloodshed. Water imagery can therefore operate as anti-empire theology. The God who set limits on the sea is the same God who sets limits on the kingdoms that exalt themselves.[26]

Wells, Springs, and the Gift of Sustained Life

Yet Scripture does not leave water primarily in the register of danger. In the patriarchal narratives, water often appears as the means by which covenant life is sustained in a hostile land. Wells matter because survival matters. Hagar and Ishmael are preserved when God opens Hagar’s eyes to a well in the wilderness.[27] Isaac’s servants find “living water” (mayim chayyim) and their dispute over wells becomes a narrative about conflict, inheritance, and finally divine spaciousness at Rehoboth.[28] Water here is not abstract spirituality. It is the concrete mercy of God in dry places.

That phrase, mayim chayyim, becomes especially important. In its immediate setting it refers to fresh, flowing water rather than stagnant water.[29] But as the canon unfolds, “living water” becomes a bridge image linking practical sustenance, ritual purity, wisdom, and divine presence. The symbolic development works precisely because the physical referent is so vital. Israel does not spiritualize water by abandoning materiality. It moves from material necessity to theological depth.[30]

Pay attention to these patterns: creation waters, wilderness water, patriarchal wells, and later prophetic and wisdom texts belong to one thick symbolic network.[31] Water is often the site where sight itself is restored. Hagar sees the well only after God opens her eyes. That detail deserves more attention than it usually gets. In the Bible, access to life-giving water is often a matter of revelation as much as geography.[32]

Water, Temple, and Purification

Water in the Hebrew Bible is also priestly. Ritual washings, laver imagery, and purity regulations locate water within Israel’s liturgical life.[33] To modern readers, this can seem merely hygienic or ceremonial, but the logic is more profound. Water mediates re-entry into ordered sacred space. If impurity symbolizes a breach, then washing dramatizes restoration. The priestly use of water is thus deeply creational: it marks a return from disorder to fitness for proximity.[34]

This priestly and temple dimension becomes even clearer in later texts. Ezekiel’s temple vision culminates in water flowing from the sanctuary, deepening as it moves, healing the Dead Sea and turning barrenness into life.[35] The image is extraordinary. Water no longer merely supports the sanctuary from outside; it proceeds from the sanctuary as restorative force. Temple and Eden converge. The source of holy presence becomes the source of renewed creation.[36]

Second Temple texts carry this symbolism forward in ways that illuminate the New Testament. Ben Sira associates wisdom and Torah with river imagery, comparing her abundance to the great rivers and presenting instruction as a kind of overflowing life-source.[37] Qumran literature intensifies the purification imagery by pairing washing with the Spirit and truth. The Community Rule can speak of being cleansed by “the Spirit of truth” like waters of purification, signaling that mere external washing without covenant fidelity is insufficient.[38] Archaeological and textual evidence from Qumran also shows that natural water and ritual baths were central to the community’s life, reinforcing the overlap between purity practice and theological identity.[39]

This is one reason John’s baptism lands with such force in the Gospels. It emerges in a Jewish world already saturated with water symbolism: creation, exodus, wilderness, purification, repentance, and eschatological expectation.[40] John is not inventing the importance of water. He is staging Israel’s need for new passage, new cleansing, and new readiness for the kingdom.[41]

Water, Wisdom, and the Word of God

The biblical tradition also links water to instruction. Isaiah 55’s invitation, “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters,” is not only about refreshment but about covenant hearing and reception of God’s word.[42] Sirach portrays wisdom as flowing like rivers, and later Jewish tradition repeatedly compares Torah to water because both descend, both purify, both sustain life, and both are available to the thirsty.[43] Some of the material gathered on Sefaria makes this rabbinic instinct explicit: as water revives, Torah revives; as water purifies, Torah purifies.[44]

Water is not only a private devotional symbol; it is tied to obedience, lament, cleansing, and communal life before God.[45] Psalm 119’s streams of water from the eyes are not generic sadness but grief over Torah violation.[46] Tears themselves become a kind of moral water, a protest against disorder in the covenant world. There is something deeply shepherding here. In Scripture, holy grief is not emotional excess. It is fidelity feeling the fracture of creation.[47]

Jesus and the Transformation of the Motif

By the time we come to the New Testament, the water motif is already richly layered. Jesus enters that symbolic world and gathers its threads into himself. He is baptized in the Jordan, walks on the sea, stills the storm, offers living water to the Samaritan woman, speaks of rivers flowing from within believers, and stands within the tradition that identifies divine wisdom and Torah as life-giving provision.[48]

John 4 is especially important. Jesus does not dismiss physical water; he uses the well, the woman, and the thirst of Samaria to reveal a deeper source.[49] The Bible Project’s observation that the passage also carries nuptial overtones is compelling, especially when read against biblical well-scenes and covenant imagery.[50] The one who asks for water is the true bridegroom offering the life of the age to come. In John 7, that offer is explicitly linked to the Spirit.[51] Living water is no longer simply fresh spring water or even wisdom instruction; it is the life of God communicated through the Messiah and the Spirit.

Even Jesus’ mastery of the sea should be read in canonical context. He does not merely perform power. He treads upon what earlier texts associated with the untamed deep.[52] The One through whom all things were made stands over the waters that once threatened the world. In him, the old symbolism reaches its christological center.[53]

Eschatological Waters and the River of Life

The biblical story ends not with the abolition of water but with its transfiguration. Revelation can say that “the sea was no more,” which in context signals the end of chaos, death, and threat rather than a simple hydrological claim.[54] At the same time, Revelation 22 presents the river of the water of life flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.[55] What began as the deep over which the Spirit hovered ends as a river proceeding from the divine throne. The canonical arc is remarkable: chaotic waters are not merely suppressed; life-giving waters are finally universalized.

Second Temple apocalyptic literature helps us feel the force of that transformation. In 4 Ezra the sea can still symbolize the realm from which terrifying empire rises.[56] In Revelation, by contrast, the final city has no need to fear such a sea. The anti-creation element is gone, but the life-giving element remains and expands. The Bible’s final water image is neither flood nor abyss but river, healing, and abundance.[57]

Conclusion

A pastoral reading of water in Scripture must hold both edges together. Water is not sentimental in the Bible. It can drown, judge, and unmake. But neither is it merely threatening. It cleanses, feeds, opens barren futures, and flows from the sanctuary of God into a dead world. In a canonical sense, water becomes one of the Bible’s clearest witnesses to the pattern of creation, fall, redemption, and new creation.

That means many of us misread our lives when we assume the presence of “deep waters” means God has abandoned us. In Scripture, God often does his most decisive work at the edge of the sea, at the mouth of the well, in the wilderness without water, or in the river one must cross. He is the God who orders the deep, divides the sea, opens eyes to wells, washes the unclean, and finally gives the water of life without price.[58]

The set-apart task, then, is not to deny the chaos of the waters but to teach the saints to recognize the One who still hovers over them.

Endnotes

  1. For the broad biblical pattern of water as chaos, salvation, and baptismal imagery, see BibleProject, “Chaotic Waters,” June 25, 2018; BibleProject, “Crossing the Chaotic Waters,” April 16, 2018; and BibleProject, “Chaotic Waters and Baptism,” April 23, 2018.
  2. On cosmic waters and ANE cosmology, see “Ancient Near Eastern Cosmology,” especially the sections on the upper waters, firmament, and separation of heaven and earth.
  3. On Genesis’ presentation of chaotic waters as uncreation under God’s rule, see BibleProject, “Chaotic Waters”; and Ryan Lu, The Deification and Demonization of Tĕhôm, chap. 1.
  4. On tehom and Genesis 1:2, see Sefaria’s presentation of Genesis 1:6–12 and the discussion of watery deep in intertextual comparison with Jubilees.
  5. For ANE parallels involving primordial waters, the cosmic ocean, and later Babylonian imagery, see “Ancient Near Eastern Cosmology” and the Brill essay “A Short History of the Waters Above.”
  6. On the absence of divine combat in Genesis 1 and the text’s monotheistic subversion of mythic patterns, see BibleProject, “A Mountain Rising From the Chaos Waters,” Nov. 4, 2024; and BioLogos, “Deep Space and the Dome of Heaven,” Jan. 13, 2016.
  7. Genesis 1:6–12 in Sefaria explicitly presents creation through separation, gathering, and the appearance of dry land.
  8. BibleProject, “Rivers Flowing Upward,” June 14, 2021, highlights how God transforms the chaos waters into waters full of life potential in Genesis 1–2.
  9. On the firmament as a boundary containing upper waters, see “Firmament”; and BioLogos, “What Are the Waters Above the Firmament?” Feb. 6, 2026.
  10. For the persistence of the “waters above” motif in biblical cosmology, see Skip Moen, “In Its Cultural Context,” Dec. 24, 2014.
  11. Ibid. Moen explicitly argues that Psalm 148’s “waters above the heavens” should be read in ancient cosmological context rather than translated into modern meteorological categories.
  12. On the layered cosmos and divine rule over all realms, see “Ancient Near Eastern Cosmology”; and “Biblical Cosmology.”
  13. On the flood as a reversal of Genesis 1’s separations, see BibleProject, “Why Did God Flood the World?” Nov. 12, 2019.
  14. Ibid.; see also BibleProject, “Crossing the Chaotic Waters.”
  15. Book of Jubilees 5, on the opening of the floodgates of heaven and the fountains of the great deep.
  16. On abyss imagery in 1 Enoch, see The Book of Enoch, CCEL edition; and Britannica, “First Book of Enoch.”
  17. On Enoch and Jubilees as Second Temple witnesses to amplified cosmic and judgment imagery, see Britannica, “The Book of Enoch”; and Britannica, “Dead Sea Scrolls: The Scrolls in Context.”
  18. Skip Moen, “Death by Drowning,” Nov. 17, 2023; and “Let Me Reiterate,” Nov. 28, 2023.
  19. On the deep in biblical lament and its relation to chaos, see Lu, The Deification and Demonization of Tĕhôm; and BibleProject, “Chaotic Waters.”
  20. Moen, “Death by Drowning”; Moen, “Let Me Reiterate.”
  21. BibleProject, “Crossing the Chaotic Waters,” explains the Red Sea crossing as a re-creation moment in which waters divide and dry land appears.
  22. On the same waters saving Israel and judging Egypt, see BibleProject, “Chaotic Waters and Baptism.”
  23. Isaiah’s reuse of exodus-through-water imagery is summarized in BibleProject, “Chaotic Waters and Baptism.”
  24. On dragon and chaos-sea imagery in biblical poetry, see BibleProject, “Dragons in the Bible.”
  25. Ibid. The resource explicitly notes how the biblical authors apply dragon imagery to violent rulers such as Pharaoh.
  26. On sea imagery and empire in apocalyptic and prophetic traditions, see BibleProject, “Dragons in the Bible”; and “Biblical Cosmology.”
  27. Genesis 21:14–20 in Sefaria presents Hagar’s wilderness crisis and God’s opening of her eyes to a well.
  28. Genesis 26:18–22 in Sefaria records Isaac’s rediscovered wells, the finding of “living water,” and the naming of Rehoboth.
  29. On “living water” as fresh, flowing water in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition, see Sefaria sheet “Mayim, Mayim! Ten Wet Jewish Texts.”
  30. For the canonical development of “living water” into later theological usage, compare Genesis well texts in Sefaria with John material in BibleProject, “Jesus Offers Living Water and… Marriage?”
  31. Sefaria Voices sheet, “Water in the Hebrew Bible,” gathers creation, wilderness, and well passages into a sustained interpretive arc.
  32. Genesis 21:19 emphasizes that Hagar sees the well only after God opens her eyes.
  33. On ritual water and Jewish purification practice in the Second Temple world, see “Dead Sea Scrolls Overview,” especially the discussion of Qumran’s water system and mikva’ot.
  34. On water and purification in the Qumran context, see BYU, “From the Dead Sea Scrolls (1QS),” and the Diva-Portal study on 1QS.
  35. Ezekiel’s temple-river imagery is a standard backdrop for later living-water theology; for a concise intertextual treatment, see BibleProject, “Why Water Matters in the Bible.”
  36. On temple, Eden, and life-giving waters in biblical cosmology, see BibleProject, “Rivers Flowing Upward”; and “The Symbolism of Mountains in the Bible.”
  37. Sirach 24 compares wisdom to the great rivers and speaks of instruction in watery terms. See USCCB, Sirach 24; and BibleGateway, Sirach 24 RSV.
  38. On 1QS’s language of the Spirit of truth and waters of purification, see Brill, “The Notion of the Spirit in the Dead Sea Scrolls”; and Diva-Portal, A Synchronic Approach to the Serek ha-Yahad.
  39. On water installations and natural water requirements at Qumran, see “Dead Sea Scrolls Overview.”
  40. On John’s immersion as a Jewish purification practice with moral and eschatological force, see Journal for the Study of the New Testament, “John’s Immersions: Ritual Purification, but from What?” Sept. 26, 2024.
  41. On John’s proximity to wilderness and Qumran-like symbolism, see “John the Baptist, Qumran and the Voice in the Wilderness.”
  42. On Isaiah 55’s invitation as covenantal and not merely physical, see the broader Jewish scriptural tradition comparing Torah and water in Sefaria’s “Mayim, Mayim!” sheet.
  43. Sirach 24 and later Jewish sources explicitly compare wisdom and Torah to rivers and life-giving water.
  44. Sefaria, “Water, Source of Life,” preserves rabbinic analogies between water and Torah, including purification, life, and divine speech.
  45. Skip Moen repeatedly reads water language through Torah, lament, and Hebraic covenant consciousness; see “Continental Divide,” “Let Me Reiterate,” and “Death by Drowning.”
  46. Moen, “Continental Divide,” on Psalm 119:136 and the moral force of tear imagery tied to lawlessness.
  47. Ibid.
  48. On Jesus’ living-water discourse and its relation to Spirit and biblical imagery, see BibleProject, “Jesus Offers Living Water and… Marriage?” and the YouTube summary “Water in the Bible—What Does Water Represent in the Bible.”
  49. BibleProject, “Jesus Offers Living Water and… Marriage?” explicitly frames John 4 within the biblical story of water and covenant life.
  50. Ibid.
  51. On living water as Spirit in Johannine theology, see BibleProject, “Jesus Offers Living Water and… Marriage?” and the YouTube overview “The Symbolism of Water in the Bible: Deep Dive into Biblical Imagery.”
  52. On sea imagery as chaos and Jesus’ authority over it in light of the biblical motif, see BibleProject, “Chaotic Waters”; and “Crossing the Chaotic Waters.”
  53. Ibid.
  54. On “the sea was no more” as theological imagery tied to the end of chaos, see “Biblical Cosmology”; and BibleProject, “Dragons in the Bible.”
  55. On the river of life flowing from the throne as the Bible’s final water image, compare Revelation’s canonical pattern summarized in BibleProject’s water resources.
  56. Britannica dates the central portion of 4 Ezra to around AD 100, and the text famously depicts a terrifying kingdom rising from the sea. See Britannica, “Second Book of Esdras”; and 4 Ezra at Pseudepigrapha.com.
  57. On the contrast between apocalyptic sea-threat and final life-river, compare 4 Ezra’s sea-beast imagery with Revelation’s river-of-life pattern summarized in BibleProject resources.
  58. For the canonical movement from thirst to gift, chaos to life, and exile to restoration, see Sefaria’s “Water in the Hebrew Bible,” BibleProject’s water resources, and the user-provided article “Biblical Meaning of Water: 7 Symbolic Interpretations Explored.”

Bibliography

Alter, Robert. The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary. 3 vols. New York: W. W. Norton, 2019.

Arnold, Bill T., and Brent A. Strawn, eds. The World around the Old Testament: The People and Places of the Ancient Near East. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016.

Beale, G. K. The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004.

Brodie, Thomas L. Genesis as Dialogue: A Literary, Historical, and Theological Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Collins, John J. Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000.

Collins, John J. The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016.

Day, John. God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea: Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Fishbane, Michael. Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985.

Gunkel, Hermann. Creation and Chaos in the Primeval Era and the Eschaton: A Religio-Historical Study of Genesis 1 and Revelation 12. Translated by K. William Whitney Jr. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006.

Heiser, Michael S. The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015.

Himmelfarb, Martha. Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983.

Hundley, Michael B. Gods in Dwellings: Temples and Divine Presence in the Ancient Near East. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013.

Keel, Othmar. The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms. Translated by Timothy J. Hallett. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997.

Kraus, Hans-Joachim. Psalms 1–59. Translated by Hilton C. Oswald. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993.

Kraus, Hans-Joachim. Psalms 60–150. Translated by Hilton C. Oswald. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993.

Levenson, Jon D. Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.

Longman, Tremper III. Genesis. Story of God Bible Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016.

Mathews, Kenneth A. Genesis 1–11:26. New American Commentary 1A. Nashville: B&H, 1996.

Midrash Rabbah. Genesis Rabbah. Translated by H. Freedman and Maurice Simon. London: Soncino, 1939.

Milgrom, Jacob. Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible 3. New York: Doubleday, 1991.

Moberly, R. W. L. The Theology of the Book of Genesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Newsom, Carol A. The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran. Leiden: Brill, 2004.

Nickelsburg, George W. E. 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001.

Nickelsburg, George W. E., and James C. VanderKam. 1 Enoch 2: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 37–82. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012.

Reed, Annette Yoshiko. Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity: The Reception of Enochic Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Smith, Mark S. The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Smith, Mark S. The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010.

Sparks, Kenton L. Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible: A Guide to the Background Literature. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2005.

Stuckenbruck, Loren T. 1 Enoch 91–108. Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007.

Sweeney, Marvin A. I & II Kings: A Commentary. Old Testament Library. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007.

The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Edited by James H. Charlesworth. 2 vols. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983–1985.

VanderKam, James C. Jubilees. 2 vols. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2018.

VanderKam, James C. The Book of Jubilees. Guides to Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001.

Walton, John H. Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018.

Walton, John H. The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009.

Walton, John H., and Tremper Longman III. The Lost World of the Flood: Mythology, Theology, and the Deluge Debate. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2018.

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“Excavating the Deep: Wells, Living Water, and the Theology of Depth from Genesis to Revelation within Biblical and Second Temple Contexts”

Posted by expedition44 on

Abstract

Wells in the biblical tradition function not merely as environmental necessities but as socio-rhetorical, theological, and cosmological symbols embedded within the lived realities of the ancient Near East. This study argues that wells operate as constructed access points to hidden life, mediating themes of land, covenant, revelation, and divine presence. By situating biblical well narratives within their broader ancient Near Eastern and Second Temple contexts—and tracing their canonical development through the New Testament and Revelation—this article demonstrates that wells serve as a unifying metaphor for the movement from external provision to internal participation in divine life.

Introduction

In the ecological framework of the ancient Near East, water was not simply a resource but a determinant of existence. The relative scarcity of perennial rivers in the Levant meant that survival depended upon access to subterranean water systems through wells, springs, and cisterns.¹ Archaeological and textual evidence confirms that the digging of wells required both technological skill and significant labor investment, rendering them symbols of stability and territorial claim.² Within the biblical narrative, however, wells transcend their functional role. They are consistently positioned at moments of transition, encounter, and contestation, suggesting that their narrative placement reflects a deeper theological intentionality.³

This study contends that wells in Scripture—and their reinterpretation in Second Temple and early Jewish thought—function as liminal structures, mediating between seen and unseen, human effort and divine provision, and ultimately between creation and Creator.

Wells, Land, and Memory in the Patriarchal Narratives

The patriarchal accounts in Genesis situate wells at the center of disputes over land and legitimacy. In ancient Near Eastern legal consciousness, the act of digging a well constituted a claim to the surrounding territory, embedding ownership within labor and memory.⁴ This dynamic is evident in Genesis 21 and 26, where Abraham and Isaac engage in disputes with surrounding peoples over access to wells.⁵ The Philistines’ deliberate act of stopping Abraham’s wells (Gen 26:15) represents not only economic aggression but a symbolic attempt to erase covenantal presence.⁶

Isaac’s re-digging of these wells (Gen 26:18) functions as an act of theological resistance, reclaiming both land and promise.⁷ The naming of the wells—Esek (“contention”), Sitnah (“hostility”), and Rehoboth (“broad places”)—encodes a narrative theology in which divine provision emerges through conflict into spaciousness.⁸ Similarly, Beersheba (be’er shevaʿ), “well of the oath,” becomes a site where covenant and sustenance converge, embedding theological memory within geography.⁹

Such acts of naming transform wells into what may be termed topographies of covenant memory, where physical locations bear witness to divine-human interaction across generations.¹⁰

Hebrew Lexical Field and the Theology of Hidden Depth

The Hebrew terminology associated with wells reveals a layered conceptual framework. The term בְּאֵר (be’er) denotes a dug well, emphasizing human participation in uncovering hidden water.¹¹ By contrast, בּוֹר (bor) refers to a cistern, an artificial reservoir dependent upon collected rainwater, often associated with limitation or insufficiency.¹²

More theologically suggestive is עַיִן (ʿayin), meaning both “spring” and “eye,” implying that natural water sources function as points of revelation—openings through which the hidden depths of the earth become visible.¹³ This semantic overlap reflects a worldview in which knowledge and sustenance are intertwined; to see is, in a sense, to drink.

The prophetic critique in Jeremiah 2:13—“they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns… broken cisterns that can hold no water”—draws upon this lexical framework to articulate a theology of misplaced dependence.¹⁴ The contrast between living water and stagnant storage becomes a metaphor for covenant fidelity versus self-reliance.

Wells within Ancient Near Eastern Cosmology

The symbolic resonance of wells is further illuminated when situated within the cosmological frameworks of the ancient Near East. Mesopotamian traditions describe the Apsu as the subterranean freshwater deep from which life emerges.¹⁵ Similarly, the Hebrew concept of תְּהוֹם (tehom) in Genesis 1:2 reflects a shared cultural understanding of primordial waters underlying creation.¹⁶

Within this context, wells may be understood as localized access points to these deeper waters, linking the human world to the hidden structures of creation. The act of digging a well thus becomes symbolically analogous to engaging the depths of existence itself—a movement from surface to source.

Second Temple Developments: Wells as Wisdom and Revelation

Second Temple literature extends the symbolism of water beyond physical necessity into the realm of wisdom, purification, and eschatological hope. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, particularly the Community Rule (1QS), water imagery is explicitly connected to spiritual transformation:

“He shall be cleansed from all his sins by the spirit of holiness… and sprinkled with the waters of truth.”¹⁷

Here, water becomes a metaphor for divine instruction, aligning access to truth with access to life.

Similarly, 1 Enoch associates flowing waters with divine knowledge and cosmic order, presenting water as a medium through which heavenly realities are disclosed.¹⁸ The Wisdom of Ben Sira (Sirach) likewise employs water imagery to describe the outflow of wisdom:

“I came forth like a canal from a river… and my river became a sea.”¹⁹

This expansion of water imagery reflects a shift from physical wells to metaphorical wells of wisdom, where the act of drawing water parallels the reception of divine revelation.

Philo of Alexandria further develops this theme, interpreting wells allegorically as symbols of the soul’s search for divine knowledge.²⁰ Josephus, while more historically oriented, underscores the practical and strategic importance of wells, reinforcing their centrality within Jewish life.²¹

The Johannine Reconfiguration: From Well to Living Water

The Gospel of John presents the most explicit theological reinterpretation of the well motif. In John 4, Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well transforms the traditional symbolism:

“Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst… the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”²²

Here, the well serves as a narrative and symbolic threshold. The external act of drawing water gives way to an internal, self-renewing source. This represents a profound theological shift: from dependence on physical access points to participation in divine life.

Canonical Fulfillment: The River of Life in Revelation

The trajectory of biblical water imagery reaches its culmination in Revelation 22:

“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.”²³

What begins in Genesis as localized wells becomes, in Revelation, an unmediated river flowing directly from divine presence. The movement is both spatial and theological: from scattered access points to an all-encompassing source, from scarcity to abundance, from hidden depths to unveiled glory.

Toward a Pastoral Theology of the Well

To read the wells of Scripture attentively is to recognize a consistent invitation into depth. The biblical witness does not present life as something found on the surface but as something uncovered through intentional engagement. Wells must be dug. They must be cleared. At times, they must be re-dug.

There is a quiet wisdom here for the life of faith.

Many find themselves living at the “sath” or very surface of the well – drawing from what is immediate, visible, and convenient—yet Scripture gently calls us deeper. The God of the well is not found in hurried glances but in patient excavation. He meets Hagar in the wilderness, Isaac in contention, Moses in exile, and a Samaritan woman in the ordinary rhythm of daily thirst.

For those entrusted with shepherding others, the imagery is both humbling and clarifying. We are not the source of the water. We do not create it, control it, or sustain it. Our calling is simpler, and yet more demanding: to help uncover what has been buried, to remove what has been stopped up, and to guide others toward the place where life flows.

And yet, the story does not end at the well.

The promise that echoes through Scripture is that those who come to draw will themselves become sources. What begins as thirst becomes overflow. What begins as searching becomes abiding.

So the work remains—steady, patient, faithful—to keep digging, to keep returning, to keep trusting that beneath the dust and rock of life, there is water still.

And it is living.

Footnotes

  1. Water scarcity in the Levant (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_in_the_Bible)
  2. Archaeology of wells and water systems (ibid.)
  3. Narrative placement of wells (worthbeyondrubies.com)
  4. Wells as territorial claims (ibid.)
  5. Genesis well disputes (digitalbible.ca)
  6. Philistine conflict (ibid.)
  7. Isaac re-digging wells (ibid.)
  8. Esek, Sitnah, Rehoboth (chabad.org)
  9. Beersheba meaning (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beersheba)
  10. Wells as covenant markers (ibid.)
  11. Hebrew be’er (biblestudytools.com)
  12. Hebrew bor (jewishencyclopedia.com)
  13. Hebrew ʿayin (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_in_the_Bible)
  14. Jeremiah 2:13 (digitalbible.ca)
  15. Mesopotamian Apsu cosmology
  16. Hebrew tehom (Gen 1:2)
  17. 1QS (Community Rule) 3:8–9
  18. 1 Enoch water imagery
  19. Sirach 24:30–31
  20. Philo, Allegorical Interpretation
  21. Josephus, Antiquities
  22. John 4:14
  23. Revelation 22:1

Ancient Near Eastern and Background Studies

Dalley, Stephanie, ed. Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Walton, John H. Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018.

Walton, John H., Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2000.

Arnold, Bill T., and Bryan E. Beyer. Encountering the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008.

Matthews, Victor H. The Cultural World of the Bible. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015.

Biblical Studies and Literary Analysis

Alter, Robert. The Art of Biblical Narrative. New York: Basic Books, 1981.

Alter, Robert. Genesis: Translation and Commentary. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.

Brueggemann, Walter. Genesis. Interpretation Commentary. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982.

Sarna, Nahum M. Genesis. JPS Torah Commentary. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989.

Hamilton, Victor P. The Book of Genesis: Chapters 18–50. NICOT. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.

Westermann, Claus. Genesis 12–36: A Commentary. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1985.

Second Temple and Jewish Interpretive Traditions

Collins, John J. The Apocalyptic Imagination. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016.

VanderKam, James C. An Introduction to Early Judaism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001.

Neusner, Jacob. Introduction to Rabbinic Literature. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.

Kugel, James L. The Bible As It Was. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.

Hebrew Language and Lexical Resources

Brown, Francis, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996.

Koehler, Ludwig, and Walter Baumgartner. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT). Leiden: Brill, 2001.

Botterweck, G. Johannes, Helmer Ringgren, and Heinz-Josef Fabry, eds. Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974–.

Theological and Biblical Imagery Studies

Wright, N. T. Jesus and the Victory of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996.

Beale, G. K. The Temple and the Church’s Mission. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2004.

Bauckham, Richard. The Theology of the Book of Revelation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Specialized and Thematic Studies on Water / Wells

King, Philip J., and Lawrence E. Stager. Life in Biblical Israel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001.

Borowski, Oded. Daily Life in Biblical Times. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2003.

Hess, Richard S. Israelite Religions: An Archaeological and Biblical Survey. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007.

the Sheep’s Gate Jerusalem

Posted by expedition44 on

Today was our first full day in Jerusalem and we pretty much covered the entire Old Jerusalem. It was overwhelming but perhaps one of the best days of my life. Our tour guide was an Atheist which I actually quite enjoyed hearing his take on things (that might be a future post). So much of the Jerusalem experience sounds like, “they think this may have been,” or “according to tradition.” I guess that is expected but of course it left me longing to want to stand where Jesus stood for certain. That may be impossible seeing that things have been “excavated” several times over the last 2000 years, and they have continued to build over the last structures raising the “mount” about 40 feet from what it was during the time of Christ. I think there is good evidence for the trial location being at about the same elevation thanks to recent archeology and perhaps the crucifixion site at Golgotha which is covered by a church but shows the mountain top. The temple dome is also covered and completely inaccessible to Christians as the Islamic Mosque covers it. But the location that came to life for me was the Sheep’s gate.

THE ARCHEOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS

In John 5 we find Jesus, the great physician, engaged with a man who is physically unwell. The Pool of Bethesda is referred to in John 5:2 when Jesus heals a paralyzed man at a pool of water in Jerusalem, described as being near the Sheep Gate and surrounded by five covered colonnades or porticoes. I saw this today and it came to life. (It is also sometimes referred to as Bethzatha) [1] and is now established in the current Muslim Quarter of the city, near the Church of St. Anne, which was excavated in the late 19th century.

The name of the pool in Hebrew is Beth hesda (בית חסד/חסדא) which is a bit ambiguous and could mean “house of mercy”[2] or “house of grace” likely due to the invalids waiting to be healed.[3][4][5]IN Greek it reads Βηθεσδά (Bethesda),[7] appearing in manuscripts of the Gospel of John, include Βηθζαθά[8] (Beth-zatha = בית חדתא[9]) as a derivative of Bezetha, and Bethsaida (not to be confused with Bethsaida, a town in Galilee), although the latter is considered to be a metathetical corruption by Biblical scholars.[10] Franz Delitzsch suggests this is a Mishnaic Hebrew loanword from the Greek estiv/estava, that appropriately referred to stoa (στοά).[11] That would seem to fit here. As I mentioned earlier, when you visit this in person you are looking down into a deep hole. This is because over 2000 years nearly 40 feet of fill has been added to nearly the entire Temple mount. Until the 19th century, there was no conception for the existence of such a pool. The Pool of Bethesda almost took on a mystical or magical persona similar to the fabled fountain of youth. However, Conrad Schick in 1872 was permitted to conduct research on the Temple Mount, which was generally off limits to non-Muslims.[12] He discovered a large tank situated about 100 feet (30 m) north-west of St. Anne’s Church, which he contended was the Pool of Bethesda. Further archaeological excavation in the area, in 1964, uncovered the remains of the Byzantine and Crusader churches, Hadrian’s Temple of Asclepius and Serapis, and the small healing pools of an Asclepeion, the second of the two large pools, and the dam between them.[13] It was discovered that the Byzantine church had been built in the very heart of Hadrian’s temple and contained the healing pools.[14] Essentially, when you see this in person as it was excavated, it comes to life. You see the gentle steps for the inflicted, and the way around them. You see how it was likely off the beaten bath and in the bad part of town.

THE NARRATIVE

“Jesus is making his way through the crowd at the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem. To do so he has to pass by a pool. Today, just like every day, it is surrounded by those who cling to life by a thread of hope. Legend says that this pool sometimes becomes the channel of God’s grace. Legend has it that the first one to enter the water after an angel stirs it up will be cured. So the square is full. There are blind, lame, diseased, dumb, paralytics, amputees. The vestiges of an occupied society. The outcasts, the homeless, the beggars. All there waiting for a chance at new life, to be freed of their special form of imprisonment.”[6]

So, what exactly took place? We aren’t given much of his spiritual state, but he seems to have some faith. Jesus asks a pointed question: “Do you want to get well?” (v 6 NIV). As we take a deeper look at this scene in scripture, we might find Jesus challenging our own situations with that question. The passage points us toward considering the areas in our lives where we are seeking healing from the Lord.

If you have any Bible other than the King James Version you will notice that Verse 4 is missing. Perhaps you have a footnote. I always thought the fact that the NIV has 49 blank verses was very interesting and certainly should challenge your thoughts on inerrancy and what that means. There are over 3000 Greek manuscripts and fragments of the New Testament of varying age. Each one was hand copied, which leaves room for mistakes and even practical decisions of what to do with what the previous copyist has done. John 5:4 is one of the verses in contention, as the addition or subtraction from your translation does carry some interesting implications worth exploring, IMHO it doesn’t change the primary narrative.

The verse or perhaps note in your Bible does help to explain the context of the story and the people involved. They believed in a rather superstitious way that from time to time when the water was troubled (it would rise rapidly and then sink again) that this was caused by an angel who visited the pool, and the first person who got into it when it was so moved would be healed. This is akin to what is found in many parts of the world today. Lourdes, in southern France, has a spa which many believe has healing capacities. The shrine of Guadalupe, in Mexico City, has thousands of crutches stacked along its walls where people have been healed in this special place where they thought they could receive a blessing from God. I spent many summers in Ecuador and there were several pools that took on the same notion. In many historical cases people have been unarguably healed.

Of course, Bethesda, and most of the others mentioned are all intermittent springs, thus explaining the rising and falling water lines, but also may give relevance to people’s notions of healing waters coming from the natural earth. As you can imagine the theories vary. Perhaps most of these healings around the world and throughout history can be explained psychologically. When people believe they are going to be healed, and they are in a place where healings supposedly occur, and they do the expected thing, many of them are “healed.” So much of the human process is psychological and/or spiritual. Thus, the pool at Bethesda had established a reputation as a place where people could be healed. Would you call this then a natural or supernatural occurrence? Yes?! Perhaps? Well, that may depend on your theology!

I used to think that this man at the pool at Bethesda had lain there for 38 years. But the text does not say that; it says he had been ill for 38 years. Scripture likely would have identified him as a “lame” man (or a cripple) had that been the case, but we get more of the description that he is weak, feeble, and unable to stand, probably because of some wasting disease; perhaps what we refer to in modern day language as cancer, tuberculosis, or multiple sclerosis.  

The story picks up early in Jesus’ ministry where He is being followed by a crowd at the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem. He approaches the pool where there are blind, lame, diseased, dumb, paralytics, amputees all hoping to be healed. I am sure this was a mosaic of the fallen world. I am sure the stench in the air would have tipped you off to this. Jesus seemed to have a heart for this kind of place and people. There is a certain simplicity that Jesus masters in cutting to the chase. If you have never picked up on this, Jesus always seems to be direct in a sense of what we might think of as “making time or space for something”; but the fact was his expediency commanded the sole work of the father. In other words, that’s the only “time” He kept.

You don’t need to “make time for something” when “all of your time” is given to it.

The question was direct and quite simple, “Do you want to get well?” I am sure some wondered if he was making fun of the man, as the question may have seemed quite rhetorical. If the man is here at the pool, then of course he wants to get well- why else would he be here on the “other side of the tracks”?

What is interesting is that the paralytic doesn’t exactly answer the question that Jesus asks. His response is, “Sir, I can’t get to the pool fast enough. I have no one to help me and before I get there, someone else is always first”. I find this pretty common. We are stuck in our world’s way of thinking; our paradigm isn’t that of the ways or mind of Jesus.

But Jesus isn’t actually asking him if he “wants” or “desires” to be healed, (that would be rude), He is actually asking him if he is willing. There is a difference. I get tired of completely “free” and/or “unmerited” grace language in the American evangelical church. I will get there…

I often read the Biblical texts in Greek and Hebrew and when I get to this part, something jumps out at me that you wouldn’t know from the English translations. The Greek word He uses is “thelo”. This is an unusual choice of words for “willingness”. The Greek word “boulomai” is the more common word for such a question of will or desire. But “thelo” carries a stronger connotation which also likely created a bit of a wordplay in Aramaic. Jesus isn’t asking if he has a desire to be healed, he is asking if he is willing to do what is needed to experience this. It is a bit of a word play because the man responds that he can’t do this alone; and that is true – HE NEEDS JESUS. But he doesn’t actually realize what he “needs.” Does he realize healing comes from Jesus not the pool, does he understand that Jesus is asking if he is willing to enter into what may be an agreement or covenant as a result of the offered healing? It isn’t really a deal or a contract but has some ramifications similar. By modern English-American understanding perhaps we call this “strings attached.” There is an expectation to the action and an expected response to such a gift.

Jesus is asking, “Are you willing to do what it takes to be generated whole?” Often in English we need more than one word to express the singular joined words of the Hebrew and Greek languages. This is why translation is difficult and gets into literal word versus thought for thought arguments. In this case “be” is often short for become and functions the same way in Greek. It is also why I would say the better translation would uses the phrase “be generated.” It is one of the rare Greek words that actually carries over into English knowledge as the transliteration is “genesis” which in English shares the same root notion as the word generated. In other words, do you want to start over to be made whole? This healing experience in many ways is what each of us is confronted with, it is the takeaway from the text, what does complete healing look like for you?

Do you have the desire and are you willing to enter a covenant to be generated completely well. spiritually and physically?

Jesus is asking then if He wants to “commit” to a new life. We say that all the time without thinking of the implications of what commitment means. Again, I am sure he doesn’t understand the question and we have the advantage of reading the entire Biblical narrative backwards or inside out to gain a better understanding. Did you know that this same Greek word carries the connotation linguistically of being “sound or good (TOV)?” (The creation story reminds us of this.) Another way we say this is “to be healthy.” You may be familiar with the term “shalom” which is so important to the balance of life and healthy physical and spiritual living. It embraces the whole person, physical and spiritual. It is far reaching in the kingdom.

That brings me to the reflective action of this message. Just how ready are we to do whatever is required to begin our own rebirth or regeneration? The man in the story says he needs Jesus and I love the poetic inability. Over and over in the scripture we see that Jesus is looking for a first step and offers for people to simply “Trust Him”. He is asking for first steps of devotion, to follow through right now. He is here, now, in this moment, to help. Take the action of your desire and . . . “Rise up and walk.” Do you see that this is an invitation to all of us?

The reaction on that day would have never been forgotten. The lame man of thirty-eight years stands up and walks. But don’t miss the real miracle- the poetic voice of the story, that without asking, without even knowing or imagining, God visits this victim of the world and asks him to be reimagined for His kingdom. God initiates. God searches. God authors the contact, but our response is important and vital. It is Jesus’ intention to bring this man to wholeness before the paralytic even knows Jesus is there. That is the desire that he has offered and presented to all of us. God cares nothing about your ability. God cares about motivation and action in the midst of inability. Will you complete the covenant gift presented to you?

Do you wish to be generated well?

Maybe the man believed he could be healed, and he wanted to be healed. Maybe this is a story of faith, or maybe it is just a story of what God is offering to anyone, regardless of your faith or even understanding or desire within His kingdom. Perhaps that comes later as a result of enduring devotion and faithfulness. It is absolutely, imperative that you believe Jesus can and does desire to heal you.

Jesus heals in many ways, instantaneously, in a process, and when we see Him face to face. I don’t know what the kingdom sequence or order of why and when is, but I know that He does this, and He will do it completely.

Many of us received initially what was offered (and all of these were miraculous encounters); but perhaps we haven’t completed the circle of the gifted grace. Perhaps we left the covenant on the table. There are “strings attached” that are called devotion, and this devotion is what leads to the preeminent calling of scripture which is to be an “ALL IN” disciple of Jesus. The story wasn’t written with just the expectation to become fans or even simple followers, it was written that we may “become generated” disciples completely whole (and healed) in Jesus. Most American Christians certainly do not fulfill the calling of Biblical discipleship. Yes, it is a free gift of grace, but that gift was given to be regifted or regenerated and show (or display to the world as an image of Jesus in each of us) the way to the new complete life God has intended for you. I feel like many Christians have been quick to take the “free gift” but haven’t followed through with the covenant aspects of the kingdom. We don’t bear the fruit that outwardly proclaims the complete healing inside. Perhaps you’re wondering what you’re missing. I find the answer usually lies in discipleship and devotion. God wants all of us. Thats is what a disciple “works” towards. What does that covenant life look like for you and your family? What does this kind of discipleship look like in your own life and in the lives of those that you are regenerated to impact?

NOTE: If this is the first you have read of such a notion of reciprocal grace I would point you to consider this article: https://expedition44.com/2024/06/23/baptism/

WORKS CITED: 

  1. John 5:2: Contemporary English Version
  2. Easton’s Bible Dictionary.
  3. “Bethsaida (the pool)”. Catholic Encyclopedia.
  4. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1995), on sheep gate and on sheep market.
  5. D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John (1991), p. 241.
  6. https://skipmoen.com/2009/02/do-you-want-to-be-well/
  7. Textus Receptus.
  8. Tischendorf and WH.
  9. Revised Standard Version marginal note to John 5:2.
  10. “Bethsaida”. newadvent.org. Retrieved 6 October 2010.
  11. Delitzsch, F. 1856. “Talmudische Studien, X. Bethesda”, Zeitschrift für die gesamte lutherische Theologie und Kirche.
  12. August Strobel, Conrad Schick: ein Leben für Jerusalem; Zeugnisse über einen erkannten Auftrag, Fürth: Flacius-Verlag, 1988, p. 44. ISBN 3-924022-18-6
  13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pool_of_Bethesda#cite_note-Rex-18
  14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pool_of_Bethesda#cite_note-Wahlde2006-17

Nicodemus – regenerated from above?

Posted by expedition44 on

“Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old?”” John 3:4

Nicodemus heard Jesus say that a man must be “born from above” if he is to be a son of God.  He asked, “How can I make this happen?” He just wanted the steps but didn’t want the “why.” Sounds like our Christian culture today – Just get in the water, and maybe that’s not all bad! But it’s not about what you can do, it’s about what God will do.  In a very eloquent and rhythmic fashion Jesus answers Nicodemus with the words gennēthēnai anōthen. The witty inference is that we must be born from above regenerated by the Spirit. The answer to the real question, why must a man be born from above, is far more important than the how.  God knows how.  What we need to know is why.

You do not become what you are, but you are what you become.

I studied philosophy first which led me to a better theology. I don’t believe we are simply a product of our environment, nor do I believe in the Calvinist sense that God has predetermined all things and is the grand puppet master.

Our decisions shape us.

Jesus’ answer shares an entire “remez” of theology. I’ll give you the short version. God separated the water and created man in His image within His order. Man fails and falls numerous times, and God does a “reset” with His newly chosen people coming out of Egypt and through the redemptive waters of the red sea, they are “baptized” as a nation and become a “new” people. Those originally created by the direct hand of God were referred to in Genesis as the Bene Ha Elohim. Fast forward to Jesus when we are now “reborn from above”, we take on the same terminology. We are now directly created by the hand of God and are a new royal priesthood set apart as ambassadors for a new kingdom. Jesus Himself was an example – image – foreshadow – archetype of this. As He was born of a virgin, His creation or re-creation to earth in the form of a “second Adam”, was directly by the hand of God. In a similar fashion, all of us now “born from above,” have entered into completely new life with God. The old person is dead.

When Jesus answers Nicodemus He says that we are at a total start over through Him.  Nicodemus is a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin who is drawn to hear Jesus’s teachings. As is the case with Lazarus, Nicodemus is not mentioned in the synoptic Gospels and is mentioned only by John. [1] This famous encounter is contextually set before John 3:16, you might consider that. Most Biblical scholars have identified the Nicodemus of the New Testament with a 1st-century historic Nicodemus Ben Gurion, which would have him being a key figure 40 years later in the First Jewish Roman War. [2]

He was a wealthy and popular holy man reputed to later have had miraculous powers, which some would say was a sign that God was with Him. [3] In the account in John we aren’t given the whole picture or all the details. In fact, we seem to get the opposite idea. Jesus tells Nicodemus to leave the world at the beach and he seemingly can’t do that. He comes to Jesus in secret in the night because He is afraid of what His pharisee friends will think if he is aligned with Jesus, yet he says that many of them believe and uses the title Rabbi with Jesus out of honor and respect.

Nicodemus is mentioned in three places in the Gospel of John. This is the first encounter. The second is four chapters later when he reminds his colleagues in the Sanhedrin that the law requires that a person be heard before being judged. He seems to be a friend of Jesus or possibly advocating for Him. The third and final encounter is in John 19 when Nicodemus appears after Jesus’s crucifixion to provide the customary spices for anointing the dead and assists Joseph of Arimathea in preparing the body of Jesus for burial. Some believe this is a sign of conviction. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes—about 100 Roman pounds (33 kilograms, or 73 lb). Nicodemus must have been a man of means; in his book Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week, Pope Benedict XVI observes that, “The quantity of the balm is extraordinary and exceeds all normal proportions. This is a royal burial.”[5] If you take the notion that He was the notable Nicodemus Ben Gurion, then it means that over the next 40 years he would lead many to a “born again” notion and eventually be considered a saint within orthodoxy for his actions. But we also may want to question “that notion,” and we likely should.

The decision for Nicodemus wasn’t easy. Brian Zahnd shares, “Undoubtedly, he was raised in a Pharisee household, educated in the Pharisee school of Jewish thought from a child and placed on a course that would inevitably make him what he became. But now Jesus was challenging him to make a choice that would fundamentally alter his self. To make the choice to rethink everything. To start over. To radically change his dominant paradigm; instead of viewing the kingdom of God through the paradigm of the Pharisees, to view the kingdom of God through the new paradigm of Jesus. No easy task.” [6]

Jesus’ words to Nicodemus were life changing. We don’t know if Nicodemus ever “got there.” The orthodox church would say he did, Nicodemus is venerated as a saint in Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy and in Catholicism. The Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Churches commemorate him on the Sunday of the Holy Myrrhbearers, which is celebrated on the Third Sunday of Pascha (i.e., the second Sunday after Easter).[7] But from my perspective, the text nor history gives us the confirmed answer. Jesus’ words were hard. Leave it all at the Beach and start over. Rethink. Everything.

The world and the Christian church (alike) often don’t decipher this story well.

A spiritual re-birth meant a new and/or total spiritual re-learning. A new start. Discipleship. Could he do that? Did he do that the next 40 years? Perhaps. Or perhaps he was still “off” as he might have led thousands to their death in 70AD and completely missed the “WHY” of Jesus. The world (and Christians) often puts those “types” on a pedestal. We nearly “worship” those that are very opposite to the ways and words of Jesus. Maybe he got the fame his heart was postured towards but never could die to himself as Jesus challenged him to do; or maybe He did as His “saint hood” would later venerate. Only God knows.

What about you. The call wasn’t to simply make a decision to get on your knees in tank of water as the lights and lasers dazzle everyone to chalk up another bar of statistics for the year of tallied success. It was to enter total discipleship. The first step is a proclamation of the heart to total faithful allegiance in Jesus by getting in the water, the second step should be towards a changed life of discipleship. I pray the lasers and lights lead that way! That was always the calling of Jesus. Leave it all on the beach.

That is the ONLY commission of Jesus. There was no halfway or halfhearted version of this story. Are you all in? Will the water set you apart?

This article is dedicated to my good friend and disciple Paul Lazzaroni as he is shepherding so many others to walk this journey well. Love you and proud of you, my friend. -Halak

x44 has an old but good video on Nicodemus here:

  1. Driscoll, James F. (1911). “Nicodemus” . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  2. Reid, George J. (1907). “Acta Pilati” . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company. p. 111.
  3. ee, for instance:
  4. Flusser, David (16 December 2013). “Character Profiles: Gamaliel and Nicodemus”. Jerusalem Perspective.
  5. Burke, Daniel (17 March 2013). “Nicodemus, The Mystery Man of Holy Week”. The Washington Post. Religious News Service. Archived from the original on 14 May 2023.
  6. https://brianzahnd.com/tag/nicodemus/
  7. Holy Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Paraskevi, Saint Barbara, Saint John the Merciful & Our Mother of Consolation. St Albans, Melbourne: Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia. Archived from the original on 20 March 2023.

LIMINAL SPACE AND THE WILDERNESS

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This article is a 20-minute read. The YouTube version of the discussion is at the Bottom of the page and is an 80-minute listen.

Human beings- We are the most incredibly unique, wildly powerful and intelligent beings ever created but also make some of the most awful decisions, repeatedly, on a regular basis.

The Bible is beautifully simplistic and at the same time houses unsearchable depths of God’s wisdom and goodness. 

Of course, the Bible says a lot, everything we need, but there is also quite a bit that it doesn’t simply say. We know very little of what Jesus’s life was like for the better part of three decades, however through extrabiblical material such as historical research of that period, calendars, Jewish and rabbinical practices, and harmonizing the gospel narratives, we can gather much about his life that was not said in the pages of scripture. What we do know is that as soon as Jesus walked in obedience through baptism, he was led by the spirit of God into the wilderness. 

Matthew 4:1. “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” 

The humanity of Jesus is certain, but often eludes us, most of us struggle to fast for one full day, let alone a 40 day and 40-night stint.  Utter depletion was upon Jesus, and then came the tempting by ha-satan, and testing by God.  What follows is three questions and three rebuttals. The result is Satan fleeing and spiritual beings ministering to Jesus.  Although the Bible doesn’t say it, clearly there had been some equipping in Jesus’s life. 

and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command His angels concerning You’; and ‘On their hands they will bear You up,
so that You will not strike Your foot against a stone.’” Matthew 4:6  NASB

Ha-satan misquotes Psalm 91. Yet Jesus doesn’t correct him and simply notes that this is a test of YHWH and infers that to accept this challenge would be forbidden. The fault is in the demanding of Humans of God.  God is not the captive genie of my three magical wishes. Jesus makes this clear yet so many Christians today pray in a way that is rival to what Jesus states here. We make demands of God.

“Throw yourself from the Temple” has several other eye raising implications. Some have a hard time asking God for anything personally as it seems to be at odds with really believing in the will of God and the way that God weaves everything to serve His purposes. Can we demand without the eyes to see such things? Do our demands circumvent His intentions?  Sometimes in the Bible, such as with Moses we see God heeding the requests of man and altering what would seem to be His better will. But should we really ask God of that. Does asking God to be a way maker mean asking Him to come to our desires rather than posturing ourselves to simply come to His? Do we not throw ourselves from the Temple rather than throw ourselves on His mercy and sovereignty?

Regardless of where your theology lands, there is much going on behind the scenes of Jesus’s interaction with the challenger and it parallels a story in the Old Testament.  Most of us know the story of the exile from slavery out of Egypt and through the Red Sea, but often what’s overlooked is also what the Israelites overlooked in the wilderness.  We know that both the Israelites and Jesus had just come out of the water before heading into the wilderness.  In the Bible, water often signifies chaos.   In the beginning, when the spirit of God was hovering over the waters of the deep, the gives us a description of what life, before God interacts with it can look dark, uncontrolled, violent, and unpredictable.  As God brings forth land, we first see the life breathing characteristic of the creator of the cosmos. 

In the same way, a believers baptism signifies the reaction to an interaction with a life breathing God.  They are lowered into the chaotic waters of life for the last time and are risen into a brand-new life.   

The hope and promise of a new life are exactly what Israel stepped in to when they stepped out of the Red Sea.  The final ascent up the shores on to free land for the first time began the echo of Psalm 136:12 with a mighty hand and outstretched arm; His love endures forever.  Just like baptism, this step into their new life was simply the beginning.  It was the beginning of a new way of doing things thus signifying the importance of being trained and equipped to withstand the seemingly impossible giants that stood in the way of the final journey to the promised land. 

A voice is calling, “Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness;
Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.  Isaiah 40:3 NASB

There is one more connection between wilderness and water. In a D32 consideration, God is at war with other fallen spiritual beings and their slave masters, eventually overthrowing them with the greatest symbol of substitutionary sacrifice being Jesus as the Passover Lamb. At first glance the “horse and the rifer thrown into the sea” it would seem that the slavemasters are completely annihilated, and the earthly force is, but it would seem that the spiritual ones connected with the gods they formerly and will continue to serve will somehow find their way back into the Israelite camp. perhaps this is partially a sign of their continual grumbling and demanding that God do what they want and insisting that it is His fault that they are in such a terrible mess. Are you starting to see the connection of the fallen spiritual beings influencing humanity to make demands of God? This isn’t simply grumbling but a severe violation of the first (and greatest) commandment.

The wilderness becomes God’s classroom in obedience and allegiant devotion to God. In many ways today it still is.

The wilderness is harsh and uncontrollable.  We want to live in places where we are in control, so we build cities. That is why cities in the Bible are associated with RA not TOV. We don’t like the testing and trying of the spiritual beings in our lives, so we bulldoze the wilderness and build concrete jungles instead. Unfortunately, that becomes a sign of the RA over the TOV. Humankind actually seems to have very little control and when they think they do it is typically a sign they have been manipulated by the RA of life. We feed our self-delusional fantasy that we are self-sufficient as we are duped by the aggressors.

The wilderness is God’s sacred place, what is left of the earth as He created it.  When we attempt to reconstruct it in our image, we lose a connectivity to God and His sacred space. For Israel, the wilderness gave the Word of the Lord, the light and cloud they followed, the learning of grace and mercy, and unending provisions. They learned to heal and worship. They learned to trust and seek. If you have never met God in the wild and untamed placed of His sacred devotion you are likely missing what He has always desired to give to you. Perhaps when we dwell within the city limits, we need to remember to be a wilderness witness. Or maybe we just weren’t intended to live in the concrete jungle and trying to do so could actually be rival to God’s design.

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We are in desperate need to be trained and equipped to withstand the seemingly impossible giants that may stand in the way of our journey through this life. If we move too quick, we can miss an important element of God’s character displayed in Matthew 4.

“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” 

The word tempted is the Greek word peirazó.   to make proof of, to attempt, test, tempt, but here it is used in the negative sense, a RA sense.

James 1:2-4. My brothers and sisters] consider it nothing but joy when you fall into all sorts of trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect effect, so that you will be perfect and complete, not deficient in anything. (NET) 
 

Conversely, in this passage, the Greek word for trials is dokimion, meaning- a testing or what is found approved.  This testing, or a process or being made complete by the testing of our faith, is very good or Tov.   

Both words in this form have significantly similar meanings, however the word tempted in Matthew 4 is in the negative form, or Ra  (peirazō) meaning “tempt” by means of luring.  This is not a character trait of God.  Later in his letter, James 1:13 states “When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.” Although God will not tempt, he still can use the corrupt schemes of the evil forces as way to test our character.  This again is a parallel to God seemingly handing Job over to the fallen spiritual beings (sons of God) for the testing of his character to be found worthy of righteousness and faithfulness to YHWH.   

James uses a rare Greek verb, peirázō, meaning “to try, to test.”  God does not test anyone with evil.  It’s not simply a matter of testing.  It’s a matter of attempting to persuade someone to do something evil (and, of course, God is the one who determines what is good and what is evil). 

How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!   Again and again they tempted God, and pained the Holy One of Israel.  Psalm 78:40-41  NASB

Asaph uses the Hebrew verb nāsâ, which means “to put to the test, to try, to prove, to assay.”  In other words, they didn’t ask God to do something wicked.  They simply acted as if He weren’t God. God doesn’t test us with evil, but we often attempt to test Him, and in so doing, we engage in evil as a means of assaying Him.  We disconnect while He attempts to reconnect. This is the exact opposite of what our design and destiny is.

When Israel came out of a 400 plus year stay in RA-Egypt, this nation of people needed to be taught how to do things the way of God’s kingdom. Had the Levitical law been lived out according to its intention, this nation of people would have had such profound impact, other nations would have not helped but take notice and be drawn in to such a beautiful culture. They would have renewed the earth. They were meant to grow grapes as big as their heads that their world would have travelled great distances to partake in. This is the lost “analogy” of what it meant to bear fruit. To have fruit that the entire world sought after and desired. And what could be better than that? Well a fruit that was naturally given and produced by God, it didn’t require any toil. This is the mosaic of what a gift from God was intended to be in our lives… the epitome of what it meant to bear fruit in His kingdom. We were the possessors and recipients of a bountiful harvest that required little if anything from us with enormous blessings.

A contranym is when one word can have two different meanings.  Although today we don’t use the word kingdom in our everyday language, we often operate under the ruling of many kingdoms.  Our nation is often viewed as a kingdom, if not the strongest kingdom of all kingdoms in the eyes of many.  We tend to create our own mini kingdoms either by our nationalities, our blood lines, or even our homesteads.  The time we spend investing in these areas can certainly look like worship or idolatry, but what trips us up is our tendency to build vertically (like a city).  God has a kingdom which cannot be shaken regardless of our efforts to rebel against it or the attempts of the dark evil forces to lure us away from him.  The way God’s kingdom operates is contrary to the ways of the world.  God’s kingdom is horizontal, signifying the gift and purpose of diversity amongst all the people.  No one person is better or higher in stature, but all created equal although incredibly different.  There is but one king amongst a sea of brethren.  God’s kingdom is built solely on the foundation of love that never ceases to bring forth life.  To this day, our universe is constantly expanding.  New stars are being born and galaxies discovered.  If we can see through the mess of our daily lives, we can also see new life being formed each day around us.  God never stops producing and expanding.  This is what you and I were made to do.  This is our purpose as the church.  We were created by THE life source, the author and perfector of life, the well that never runs dry, but God is also aware of the effect that the kingdoms of this world can have on our nephesh.  Although we don’t use the word nephesh in our daily language, contextually here it is important.  Although Hebraically nephesh is defined as our soul, we often think of our soul as a separate part of the entire whole of who we are.  Our nephesh is every part of who we are down to the deepest part of our composition.  Our nephesh is all encompassing and when we bow down to kingdoms of this world, or in the case of the Israelites who had been under to rule of a tyrannical system for over 400 years, it takes reconstruction upon one’s nephesh to learn once again or for the first time the SOP or standard operating practices of God’s kingdom. 

According to scripture, the wilderness can often produce the greatest bounty of fruit within our lives.  As the kingdom of world tells us to gather from around us to store up treasures in our barns, Jesus continues to teach and to guide us to the truth that true life can only be generated from the inside out.  He uses examples of that of a mustard seed.  He gave them another parable:

“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest garden plant and becomes a tree, so that the wild birds] come and nest in its branches.” Matthew 13:31-33 

The wilderness is what’s considered a liminal space.  Liminal is translated as threshold as in the threshold of a doorway.  It’s a space that is not quite outside yet not fully inside either.  It’s a transition point.  It’s the place where we know we are not where we used to be, but we are not yet where we are intended to go.  Our tendency is to view these times in life in a negative context, however in God’s kingdom, what can only be produced through tastings in the wilderness has the potential to produce the highest dividend in our lives, yet we see it through a negative lens and put our best foot forward to get out of the spaces and seasons of life as quickly as possible.  Many of us are praying for breakthrough in areas of our lives, but at the same time we are not willing to allow God to teach us what the breakthrough may look like and how to get there.  These liminal spaces will force us quickly to realize how much control we still desire of our own lives and see clearly the personal kingdom we’ve created.   

We know there’s much about Jesus’s life that we are unaware of, but what we do know is that directly out of baptism he was led by the spirit of God into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  At the end of this wilderness season, immediately angels came to minister to him.  Matthew 4:11.  This opens up the door profound displays of the goodness of God’s kingdom displayed through the life of Jesus. In fact, John said this 

“ Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”  Yet, God has an even bigger plan for the whole of humanity operating through the Kingdom of God.  Jesus is recorded saying this in John 14:12. “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” 

The only pathway for us to experience this type of life, a land truly flowing with milk and honey from the core of who we are, is to be built up, equipped and empowered by God in liminal spaces.  The world calls the wilderness Ra.  The Israelites did too.  They had everything they needed to survive and were on a journey to thrive, but still found themselves not just complaining, but being so caught up in only what they knew that they didn’t have the faith to trust God with what they don’t know. 

 “That night all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud.  All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness!  Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?”  

Richard Rohr calls “liminal space”—a particular spiritual position where human beings hate to be, but where the biblical God is always leading them. Many of the greatest stories are messages of stepping positiviely out of liminal space. Abraham, Joseph, David, Jonah, Ruth, Mary and so many others.

Let us not be so quick to judge the lack of faith and the desire to control of that of the Israelites.  This is us, too.  We have bought in to the lie that these wilderness seasons of life, surrendered to God, cannot produce far greater than what we could ask or imagine.  We are all too familiar with liminal spaces.  We can be in multiple wilderness seasons at the same time, or around the corner from another one.  Eschatologically, we are in a liminal space.  Jesus has defeated the forces of darkness and provided for us a pathway to exceptional life, but we are still waiting his return, and a culmination of all things made right.  The question becomes whether we as the bride of Christ are willing to receive from this wilderness season the chiseling, purifying, and equipping that is necessary to present ourselves as a spotless bride. 

“so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”  Ephesians 5:27.   

Maybe today, we don’t necessarily seek to create wilderness seasons or find the liminal spaces, but in humility we can begin to see the power within them.  Most of us are somewhat lofty in our thinking, even if we think poorly of ourselves.  We still allow the Ra to have more say over our lives and the lives of others than the Tov that God has for us.  Exquisite goodness was on the other side of this forming season for the Israelites, yet they threw it all away for the slavery that was familiar to them.   

We are designed in the image of God and thus we are designed to bring forth life in everything that we do, yet if we are not allowing God to do the work beginning on the inside of our minds and hearts, lasting fruit cannot be produced.

 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 

You are designed to bring forth fruit and bring it abundantly.  Be the one today who considers it pure joy when you face a trial of many kinds, believing that the testing, the equipping, the chiseling, the forming by the hand of God, can produce a steadfastness within us that leads to complete wholeness and maturity, unshakable by the feeble attempts of a broken world.   

Written by Dr. Will Ryan with Special Guest Paul Lazzaroni

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