The Water Ceremony in the Feast of Tabernacles
Jerusalem was a forest of leafy booths by the time the Feast of Tabernacles began on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. Pilgrims trooping back and forth to the temple added to the woodsy effect with their bundles of palm, willow, and myrtle branches called lulavs.
The busiest place in the city was the altar in the temple courtyard. And even it seemed dressed for the occasion with willow branches propped around it like a modified tabernacle.
The priests kept busy all week during the Feast of Tabernacles, offering a multitude of special sacrifices. But there was an extra ritual they performed each day that set the stage for one of Jesus’ most memorable declarations.
The Water Ceremony
Each morning, a priest carried a pitcher down the cobbled streets of Jerusalem to the Pool of Siloam. After filling it with water, he returned to the temple. There, he met up with another priest bearing a pitcher of wine. Together they marched around the altar before pouring the drink offerings into one of the altar’s four horns.
The horn at the southwestern corner was hollow, accommodating two funnel-like devices, one for the water, the other for the wine. From there, the liquids flowed side by side through separate pipes, down the side of the altar, below the temple, and finally out into the Kidron River. As the priests poured, worshippers celebrated with prayers, lulav-shaking, and a threefold blast of the trumpets.
The water ceremony was virtually the same every day. But on the last day, “the great day of the feast,” the priests paraded around the altar seven times instead of once. Their sevenfold march, accompanied by the sound of shofars, almost seemed a reenactment of the triumphant battle of Jericho.
This may have been the very moment Jesus stepped forward to declare, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37).
The Prayers of the Water Ceremony
The timing of his appearance seems even more likely when we consider the prayers being offered during the water ceremony. In part, they included the words of Psalm 118:25. In the New King James Version, it reads this way: “Save now, I pray, O Lord; O Lord, I pray, send now prosperity.”
In Hebrew, “Save now” is Yasha. This is the same root as in Jesus’ name Yeshua which means “salvation” or “the Lord saves.”
The last phrase in the verse, “send now prosperity,” is the Hebrew word tsalach. It signifies more than “prosperity.” It means “to advance, make progress, succeed, break forth, or come upon mightily.”[1]
Put this all together and you have more than a plea for general deliverance. It was a cry to the Savior himself. “Yasha! Yeshua! Advance, Saving Lord, and break forth mightily!”
Jesus and the Water Ceremony
Picture the priests performing their Jericho march, then raising their pitchers over the horn of the altar. The wine and water pour down the altar’s side, as though foreshadowing the blood and water that would soon flow from the Savior’s side. With trumpets blaring and the people practically shouting his name, Jesus opens his mouth and gives meaning to the ritual before them.
“Here I am, the living, flowing water you’re crying out for,” he seemed to say. “Drink from me until you’re full of my life-giving substance. Then let it well up from within and gush forth like a river.”
As you imagine the wine and water flowing, remember it came from the Pool of Siloam, the Sent One. Jesus is the Sent One, overflowing with life and offering it to whosoever will drink. He is the pool of refreshing, and the water bubbling up from it. He is the priest pouring it out and offering it to you. Drink from his life and let his river flow from you and quench the thirsty world around you.
[1] New American Standard Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek Dictionaries: Updated Edition
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