Makes the lame to walk and the blind to see!
Opens prison doors, sets the captives free!
I’ve got a river of life flowing out of me!”
You know this song, right?
Spring up, O well, (splish, splash) within my soul!
Spring up, O well, (splish, splash) and make me whole!
Spring up, O well, (splish, splash) and give to me
That life abundantly.
This phrase, “Spring up, O well…” do you know what it’s from?
It’s from Numbers 21:17:
Then Israel sang this song:
“Spring up, O well! Sing to it!”
Numbers 21:17 (NASB)
The children of Israel have just been attacked by the Canaanites, and after that, they got attacked by a bunch of venomous snakes, and God miraculously saved them by way of a bronze snake held high on a pole.
Then God leads them to water, and the children of Israel sing.
“Spring up, O well.”
What does it mean for the well to “spring up?” That would be water rising up from the well so you don’t have to struggle to get it, right? We’re supposed to see this as a miraculous event, that is so exciting it causes the people to sing.
In Genesis 24, when Rebekah first goes to fetch water for Eliezer and his camels, the text does something very odd in the way it describes how she gets the water.
Normally, you have to draw water from a well. And that’s what we see the SECOND time she goes to get water.
So she quickly emptied her jar into the trough, and ran back to the well to draw, and she drew for all his camels.
Genesis 24:20 (NASB)
But the FIRST time she goes to get water, the text omits any mention of her DRAWING it.
The young woman was very beautiful, a virgin; no man had had relations with her. She went down to the spring, filled her jar, and came up.
Genesis 24:16 (NASB)
From this, the rabbis say that the miraculous event that moved Eliezer to run towards her in the next verse was that the water in the well ROSE TO MEET Rebekah.
You might think this is silly, because you’ve forgotten that the account is meant to be full of strange and supernatural things. Consider: Moses will later set a staff in water to have it rise to form walls to allow Israel to pass through the sea.
So here is a teaching and a blessing:
“May the water you need rise to meet you when you need it.”