The River of Living Waters

by cameo-d 6 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  cameo-d

  What is "Living Waters"?

  Ezekiel says: The man led me through water coming down from under the altar in the temple...first, it was ankle deep, then became knee deep, later up to the waist, and it grows into where one can swim, and no one can cross without swimming. (Ezekiel 47: 1-11)

  Did you notice that the water comes down from under the altar in the temple? The water was to wash blood from the altar after the sacrifice. There was so much slaughter in the temple that these bloody waters were knee deep.

  The waters are "living" because they are mixed with blood. "The life is in the blood."
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  BurnTheShips

  No. The waters are living because the proceed from the Source of Life.

  Both the altar, and the river, are symbolic.

  whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

  BTS
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  cameo-d

  Nehemiah described the stairs that went down to the spring of Siloam from the City of David (Neh. 3:15–16) and the fountain gate at the base of the stairs (Neh. 12:37).

  All of that water from the spring was necessary for the performance of sacrifices in the temple. The numerous sacrifices made could not have been satisfied by water from the cisterns inside Herod’s fortress.

  Aristeas (c.285 BIA) explained how the landscape of the temple area was designed with paved stones and gutters to carry away the blood washed down from the sacrifices. There was an inexhaustible supply of water gushing into the temple for sacrifices (Aristeas 87–89). This suggests that part of the temple was built over the spring or else the temple was so close to the spring that water from the spring could be directed from it into the temple itself.

  This bathing place required flowing water with a canal around it so the bath water, like the blood, could flow away into a drain that escaped into the ground (1QT 32.11–15). This mixture should not be touched before it vanished into the ground, because it would be defiled with blood (1QT 32.14–15). Rabbis said it would flow into the brook Kidron (mMid 3.2).

  http://www.askelm.com/temple/t031205.htm
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  bob1999

  I don't know much about the "River of Living Waters".

  But the River of the Water of Life flows from the thrown of God which will be on the new earth. Rev. 22:1

  Peace
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  Word

  which is on the new earth
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  Deputy Dog

  The water was to wash blood from the altar after the sacrifice.

  You have found Christ in Ezekiel.

  Joh 4:10

  Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." 11 She *said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? 12 "You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?" 13 Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; 14but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life."
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  Nathan Natas

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o83xxWCel8g