What the Hebrew Bible Says About Water by Myra Kahn Adams for Town Hall
Thanks for joining our two-part study about what the Old Testament says about water. Then, next week we will examine the New Testament.
Life, as we know it in all forms, is unsustainable without water. Correspondingly, after receiving the water of Baptism, believers in Jesus Christ who do the will of the Father are given eternal life. Jesus said, “Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 13-14).
The Hebrew Bible records the essential role of water in the physical and spiritual realm, millennia before Christ’s teaching. Then, at dramatically pivotal junctures, God utilized water to achieve His desired outcome.
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The Bible first mentions the word “water” in the second sentence of Genesis:
“Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Genesis 1:2).
Water is a prominent element in God’s creation plan: He “made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it” and “God called the vault ‘sky’ ” (Genesis 1: 6-8).
Next, the Creator arranged the earth’s foundational infrastructure as only HE could:
“And God said, ‘Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.’ And it was so. God called the dry ground ‘land,’ and the gathered waters he called ‘seas’ ” (Genesis 1: 9-10).
Here is how God’s creation of water translates into scientific facts:
According to the USGS (United States Geographical Survey), “About 71 percent of the Earth’s surface is water-covered, and the oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all Earth’s water.”
Then consider these amazing facts about how much water is within us. (Click “overview” to see the data in both these USGS links): The human adult body is “60 percent water.” Our “brain and heart are composed of 73 percent water, and the lungs are about 83 percent water. The skin contains 64 percent water, muscles and kidneys are 79 percent, and even the bones are watery: 31 percent.”
