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The camp of Israel had just recovered from the episode with the fiery serpents. Towards the middle section of Numbers 21 we find those left alive in the Nation of Israel are beginning to continue moving forward.
Each morning they faced the sun’s rising from the distance. It seemed to be rising over Moab from across the desert. They traveled around Edom, through Oboth. Then they journeyed through Ijeabarim just before they reached the area of Moab.
Along the way they made stops at Zared and Arnon near the border of Moab. These were places where the Amonites lived.
They went through Beer, the place that means “a well” and the people were praising God and singing as they passed by this place where the ground held a hidden well.
So in this spirit, they passed through Beer and walked right by a place with a spring where God helped them to find a well, and all the time the people were singing and praising God.
They sang the song of the well. It went like this:
“Spring up, O well!
Sing about it, about the well that the princes dug,
that the nobles of the people sank—
the nobles with scepters and staffs.”
The complainers were now gone and only the faithful were left. They had not complained about not having water; though they were terribly thirsty.
God said to Moses “Gather the people together and I will give them water.”
Can you hear those words without thinking of Jesus?
He said in John 7:37-38: On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying “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.”
Those words of Jesus came much later in history; but we can see the first picture of how different things would be right here in the wilderness long before the people were ever given the gift of Messiah.
The leaders of Israel were told to put their staffs in the ground and when they obeyed, waters sprung forth for the people to drink. The water seemed to be hidden until leaders of God sought it out by the commandment of God.
Notice here that in the song the leaders are referred to as having staffs and scepters. The scepter was what a King held in his hand and the court performed according to how the scepter was shown to them. Each tribal leader was like unto a king of his own tribe (they were actually called the princes of Israel) and his staff had the same power as a scepter; or it acted like his scepter.
Of course it was God who gave the staffs and the scepters their power.
God was rewarding them with water even before they asked.
The water was their salvation; it brought them new life.
Later, Jesus became the living waters; bringing eternal salvation to all. We celebrate with song and dance, just as Moses and his people did here every year at the water ceremony at The Feast of Tabernacles. Most people think that act started from the women drawing water from the wells of their cities in ancient times; and David carried it over to the times of the temple and used it in religious ceremony. I think the water ceremony started right here on the border of The Promised Land. God granted it to his people as a gift to sustain them as they crossed over to the other side and began their new lives.
The story of God has a million ways of painting its portraits through out all of our periods of time.
For Moses and the people it was a time of joy and signing and refreshment. This song of the well represents the praises of God’s people. We know from experience that when God’s people praise; God pours out blessings and miracles.
They were being pumped up for a victory of their enemy and this would result in a victorious entry into God’s promises. The previous weeks had been sad as they said goodbye to their beloved leaders; but God was giving them a big taste of joy in this passage.
The people were living their last hours in a land that wasn’t theirs.
They were about to cross over into the promised land.
I love a more current popular song which is out in today’s music by Cochren & Company that is a song called “One Day.” The lyrics speak of how we will live after the end of time as we know it today expires and we also cross over to The Promised Land. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So94m-Lp6Pw
We will have our last day too.
If we keep moving and keep doing God’s will in this wilderness called life, we will come to a last day and if we are still praising God; He will fill us up with the gift of living waters.
It is a gift that will give us complete satisfaction. There will be healing of all things. No more sorrow, no more hunger, no more pain. Our brokenness will become wholeness.
We will never be thirsty again and we will enter the gates to the promised land like the nation of Israel did soon after that day when they found the well; with a victorious battle song on our lips and God’s love in our hearts.
Until then; there will be battles along the way.
We must keep fighting and moving forward; but always with a song of joy and praise and thanksgiving on our lips and inside our hearts.