When he first arrives in Harran, at Paddan-Aram, the home of Laban his uncle, Jacob sees a well.
Wells are mentioned frequently in Genesis. Twice Hagar finds a well in the wilderness (Genesis 16:14; 21:19). Philistines seize Abraham’s well (21:22-34), and Abraham’s chief servant finds a wife for Isaac at a well (24:10-27). Later, Philistines fill in the wells of Isaac, forcing him to move on (26:18-33). This does not stop at the end of Genesis: Moses too flees to Midian from the presence of Pharaoh, and stops at a well, where he fights off some shepherds and waters the flock of Reuel, who will become his father-in-law. Jacob anticipates Moses, the deliverer of the descendants of Jacob, the one drawn from the water who leads through water to water.
Oases grow up around wells, and when we add animals, a man, and a woman, we have an Edenic setting. Jacob travels to the east, to the wilderness land, to the city of man, and begins to reestablish Eden in this strange land. He does not turn the fertile land into a desert; he turns the desert into a garden.
Jacob, like the other Patriarchs, is a new Adams, traveling an arid land bringing water from the rocky soil. When he arrives in Paddan-Aram (Genesis 28:2, 5), Jacob opens a well closed up with a “large stone” (29:2). The stone, and the difficulty of removing it, is emphasized a number of times in the passage. The stone is large (v. 2), and it would be removed only when all the sheep would gather (v. 3). Moving the stone was the work of several men: notice the “they” in verse 3. Yet, when Jacob sees Rachel and knows she is Laban’s daughter, he “rolled the stone from the mouth of the well, and watered the flock of Laban his mother’s brother” (v. 10). With the water from the well, he waters the flock of Laban (29:10), and greets Rachel with a kiss. At the well, the first Israel opens water for flocks and greets a future bride.
Jacob, the chosen one; Jacob the one persecuted and hounded from the land by his brother; Jacob, who traveled east of Eden: This Jacob performs a feat of strength that opens life-giving, refreshing, renewing water from a rock. He opens the well among the “sons of the east” (29:1), those who are distant from the presence of God. He forms an Eden in the midst of the city of man, among the sons of the east.
Centuries later, Jesus of Nazareth came to the well of Sychar, a well on a parcel of ground given by Jacob to Joseph, a well that Jacob himself dug and gave to the people. At this well, Jesus falls into conversation with a Samaritan woman. They talk about water, and also about the woman’s checkered marital history. Jesus offers water to the woman, and in surprise the woman observes that Jesus has nothing with which to draw. Jesus says that the water He offers will satisfy thirst forever. “You are not greater than our father Jacob, are you?” asks the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar to the stranger who offered her living water.
Of course, He is. Jesus is greater than Jacob; He is the true Israel. He is the eternal word of God in flesh. He is the Eternal Word of God made Israel. And as the greater Jacob, Jesus is the greater Shepherd, who waters His flock and leads them into green pastures. In John’s gospel, where this encounter at the well is recorded, Jesus is never without water. And because he is not without water, He is the greater Jacob, the true Israel.
The gospel story begins with water, as John the Baptist baptizes in water and announces the coming of a greater prophet who will baptize with the Spirit (1:29-34). In His first sign, Jesus transforms the water of Jewish purification into the wine of a wedding celebration (2:1-11), and later tells Nicodemus that one must be born of “water and Spirit” to enter the kingdom (3:5).
Jesus promises living water to the Samaritan woman at the well, a type of the new bride of the Last Adam (4:9-15), and later John informs us that the water Jesus offers is the Spirit Himself (7:37-39). At the last day of the feast of Booths, Jesus stands and invites everyone to come to Him for living water: If anyone is thirsty, he says, let him come to me and drink. And he promises that anyone who believes in Him and drinks of the water He offers, “from his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.” Jesus is the well of life; He is the rock in the wilderness that flows with living water. Yet, this is not all He promises to His people: Those who believe in Jesus and drink of Him will themselves become wells, fountains, springs that well up with water that flows for the renewal of the world. John informs us that “this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive.” The living water is the Spirit, flowing from Jesus, the Greater Jacob, into believers; and flowing out from believers to refresh the world.
And all this comes to fulfillment when Jesus dies. When Jesus dies, a soldier pierces His side, and as water and blood flow from Him, He becomes the Rock of the wilderness and the temple of Ezekiel (19:34-35; cf. Exodus 17:1-7; Ezekiel 47; 1 Corinthians 10:1-4). He promises that everyone who believes in Him will have flow with “rivers of living water” (John 7:38), but Jesus is the first. He becomes the well from which flow waters of cleansing, waters that transform the waste into a garden. On the cross, Jesus is the Greater Jacob: Not a chosen one who digs wells, but a chosen one who is a well of living water.
But this is not the end. It is supremely in His resurrection that Jesus is the greater Jacob. At His resurrection, the “large stone” is rolled away (Matthew 27:60; Mark 16:4). Under the law, tombs are intensely defiling (Numbers 19), but Jesus’ tomb becomes a spring, flowing with life not death. Jesus comes out to greet the new bride, the new Rachel, Mary, in a garden (John 20:11-18) and to breathe the Spirit, pouring living water, on His disciples (John 20:22-23), the shepherds of His new flock.
Jacob was a chosen younger brother, and grew to be a “perfect” man; Jacob was persecuted out of his homeland by a murderous brother; Jacob went to dwell among the sons of the east, and prospered in exile; Jacob, in a feat of strength, rolled away a stone and watered the flock. And at every point, Jesus is the Greater Jacob: He is the chosen one, the younger and last Adam, who goes into a far country out of his Father’s house, is persecuted by his brothers, finally driven outside the camp. And in the greatest feat of power, He rolls away a stone to release the Spirit that will water the flock, so that we might become wells and fountains of living water. Jacob was the father of Israel, but he died and was buried and has remained dead. Jesus is the Greater Jacob, the son of Israel and Israel Himself, because He is risen, He is risen indeed.
Peter J. Leithart is President of Trinity House.