by Dr Lani Wilson

Good day, prayer and fasting faithful. It’s been a long ten days, hasn’t it? I just began waking up without being nauseous; just started sleeping; just felt like I could exhale. Treading a new but not different path can be exhausting.

An unusual word for us to think about this week is cistern. In English translations of the Bible (inclusive of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament) the word cistern does not appear in the New Testament. But it is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible 41 times. A cistern is a manmade or man-adapted space for collecting rainwater in arid areas for essential human functions and health. Where there is groundwater cisterns or wells are used for capturing water from underground sources and rainwater. Evidence of cistern technology can be found as far back as 5500 years ago in what we now call The Middle East and North Africa (History of Water Cisterns: Legacies and Lessons; Larry Mays, George P. Antoniou and Andreas N. Angelakis, Water 2013, 5, 1916-1940; doi:10.3390/w5041916). Thus, they were used for catching rainwater and were indispensable for sanitation, as in toilet flushing. They are still a rare and necessary staple of maintenance of life to this day in some parts of the world.

In 2011, the Water, Sanitation & Hygiene program initiated the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge to bring sustainable sanitation solutions to the 2.5 billion people worldwide who don’t have access to safe, affordable sanitation. Grants have been awarded to sixteen researchers around the world who are using innovative approaches---based on fundamental engineering processes ---for the safe and sustainable management of human waste. In addition to these Reinvent the Toilet Challenge (RTTC) grants, we have made a range of other investments that are aligned with reinventing the toilet, and we are continuously seeking to expand our partnerships on this challenge.
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Development/Reinvent-the-Toilet-Challenge

Clean water is a daily survival struggle for 40 billion people on the planet. After every major disaster around the world, the rescue-medical community fears what will happen without clean water and systems to clear contaminated water: Cholera and other water-borne diseases. Therefore, although cistern is not a common term in the West, it was a life and death reality in antiquity and still is for much of the modern underdeveloped world today.

In the Hebrew Bible cistern referred to a structure designed for water harvest and storage.

By that time the Midianite traders were passing by. His brothers pulled Joseph out of the cistern and sold him for twenty pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites who took Joseph with them down to Egypt.
Genesis 37:28 (TMB)

Drink water from your own cistern and running water from your own well.
Proverbs 5:15 (NET)

Jesus said to her, "Daughter, you took a risk of faith, and now you’re healed and whole. Live well, live blessed! Be healed of your plague."
Mark 5:34 (TMB)

Then he said to the man, “Get up and go your way. Your faith has made you well.
Luke 17:19 (TMB)

They were also used as hiding places or prisons.

Empty cisterns were sometimes used as prisons (Jeremiah 38:6; Lamentations 3:53; Psalm 40:2; 69:15). The "pit" into which Joseph was cast (Genesis 37:24) was a beer or dry well. There are numerous remains of ancient cisterns in all parts of Palestine.
Biblehub.com

Cistern at Piscinas Mirabilis, L.W. Mays
(circa Roman Empire)

For some reason cistern was not used in the New Testament at all, as far as we know, but the word “well” is used both ways.

Now when Jesus[a] learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John” —although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
John 4:1-6 (NRSV)

Our English translations don’t say “Jacob’s cistern;” we refer to that famous site as “Jacob’s well.” We don’t say “the woman at the cistern;” we say the “woman at the well.” It could be just the toss of the language and the way it sounds - in English. Or…?

A cistern had a straightforward, practical, functional quality to it - to hold water. A common metaphorical use was describing human beings as “broken cisterns,” made whole only by God. But the word “well” with its approbation by The Christ when He reassured the unsure and encouraged the newly healed to live on has much more emotive quality. Could the words have been chosen for their literary quality – in English? Or…?

Did the Christ use the word knowingly, sure that it would be used as a noun for a man-made reservoir in the ground for water and that it would bespeak healing, wholeness, hope? It’s a simple question for an unusual question: Were Jesus’ words imparted to future generations with potential for healing because He knew that we would need to make that distinction at such turning points as the one we are faced with today? Would we rather talk about the historical cistern (derived from Latin for “box”), the container in which we find ourselves as African descendants in America in 2016 or would we want to see ourselves as caught in a well (derived from German welle for “the wave”) of despair unseen in decades, a well from which we must emerge, headed toward healing? A cistern contains water or even people, sometimes. The word “well” because of its positive association gives hope, even when used in other circumstances as a noun to describe a hole in the ground.

But if you fulfill the royal law as expressed in this scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.
James 2:8 (NET)

Then are we not surprised when at this time in history the word that is reportedly used by The Christ translated from the original Aramaic-Hebrew through many translations is one of comfort, health, and hope as opposed to one of solely functional usage?

Cistern. Well. Cistern. Well. Cistern. Well.

Sometimes, especially in complex times, it is the simplest explanation that is the most true. Both cisterns and wells can be dangerous as well as life-giving. It really depends on who comes to the rescue. Several translations use both words to describe Joseph’s predicament.

Reuben heard the brothers talking and intervened to save him, "We’re not going to kill him. No murder. Go ahead and throw him in this cistern out here in the wild, but don’t hurt him." Reuben planned to go back later and get him out and take him back to his father. When Joseph reached his brothers, they ripped off the fancy coat he was wearing, grabbed him, and threw him into a cistern. The cistern was dry; there wasn’t any water in it…By that time the Midianite traders were passing by. His brothers pulled Joseph out of the cistern and sold him for twenty pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites who took Joseph with them down to Egypt.
Genesis 37:21-24; 38 (TMB)

Reuben heard this and tried to protect Joseph from them. “Let’s not kill him,” he said. “Don’t murder him or even harm him. Just throw him into a dry well out here in the desert.” Reuben planned to rescue Joseph later and take him back to his father. When Joseph came to his brothers, they pulled off his fancy coat[a] and threw him into a dry well…When the Midianite merchants came by, Joseph’s brothers took him out of the well, and for twenty pieces of silver they sold him to the Ishmaelites[b] who took him to Egypt.
Ibid. (CEV)

Joseph began life in Egypt as a slave (Gn 39:1). As we saw in Part I of this study, these events in the life of Joseph should be dated to the great Middle Kingdom period of Egyptian history (2000-1782 BC).
Charles Aling, Ph.D., Bible and the Spade
February 23, 2010

God rescued Joseph from that hole in the ground and put him in a place of opportunity for himself and eventually all of his people. We have been in a foreign land for the same 400+ years that Joseph’s descendants eventually lived in Egypt. God in Christ has rescued us from that same well, cistern, to a knowledge of Herself through suffering. Have we been thrown back?

NO.

But you say that it feels like it, for now, for a minute. And even as we pull our heads up to look up toward The Light, it does not necessarily signal a retrenchment as we fear. We have something Joseph didn’t have and could not foresee: We have his descendant, The Nazarene, Christ Jesus, God Himself.

Jesus the Christ conquered death. What’s a well, a cistern, to Him?

• Not to neglect the pain and nauseating betrayal of that fall into that well;
• Not to forget the deaths of those who didn’t survive that fall into the cistern;
• Not to diminish the anguish, torture, and desperation of that fall into the well;
• Not to diminish the trials, tricks, and attacks in that foreign land after the fall;
• Not to erase the years of lost relations and estrangement after the fall.

But to remember Joseph’s empowerment and sanguine rescue and reconciliation, all with explosive power and poignancy, 2000+ years before The Christ was born. Is this a cistern we are in for the moment, a well? If we look at Joseph’s life, Jesus’ distant forefather, we see that God did a mighty housecleaning of those who betrayed Joseph along the way. Although we are not privy to God’s plans, we are assured of our story. From the very bloodline of God, comes our rescue, our resolve, our establishment. Hear Isaiah 43:19 (TMB):

Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? There it is! I’m making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands. Wild animals will say ’Thank you!’-the coyotes and the buzzards-Because I provided water in the desert, rivers through the sun-baked earth, drinking water for the people I chose, the people I made especially for myself, a people custom-made to praise me. We’ve talked about that new thing that God was going to do for this little Deep East Oakland Outpost, His church, for Her people. Is the situation new? Not really. Are the people renewed for the battle? Maybe that’s what must change.

And the one seated on the throne said: “Look! I am making all things new!” Then he said to me, “Write it down, because these words are reliable and true.” He also said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the one who is thirsty I will give water free of charge from the spring of the water of life.
Revelation 21:5-6 (TMB)

And we know what the cisterns, the wells are for, right? To hold water, to cleanse, heal, soothe, and grow all living things.

LORD Jesus, we come temporarily in this well of sorrow, of shock, of despair…for a moment. Just as Joseph, Christ Jesus’ own kinsman-forefather, seemed doomed in that cistern, that well, so we have felt in the last week. But we can see The Light, the rescue. We regain our strength, refocus our gaze, reach up for the edge of Light, and we come up: Renewed, regained, restructured, resurrected with You because we can do nothing else…in that well. Joseph didn’t know the end of the story, but we do.

You arose.
And because You arose
So do we.
And we get up.

We. Get. Up.

Amen.