Topic
Drawer of water
13 passages cited, from 2 classic reference works.
These works date from 1897–1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- Deuteronomy 29:11Easton · ISBE
Your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water:
- Joshua 9:21Easton · ISBE
And the princes said unto them, Let them live; but let them be hewers of wood and drawers of water unto all the congregation; as the princes had promised them.
- Joshua 9:23Easton · ISBE
Now therefore ye are cursed, and there shall none of you be freed from being bondmen, and hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God.
- Genesis 24:1–67ISBE
And Abraham was old, and well stricken in age: and the LORD had blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh: And I will make thee swear by…
- Genesis 24:11ISBE
And he made his camels to kneel down without the city by a well of water at the time of the evening, even the time that women go out to draw water.
- Genesis 24:13ISBE
Behold, I stand here by the well of water; and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water:
- Genesis 24:16ISBE
And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her: and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher, and came up.
- Joshua 9:17ISBE
And the children of Israel journeyed, and came unto their cities on the third day. Now their cities were Gibeon, and Chephirah, and Beeroth, and Kirjath-jearim.
- 1 Samuel 9:11ISBE
¶ And as they went up the hill to the city, they found young maidens going out to draw water, and said unto them, Is the seer here?
- Isaiah 12:3ISBE
Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.
- Nahum 3:14ISBE
Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strong holds: go into clay, and tread the morter, make strong the brickkiln.
- John 4:1–54ISBE
When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, (Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,) He left Judæa, and departed again into Galilee. And he must needs go through Samaria.…
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- John 4:7 ISBE
In the reference works
Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897) · 3 references
(Deut. 29:11; Josh. 9:21, 23), a servile employment to which the Gibeonites were condemned.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 15 references
dro'-er, (sho'ebh mayim, from sha'abh, "to bale up" water): In Syria and Palestine, outside of Mt. Lebanon and the Anti- Lebanon, the springs of water are scarce and the inhabitants of these less favored places have always depended upon wells and cisterns for their water supply. This necessitates some device for drawing the water. In the case of a cistern or shallow well, an earthenware water jar or a bucket made of tanned goats' skin is lowered into the water by a rope and then raised by pulling up the rope hand over hand (probably the ancient method), or by running the rope over a crude pulley fixed directly over the cistern or well. In the case of deep wells, the rope, attached to a larger bucket, is run over a pulley so that the water may be raised by the drawers walking away from the well as they pull the rope. Frequently animals are hitched to the rope to do the pulling.
In some districts where the water level is not too deep, a flight of steps leading down to the water's edge is constructed in addition to the opening vertically above the water. Such a well is pointed out near Haran in Mesopotamia as the one from which Rebekah drew water for Abraham's servant. In Ge 24:16 we read that Rebekah "went down to the fountain, and filled her pitcher, and came up."
The deep grooves in their curbs, worn by the ropes as the water was being raised, attest to the antiquity of many of the wells of Palestine and Syria. Any one of the hundreds of grooves around a single well was many years in being formed. The fact that the present method of drawing water from these wells is not making these grooves, shows that they are the work of former times.
The drawing of water was considered the work of women or of men unfit for other service (Ge 24:11,13,13; 1Sa 9:11; Joh 4:7). In Syria, today, a girl servant willingly goes to draw the daily supply of water, but seldom is it possible to persuade a boy or man to perform this service. When the well or fountain is at a distance, or much water is needed, tanned skins or earthen jars are filled and transported on the backs of men or donkeys.
Water drawing was usually done at evening time (Ge 24:11), and this custom has remained unchanged. There is no sight more interesting than the daily concourse at a Syrian water source. It is bound to remind one of the Bible stories where the setting is a wellside (Ge 24; Joh 4).
The service of water drawing was associated, in early times, with that of hewer of wood (De 29:11). Joshua made the Gibeonites hewers of wood and drawers of water in exchange for their lives (Jos 9:21,23,17). The inhabitants of Nineveh were exhorted to draw water and fill the cisterns of their fortresses in preparation for a siege (Na 3:14).
Figurative: Water drawing is mentioned in the metaphor of Isa 12:3, "Ye draw water out of the wells of salvation."
James A. Patch
Texts: Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897); International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.