What Are You Drinking?

The authors of the Bible use poetry to communicate the most powerful of ideas. This is most likely why two-thirds of the Bible is poetry.

No other genre (style of writing) is as open to such a broad spectrum of interpretation and application. Poetry is a perfect medium for a message that has been passed on for thousands of years, to hundreds of cultures.

Furthermore, no other genre communicates as potently in as small a space. Take for example, this poem from the book of Jeremiah, that highlights the lament of a God who has been rejected by his people:

                                For my people have committed two evils; 

                                    they have forsaken me, 

                                the fountain of living water, 

                                    and dug out cisterns for themselves, 

                                  cracked cisterns 

                                    that can hold no water. 2.13

There were three water sources in the Ancient Near East at this time. In order of "freshness":

Natural Spring

Well

Cistern

Cisterns were the least desirable water source in the ancient world. The water was frequently contaminated with feces and/or dead animals and because of this, was a haven for disease.

It was bad enough that the people rejected Yahweh, the fountain of living water. But they didn't stop there, they went on to dig cisterns to hold their own water. The cisterns represent the idols the Israelites fashioned with their hands and looked to for life.

But this is not the complete image Jeremiah paints for us. The poem continues:

                                    and dug out cisterns for themselves,

                                      cracked cisterns 

                                        that can hold no water. 2.13

Note how each line builds on the other: "they dug cisterns, No! Not just cisterns, but cracked cisterns! Cisterns that don't hold water!"

Israel traded Yahweh, the source of life overflowing, for dank, broken cisterns, that did not even function!

The application for us is important. Where do we trade the substance of God for things we create and  attempt to control? Where are we not submitting to God and instead trying to store our own life source in ways that simply don't work?

In the end the question may be, "What are you drinking?"