And he said unto me, These waters issue out toward the east district, and go down into the plain, and go into the sea; when they are brought forth into the sea, the waters [thereof] shall be healed.
In Ezekiel's vision a stream leaves the temple and runs east. It goes down through the valley of the Jordan and empties into the Dead Sea, and there the salt water turns fresh. Is this a picture of spiritual blessing, a promise of real change to the land, or both?
The sea here is not the Mediterranean. It is the lake at the southern end of the land, and Scripture calls it by several names:
The lake on the south of Palestine, now commonly called the Dead Sea, because it was long thought that nothing alive could exist in it. But some simple organisms have been found at its northern end. It is called "the Salt Sea" in Numbers 34:3, 12, and "the Sea of the Arabah" in Deuteronomy 4:49. It is "the East Sea" in Ezekiel 47:18 and Joel 2:20, and just "the Sea" in Ezekiel 47:8. The name "Salt Sea" is very fitting, for it holds far more salt than ordinary sea water.
Some early translators missed what "the Arabah" means:
Some of the ancient versions (the Greek, Syriac, and Arabic) have missed the plain and certain meaning of verse 8. All three blundered alike in making "Arabah" mean Galilee ... instead of the plain or valley of the Jordan.
Of all the places the river could reach, it reaches the deadest. The ESV says the water will "become fresh"; older translations say the sea will be "healed":
The Dead Sea will be healed. It has stood as God's witness to His hatred of sin, for many believe that the guilty cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah, lie sunk in its depths. At present no fish can live in its over-salted waters, and no bird flies over its dreary waste.
What the water does depends on where it comes from:
The waters that flow out from the sanctuary stand for the life-giving power that comes from the throne of God. That power flows through His temple and heals the Dead Sea, the lasting token of judgment. The waters teem with fish, and the trees that grow beside them are full of fruit. Only the marshes remain under the curse — they are "given to salt." The blessing of that day is real and abundant, but not complete.
Another writer traces the same water back through the altar of sacrifice:
Only the stream flowing out from the glory of God, by way of the altar of sacrifice, can turn the wilderness into a garden and undo the ruin that sin has caused. Within the limits of God's purpose "there is nothing — nothing too sunken, too useless, too doomed — that the grace of God cannot redeem, lift and make rich with life."
One writer holds both sides together:
When His throne is lifted high in Zion, the living waters will flow out (see Ezekiel 47:1-12) and bring amazing fruitfulness to the very earth. This passage is no doubt a picture of spiritual blessing, but we must first take it in its literal sense. The curse will be lifted off the face of creation.
One writer traces this healing back to its source in Christ:
Malachi says that for those who fear God's name the sun of righteousness will rise "with healing in His wings." That phrase means this: all who come under the influence of Christ in that day will receive divine healing, and He will bring it about by giving them a fuller life. (The promise is addressed especially to the faithful few.) So life and healing are clearly connected. We learn further from the book of Revelation that the leaves of the tree of life — and this is Christ risen — will be for the healing of the nations.
after
Another writer names what the water stands for:
Water is a type of the Spirit of God in His life-giving activity, through the word of God. Life and blessing, through the Word and Spirit, flow out to carry healing to the desolate places of the earth. Wherever the waters flow, life springs up: the bitter waters are healed and fish abound in the very lake of death.
- Source — The river starts at the sanctuary and flows by way of the altar; the healing power is God's, not the water's.
- Direction — It runs east and down into the Arabah, the plain of the Jordan, and on into the Salt Sea.
- Target — It heads for the one place that stands as God's witness against sin, where no fish can live.
- Result — Healed means alive: fish in the water, fruit on the trees, and healing for the nations.
- Limit — The marshes stay salt. The blessing of that day is real and abundant, but not complete.
And it shall come to pass that every living thing which moveth, whithersoever the double river shall come, shall live. And there shall be a very great multitude of fish; for these waters shall come thither, and [the waters of the sea] shall be healed; and everything shall live whither the river cometh.
In Ezekiel's vision a river flows out of the temple and runs down to the Dead Sea. Here he learns what the water does when it arrives. The promise is life. But commentators differ: is this a real change in the land, a picture of spiritual blessing, or both?
The river's power comes from its source, not its size.
The river flows out from the house filled with God's glory. It passes the altar of sacrifice, where the work of judgment is finished. It runs down to the sea of death. It takes away the curse of that sea and brings fruitfulness and life where barrenness and death had ruled. For the Deliverer has come out of Zion, and creation sings its Hallelujah.
God does not send the stream to an easy target. He aims it at the one sea everyone knew was dead.
God takes that valley just because it is such an example of dryness, and He declares that it will be watered then. It is because the east sea is famous as a sea of death that He will make it teem with life. Blessing will spread to the ends of the earth, and from this centre — the house of Jehovah.
That sea also carries a meaning: it stands for what humanity did to the world given into its hands.
The Dead Sea and the land around it are a symbol of the utter ruin that man, by his sin, brought into the world that God gave him to rule (Gen. 1:28-30). But "the wages of sin is death."
The crowds of fish are more than scenery. One writer sees the healed sea as a picture of Israel's own return to life.
When Israel is restored in a future day, a river will flow out of the house — the future temple. It will go down into the desert and run into this sea, and the waters will be healed. En-gedi, about halfway along the western shore of the Dead Sea, will be one of the fishermen's stations. This is a beautiful picture of God one day bringing to life the dead and dry bones of Israel and Judah, and making them the means of life to others.
The promise is wide, yet the vision sets a limit two verses later. That limit marks the edge of the millennium — the coming age of blessing on earth.
But the "healing waters" will not restore every part of the earth. Its marshes and its pools will not be healed; they will be given up to salt. The new heavens and the new earth in their fullness and absolute perfection belong to the eternal state, and will not come during the millennium. Here we read of the "great sea" and of "the great multitude of fish". But no sea will exist in the eternal state, when God will dwell with men.
Commentators differ in emphasis here. Some read the river mainly as a symbol of the Spirit's work. One writer answers that a symbol and a real river are not rivals.
It is God's own blessing that will change this familiar, yet awful, scene of death outside into life and fruitfulness, though it flows out from the house of Jehovah. Whatever outpouring of the Holy Spirit goes with it, there is no solid ground to doubt that this part of the vision is just as literal as what comes before and after. It is all of one piece.
This river also speaks to the present. One writer links its living waters to the Spirit given to believers now.
The living waters will be the sign that the living Lord is among them. But the Spirit was to be given when Jesus was glorified on high, long before the Millennial Day arrives. He marks His presence, and His dwelling in believers, by the outflow of the living waters in a spiritual and not a material way. Again and again we see it proved true: what Israel will enjoy in a more material way in that age, the believer is to know in a spiritual way in this age.
- Source. The river starts in the house filled with God's glory and passes the altar of sacrifice.
- Target. God aims the stream at the sea of death, the very picture of the ruin sin brought on the world man was given to rule.
- Reach. Wherever it arrives, life follows — and the healed become the means of life to others.
- Limit. The marshes are left to salt; this age of blessing still falls short of the new heavens and new earth.
- Now. Israel will enjoy this in material form one day. The believer knows it already in spiritual form, through the Spirit given when Jesus was glorified.