2 Raja-raja 3:17

3:17 for this is what the Lord says, ‘You will not feel ¹  any wind or see any rain, but this valley will be full of water and you and your cattle and animals will drink.’

Mazmur 36:10

36:10 Extend ²  your loyal love to your faithful followers, ³ 

and vindicate ⁴  the morally upright! ⁵ 

Yeremia 2:13

2:13 “Do so because my people have committed a double wrong:

they have rejected me,

the fountain of life-giving water, ⁶ 

and they have dug cisterns for themselves,

cracked cisterns which cannot even hold water.”

Yeremia 17:13

17:13 You are the one in whom Israel may find hope. ⁷ 

All who leave you will suffer shame.

Those who turn away from you ⁸  will be consigned to the nether world. ⁹ 

For they have rejected you, the Lord, the fountain of life. ¹⁰ 

Yohanes 4:10

4:10 Jesus answered ¹¹  her, “If you had known ¹²  the gift of God and who it is who said to you, ‘Give me some water ¹³  to drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ¹⁴ 

Yohanes 4:14

4:14 But whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, ¹⁵  but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain ¹⁶  of water springing up ¹⁷  to eternal life.”

[3:17]  ¹ tn Heb “see.”

[36:10]  ² tn Heb “draw out to full length.”

[36:10]  ³ tn Heb “to those who know you.” The Hebrew verb יָדַע (yada’, “know”) is used here of those who “know” the Lord in the sense that they recognize his royal authority and obey his will (see Jer 22:16).

[36:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “and your justice to.” The verb “extend” is understood by ellipsis in the second line (see the previous line).

[36:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “the pure of heart.” The “heart” is here viewed as the seat of one’s moral character and motives. The “pure of heart” are God’s faithful followers who trust in and love the Lord and, as a result, experience his deliverance (see Pss 7:10; 11:2; 32:11; 64:10; 94:15; 97:11).

[2:13]  ⁶ tn It is difficult to decide whether to translate “fresh, running water” which the Hebrew term for “living water” often refers to (e.g., Gen 26:19; Lev 14:5), or “life-giving water” which the idiom “fountain of life” as source of life and vitality often refers to (e.g., Ps 36:9; Prov 13:14; 14:27). The contrast with cisterns, which collected and held rain water, suggests “fresh, running water,” but the reality underlying the metaphor contrasts the Lord, the source of life, health, and vitality, with useless idols that cannot do anything.

[17:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “O glorious throne, O high place from the beginning, O hope of Israel, O Lord.” Commentators and translators generally understand these four lines (which are three in the Hebrew original) as two predications, one eulogizing the temple and the other eulogizing God. However, that does not fit the context very well and does not take into account the nature of Jeremiah’s doxology in Jeremiah 16:19-20 (and compare also 10:6-7). There the doxology is context motivated, focused on God, and calls on relevant attributes in the form of metaphorical epithets. That fits nicely here as well. For the relevant parallel passages see the study note.

[17:13]  sn As King and Judge seated on his heavenly throne on high the Lord metes out justice. For examples of this motif see Jer 25:30; Ps 11:4; 9:4, 7 (9:5, 8 HT). As the place of sanctuary he offers refuge for those who are fleeing for safety. Ezek 11:16 and Isa 18:1-4 are examples of passages using that motif. Finally, the Lord has been referred to earlier as the object of Israel’s hope (Jer 14:8). All of these are relevant to the choices that the Lord has placed before them, trust or turn away, and the threat that as all-knowing Judge he will reward people according to their behavior.

[17:13]  ⁸ tc The translation is based on an emendation suggested in W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:500, n. b-b. The emendation involves following the reading preferred by the Masoretes (the Qere) and understanding the preposition with the following word as a corruption of the suffix on it. Thus the present translation reads וּסוּרֶיךָ אֶרֶץ (usurekha ’erets) instead of וּסוּרַי בָּאֶרֶץ (usuray ba’erets, “and those who leave me will be written in the earth”), a reading which is highly improbable since all the other pronouns are second singular.

[17:13]  ⁹ tn Or “to the world of the dead.” An alternative interpretation is: “will be as though their names were written in the dust”; Heb “will be written in the dust.” The translation follows the nuance of “earth” listed in HALOT 88 s.v. אֶרֶץ 4 and found in Jonah 2:6 (2:7 HT); Job 10:21-22. For the nuance of “enrolling, registering among the number” for the verb translated here “consign” see BDB 507 s.v. כָּתַב Qal.3 and 508 s.v. Niph.2 and compare usage in Ezek 13:9 and Ps 69:28 (69:29 HT).

[17:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “The fountain of living water.” For an earlier use of this metaphor and the explanation of it see Jer 2:13 and the notes there. There does not appear to be any way to retain this metaphor in the text without explaining it. In the earlier text the context would show that literal water was not involved. Here it might still be assumed that the Lord merely gives life-giving water.

[4:10]  ¹¹ tn Grk “answered and said to her.”

[4:10]  ¹² tn Or “if you knew.”

[4:10]  ¹³ tn The phrase “some water” is supplied as the understood direct object of the infinitive πεῖν (pein).

[4:10]  ¹⁴ tn This is a second class conditional sentence in Greek.

[4:10]  sn The word translated living is used in Greek of flowing water, which leads to the woman’s misunderstanding in the following verse. She thought Jesus was referring to some unknown source of drinkable water.

[4:14]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “will never be thirsty forever.” The possibility of a later thirst is emphatically denied.

[4:14]  ¹⁶ tn Or “well.” “Fountain” is used as the translation for πηγή (phgh) here since the idea is that of an artesian well that flows freely, but the term “artesian well” is not common in contemporary English.

[4:14]  ¹⁷ tn The verb ἁλλομένου (Jallomenou) is used of quick movement (like jumping) on the part of living beings. This is the only instance of its being applied to the action of water. However, in the LXX it is used to describe the “Spirit of God” as it falls on Samson and Saul. See Judg 14:6, 19; 15:14; 1 Kgdms 10:2, 10 LXX (= 1 Sam 10:6, 10 ET); and Isa 35:6 (note context).