Above all else, do this!" Even as Ahaz and Hezekiah knew that the well that supplied Jerusalem was of the greatest strategic importance and needed to be guarded and kept safe from the enemy, so this proverb directs the young man to guard his heart. "Guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.
All life in Jerusalem flowed from that well. The Gihon well was the wellspring of life. Years later, to ensure the security of the water supply, Hezekiah son of Ahaz, dug a tunnel to the spring outside Jerusalem so that even during a siege the city would have a secure water supply. Without water, a city would fall to siege in a short time. He would need to ensure that the spring and the pools and cisterns were well-guarded. Assyria is about to lay siege to Jerusalem and King Ahaz goes out to inspect the city's water supply. Isaac would dig another and Abimelech would take it by force. Isaac would dig a well and Abimelech's men would take it by force. In Genesis 21 and 26, we can read of the conflicts between Abraham and Isaac's herdsmen and those who worked for Abimelech. Wells and springs have an important function in a land where there are no rivers. In ancient times water was collected and stored in cisterns or drawn from deep wells. This river flows down a deep valley far below the farmlands of Israel. In Israel, there are no rivers that flow year-round, except for the Jordan which flows from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. Those who still have some water for their farms understand that it is a precious commodity. The fields are barren, the cattle thirsty, wildfires rage through tinder dry forests. Though in some areas irrigation is available for thousands of acres of farmland, vast areas of land have no water. The fields are parched and the cattle are being sold off because there is no water for them. Each day the local newspapers tell us of farms whose wells and dugouts are drying up. In southern Alberta this year, we are experiencing the worst drought in decades: a drought of severity, some say, not seen since the dirty thirties.
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