fountain of living water

for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:13)

The phrase “broken cisterns” has enjoyed some popularity in Christian circles, particularly with songwriters. It is a rather poetic image God paints for us in describing how worthless is our idolatry.

The people of Israel turned away from God and pursued the worship of false gods, idols. In Jeremiah chapter two, God declares the foolishness of this. God himself is “the fountain of living waters“. This is language that Jesus later uses in John 4. Anything else we might worship, be it Allah, Buddha, sex, money, our own supposed goodness, etc., all these things won’t hold water. They won’t ultimately satisfy. They leave us wanting more, still thirsty.

Only God satisfies completely. Only God satisfies eternally. Everything else will leave us feeling empty, thirsty, and dissatisfied. Oh, there may be some temporary quenching of our thirst, but the cistern is broken, the water will leak out, and we will be thirsty again, waiting for something to fill up our cistern, or running to the next cistern hoping to find a drink.

When we look to God for satisfaction though, he is like a fountain of living water. The fountain is always flowing, never dry, and the water is pure and fresh, never stale or stagnant. We don’t have to run from one thing to the next looking for fulfillment. We can rest in God, being eternally filled with living water!