1 Kings 19: 3 Beersheba Wells

After the face off in Mount Camel, Elijah fled from Ahab and Jezebel. When he came to Beersheba, he left his servant there and went into the desert. (Negev)

Beersheba today-located on the northern edge of the Negev desert 115 kilometres south-east of Tel Aviv and 120 kilometres south-west of Jerusalem. And is the seventh-largest city in Israel

• Be'er is the Hebrew word for well; sheva could mean "seven" or "oath" (from the Hebrew word shvu'a).

Significance of this place call Beersheba?

Tracing back history in Genesis, there seems to be similarities:

1. There was a time of famine

2. Sins and idolatory were peak high:After the Sodom and Gomorrah destruction, Abraham separated from Lot and moved into this region in Negev. For Elijah , it was after the showdown with the Baals and he came to Beersheba.

In Gen 21 & 27 We saw the generations of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob at the wells.

1. Gen 21:14 : After Isaac was born, Hagar and Ishmael was sent to the desert in Beersheba. Ishmael almost died and we saw God answered his cries. He gave the vision of a well of water to Hagar. God was with Ishmael as he grew up.

2. Gen 21: 25 : Abraham & Abimelech : Abraham complained to Abimelech (King of Gerar) about a well of water that the king's servants had seized. Then came the oath between the 2 of them : Abimelech accepting the 7 ewe lambs from Abraham (who lied about Sarah's wife-sister relationship) as witnessed that Abraham dug the well. V31 "so the place was called Beersheba" - well of 7 or well of oath.

3. Gen 27 : Isaac & Abimelech: Like his father Abraham, Isaac lied about his wife Rebekah to King Abimelech. But was later found out and so king had to send Isaac away . Lots of fighting over the wells dug and finally the last well in v32 which they called Shibah (V33 "..and to this day the town has been called Beersheba")

Some names of the wells:-

• V19 : First well was called Esek :meaning 'dispute'
• V21 : Second well was called Sitnah : Meaning 'opposition'
• V22 : Third well was called Rehoboth : Meaning "room'
• V25: Fourth well was built in Beersheba where the Lord appeared to Isaac with the blessing. And after Isaac built the altar there, his servants built this well. Treaty was made here again. Water was later found in the well v32 and the well was called Shibah : meaning 'oath or seven'

4. John 4:6 :Jacob's Well - where Jesus met the Samaritan woman . The record of this conversation below:-

4Now he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" 8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])
10Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
11"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"
13Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
15The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."

Throughout history, we see the importance of wells. People at that time of famine badly needed the fresh supply of water from such wells. Beersheba - this name itself is a reminder of how God gave the vision of well to Ishmael and the oaths taken for taking the rightful ownership of those wells of the partriach from Abraham to Isaac and Jacob.

These wells at such a place provided refuge and rest. Even tired Jesus was at Jacob's well meeting that Samaritan woman.

Elijah badly needly the supply of the water in the desert after leaving Beersheba. We can be like Elijah - needing the recharge during those low times in our life - the famine times . God seems faraway. Or we can fall into sin and idolatory. Or we can face different wells of opposition, dispute and misunderstanding with people. We get discouraged. And we need to slow down, repent and turn to the source of the living waters again.

One can go on 40 days without food. But one cannot go on without water. Like the Haiti earthquake that struck on 12/1/2010, the Haitians suffered from the lack of water in the aftermath of the quake.

So take heart.

Isaiah 12:3" With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation."

We remember those wells dug by the forefathers. The Lord God never forsake His children. Jesus is indeed greater than Jacob. Matt 5:6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled" May we continue to draw with joy from the water that Jesus gives, so that we will never thirst and within us this will become in us a spring of water welling up in eternal life!