Come, All who thirst!

In this week's upcoming Haftarah reading, we read what is, personally, one of my favorite passages in the whole TaNaKh!!!

Let's take a look at it:

Huh???

Okay, what's the obvious question here!

And just in case we misheard, he repeats it for us. Here it is with a little more context:

Okay, there are some major questions to ask about this verse. And by the way, when reading the TaNaKh, one of the most fun parts in my experience is to pause and just come up with as many questions as I can think of for a particular verse or passage.

So what are all of your questions? And can you think of any possible answers? (Your questions should include some historical-background questions as well, such as Who is the speaker and who is his/her intended audience?)

Questions

• Literal? Or metaphorical?
• Where does it take place?
• When?
• If no money, what would they buy it with???
• Why specifically wine and milk?
• Who does "all" refer to?
• If there's food readily available that will be given at no cost, why continuously emphasize the "buying?"
• What can we learn about the person from the "Ahoy!" declaration.
• Why this announcement? What's going on?

Note from the heading that this comes from the Scroll of Isaiah, which is one of the sections in our TaNaKh. (Do you remember what "TaNaKh" stands for?)

What makes the study of the TaNaKh so enjoyable is that it is not one book written by one author, but an ongoing conversation spanning hundreds of years! One person might write something, and then years later, someone reading it will be moved to respond; Either to expand on it, to comment on it, even to argue with it; As time goes on, this would happen many times, until finally someone would collect all of these writings, bring them all together, and call them "The TaNaKh" as we have it today.

To understand one section, it is oftentimes important to understand What this particular author has in his or her library? What are they riffing on?

Sometimes this is a very hard question to answer, and other times it's easier. Oftentimes it is a matter of conjecture. But I'll show you a couple of verses that I think does help us out here, big time.

The first one comes from the "prayer-poem" collection, called Psalms:

Okay first of all... What a beautiful poem. What do you think about the language and imagery?

Before we connect this back to our verse above - any thoughts on this one on its own? What does the poet mean? And once you have a possible answer; Might it help us with our questions above?

As you read through the TaNaKh, you will find an abundance of water-imagery. (Can you think of any examples?)

One question always worth asking is: Is this meant to be taken literally? Metaphorically? Both? What do you think with regard to the lines we've seen above?

Let's look a one more:

Is this familiar to anyone? (If not, take a look at the Hebrew, you might get it then.)

So what do you think?

First of all; Who's the speaker? Who is the intended audience? Is the intention to be understood literally? Metaphorically? Any other important questions on your mind as you read through this one?

Now that we've had a chance to explore a number of other contexts where water comes up, let's revisit our original verse to see if our reading might be informed in any interesting ways;

But this time, I'll once again give you just a little more context:

Can we take any of the insights on water from any of the verses above and apply them here? Are there any possible meanings which you see in this verse which you didn't see the first time?

Final Reflections:

• How many of these possible understandings could result in a reading of our first passage which is applicable to you in your own life?
• How could you extend an inviting hand to others to quench their thirst, who otherwise might not have the means to do so?
  • How have you done so in the past? How have you been invited to?