presence of God that brought the refreshing draught. And that that
incident was in Isaiah's mind when he wrote our text is very clear to
anybody who will observe that it occurs in the middle of a song of
praise, which corresponds to the Israelites' song at the Red Sea after
the destruction of Pharaoh, and is part of a great prophecy in which he
describes God's future blessings and mercies under images constantly
drawn from the Egyptian bondage and the Exodus in the desert. Now, that
interpretation, or rather that application, of the words of my text, was
very familiar to the Jews long, long before the New Testament was
thought about. For, as many of you will know, there came in the course
of time a number of ceremonies to be added to a feast established by
Moses himself--the Feast of Tabernacles. That was a feast in which the
whole body of the Israelitish people dwelt for a week in leafy booths,
in order to remind them of the time when they were wanderers in the
wilderness; and as is usually the case, the ritual of the celebration
developed a number of additional symbolical observances which were
tacked on to it in the course of centuries. Amongst these there was this
very memorable one: that on each of the days of the Feast of
Tabernacles, at a given point in the ceremonial, the priests went from
the temple, winding down the rocky path on the temple mountain, to the
Pool of Siloam in the valley below, and there in their golden vases they
drew the cool sparkling water, which they bore up, and amidst the blare
of trumpets and the clash of cymbals poured it on the altar, whilst the
people chanted the words of my text, 'With joy shall ye draw water out
of the wells of salvation.'

That ceremonial had been going on for eight hundred years from Isaiah's
time; and once more the period came round when it was to be performed;
and on the seven days of the feast, punctually at the appointed time,
the procession wound down the rocky slopes, drew the water in the golden