Question 1

What is the river flowing from the temple meant to show?

Accepted Answer

The river flowing from the temple shows how God’s grace and life flow out from His presence to a needy world. It starts as a small trickle at the temple threshold, near the altar, then grows into a deep river that no one can cross. This pictures how God begins His work in what seems a small way, but it grows wider and deeper. The river shows God giving cleansing, refreshment, and new life through His word, His Spirit, and the good news about His saving work.

Question 2

Why does the water in Ezekiel's vision keep getting deeper?

Accepted Answer

The water deepens from ankle to knee to waist, and finally becomes a river to swim in. This pictures the way God’s grace and truth grow and spread. At first, what God is doing may seem small or simple, like shallow water. But as His word goes out and people believe, the work grows stronger and reaches further. It also hints at how a believer’s understanding and experience can grow, moving from a basic grasp of the faith into a deeper walk with God that they cannot fully measure or control.

Question 3

What does it mean that the sea and waters are healed by the river?

Accepted Answer

The river flows into a desert and then into a salty sea, and those waters are healed. This shows how God’s grace reaches dry, dead, and ruined places and makes them alive and fruitful. The sea is a picture of what is barren, lifeless, and hostile. When the fresh water from God reaches it, fish multiply and life fills what was dead. Spiritually, this points to how God changes people and communities that were far from Him, turning hardness and emptiness into real spiritual life and fruit.

Question 4

Who are the fishermen from En-gedi to En-eglaim, and what do they picture?

Accepted Answer

The fishermen standing from En-gedi to En-eglaim, spreading their nets, show how many people will be gathered in once the river has healed the waters. The many kinds of fish suggest a great number and variety of people reached by God’s grace. These fishers picture those who share God’s word and call others to turn to Him. As the river makes the waters teem with life, so the spread of God’s message leads to many being brought in, much like fish caught in a net along a rich shoreline.

Question 5

Why are the miry places and marshes not healed in this vision?

Accepted Answer

The passage says some miry places and marshes are not healed, but are left to salt. This shows that not every place benefits from the river, even though the water is full of life. It is a picture of people and groups who remain untouched because they do not receive what God offers. While many are changed and made fruitful, some stay barren and salty. This warns that resisting God’s grace leaves a person unchanged, even when life and healing are flowing all around them.

Question 6

What do the trees with unfading leaves and constant fruit represent?

Accepted Answer

The trees on both sides of the river have leaves that do not fade and fruit that never runs out. Their fruit is for food and their leaves for medicine. These trees picture people and blessings that are rooted in God’s life-giving grace. They show steady, lasting spiritual growth, not just brief excitement. The constant fruit suggests ongoing usefulness in serving others, and the healing leaves point to comfort, restoration, and help that flow from those who are nourished by God’s word and Spirit.

Question 7

How does this passage point to the work of the Holy Spirit and the gospel?

Accepted Answer

The water in this vision acts like the living water spoken of elsewhere in Scripture. It comes from God’s house, by the altar, and brings cleansing, refreshment, and power to produce life where there was death. This fits with the way the Holy Spirit applies the good news about God’s saving work to people’s hearts. As the river runs outward, it pictures the spread of the gospel to many nations, reaching deserts and seas, bringing forgiveness, new birth, and real change wherever it is welcomed.

Question 8

How can a believer today apply the picture of the river of life?

Accepted Answer

A believer can see this river as a reminder to stay close to the true source of life, God Himself. The water flows from His presence, not from human strength. So we seek Him in His word and prayer, and we ask His Spirit to work in us. The deepening water invites us not to stay in shallow, half-hearted faith, but to grow in trust and obedience. The fishermen and fruitful trees challenge us to let what we receive from God flow out in service, witness, and care for others.

Ezekiel 47:1

Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the house; and, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward: for the forefront of the house stood toward the east, and the waters came down from under from the right side of the house, at the south side of the altar.

Waters from under the Temple

Cross References

Ezekiel 47:1

Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the house; and, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward: for the forefront of the house stood toward the east, and the waters came down from under from the right side of the house, at the south side of the altar.

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Waters from under the Temple

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