At the Feast of Tabernacles
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convincing; and again, as at Capernaum, the people were astonished
at His teaching; “for His word was with power.”
Luke 4:32
. Under a
variety of representations He warned His hearers of the calamity that
would follow all who rejected the blessings He came to bring them.
He had given them every possible proof that He came forth from God,
and made every possible effort to bring them to repentance. He would
not be rejected and murdered by His own nation if He could save them
from the guilt of such a deed.
All wondered at His knowledge of the law and the prophecies;
and the question passed from one to another, “How knoweth this Man
letters, having never learned?” No one was regarded as qualified to
be a religious teacher unless he had studied in the rabbinical schools,
and both Jesus and John the Baptist had been represented as ignorant
because they had not received this training. Those who heard them
were astonished at their knowledge of the Scriptures, “having never
learned.” Of men they had not, truly; but the God of heaven was their
teacher, and from Him they had received the highest kind of wisdom.
As Jesus spoke in the temple court, the people were held spell-
bound. The very men who were the most violent against Him felt
themselves powerless to do Him harm. For the time, all other interests
were forgotten.
Day after day He taught the people, until the last, “that great day of
the feast.” The morning of this day found the people wearied from the
long season of festivity. Suddenly Jesus lifted up His voice, in tones
that rang through the courts of the temple:
“If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. He that
believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow
rivers of living water.” The condition of the people made this appeal
very forcible. They had been engaged in a continued scene of pomp
and festivity, their eyes had been dazzled with light and color, and
their ears regaled with the richest music; but there had been nothing in
all this round of ceremonies to meet the wants of the spirit, nothing to
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satisfy the thirst of the soul for that which perishes not. Jesus invited
them to come and drink of the fountain of life, of that which would be
in them a well of water, springing up unto everlasting life.
The priest had that morning performed the ceremony which com-
memorated the smiting of the rock in the wilderness. That rock was a
symbol of Him who by His death would cause living streams of sal-