The Setting
The Setting
The context of John 7–9 is the celebration of the annual Festival of Tabernacles (7:2–3, 14, 37), which the Jewish people observed for eight days in the seventh month of their calendar, which would be sometime in our mid-September to mid-October (Lev. 23:33–44). It was not only a time of joyful thanksgiving for the harvest, but it was also a celebration of God’s care of their ancestors during the years they wandered in the wilderness and lived in temporary dwellings. During the week of the festival, many people lived in booths made of tree branches set on the roofs of their houses. Jerusalem was filled with visitors and alive with celebration—singing and dancing, torch parades, and even people marching around the city walls in imitation of Israel’s great victory at the city of Jericho (Josh. 6).
Early each morning during that week, some priests would carry water from the Pool of Siloam and pour it out on the west side of the brazen altar in the temple court. This reminded the people how God had provided water for their ancestors during their difficult journey to Canaan. This ritual should also have reminded them of the words of Isaiah: “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation” (Isa. 12:3). On the last day of the festival when the water was poured out, Jesus used the event as an opportunity to tell the people that they could satisfy their spiritual thirst by trusting Him and receiving the gift of the Spirit: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink” (John 7:37–39).
At night during the week, the priests lit four large candelabra in the court of the women, and the glow from the light could be seen across the city. These lamps were reminders to the Jews of the pillar of fire by which God led Israel through the darkness. But they were also a symbol of the cloud of God’s glory that led the nation by day and hovered over the tabernacle when the people camped (Exod. 13:21–22; 40:34–38; Num. 14:14). “The LORD is my light and my salvation” (Ps. 27:1). “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path” (119:105). “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you” (Isa. 60:1). Did the celebrants in Jesus’s day think of these verses?
The people who knew the Scriptures would remember that the prophet Ezekiel had described the glory of God departing from the temple in Jerusalem before the city was destroyed by the Babylonians (Ezek. 9–11). As in the time of Samuel the prophet, they could say, “Ichabod—the Glory has departed” (see 1 Sam. 4:21). When the priests were putting out the lamps at the end of the festival, perhaps that’s when Jesus cried out, “I am the light of the world!”