Gen 16:14 …the well was called Beer-lahai-roi…
The book of Genesis includes a little story about a well. “Beer-lahai-roi” is Hebrew for “the well of the living one who sees me.” It was so named in order to commemorate the appearance of an angel to Hagar, the maid of Sarai and Abram (later to be known as Sarah and Abraham), when she found herself alone and alienated in the desert wilderness of southern Canaan. A reliable source of water is, of course, essential to human well-being, and all the more so in such a climate. Naming a well was the equivalent of erecting a monument in the town square to things worth remembering. I’ll say more about the name of this particular well in a minute.
A couple of thousand years later, Jesus stopped to rest at a well in Samaria.
John 4:7 There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.”
John 4:8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
John 4:9 Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)
John 4:10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
John 4:11 She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water?
John 4:12 “You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?”
John 4:13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again;
John 4:14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
What kind of “water” is this? We find out a couple of chapters later.
John 7:37 Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.
John 7:38 “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'”
John 7:39 But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
We see here that the “water” is the Holy Spirit – the thoughts of God. Put that together with…
Beer = the well
(the human heart)
lahai = of the living one
(Jesus Christ)
roi = who sees me
(Jesus sees our every thought and intention)
What this meant to Hagar is secondary; what it means to us in the kingdom of God is that the more we glorify Jesus the more His thoughts can flow through the Holy Spirit into our minds.
Tired of having too many of your own thoughts? Get quiet before Jesus…and dig. You’ll find water waiting to spring up.
Related essays:
The Kingdom of God Is Here and Now (3 min)
Practicing the Presence of Christ (5 min)
All Essays
10/18/25
The Duty of a Man 