Schaff's Bible Dictionary
WA'TER. The scarcity of water is one of the calamities of the Eastern world, and the distress which is often experienced by man and beast for want of it, is indescribable. Thus the gathering of water in cisterns and reservoirs and its distribution through canals, form a conspicuous feature of Eastern life. In Prov 21:1 the original term, rendered "rivers," signifies "divisions," "partitions," "sections," and refers to the ancient Oriental methods of conveying water to orchards and gardens.
, "cuts" or "trenches" - which distributed the water in every direction, to irrigate abundantly the otherwise parched and barren soil. " The reference is doubtless to trees nourished by artificial irrigation, and the manner of this irrigation has been elaborately described by several modern travellers. Generally, gardens contain a large quadrangular plat of ground, divided into lesser squares, with walks between them. The walks are shaded with orange trees of a large spreading size.
Every one of these lesser squares is bordered with stone, and in the stone-work are troughs, very artificially contrived, for conveying the water all over the garden, there being little outlets cut at every tree for the stream, as it passes by, to flow out and water it. " The phrase "watering with the foot" may refer to the construction or opening of the channels and watercourses like those above mentioned, which was accomplished by the action of the foot.
" Another, and some think much more natural, opinion is that allusion is made to the machinery for drawing up water by means of a rope or string of buckets attached to a wheel, which was turned like a modern tread-wheel. Besides its ordinary use, water was employed symbolically, as in the Tabernacles, Feast of, which see, and once at least on a fast-day. 1 Sam 7:6. Water indicates cleansing, and therefore is used in baptism and also of spiritual blessings. John 3:5; John 7:37-39; Rev 22:17.