In the ancient Near East, great civilizations grew up in the areas close to rivers, such as the Nile in Egypt and the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Mesopotamia. These rivers provided water for drinking, fishing, transportation, and even for early forms of watering crops. But many areas of the lands described in the Bible were dry or received rain only at certain times of the year. Some ancient peoples survived by wandering from place to place to find water for their herds. Others who settled down to a life of growing grains, fruits, and vegetables had to learn how to store rain water in pits dug in the ground (cisterns) or to bring water from nearby streams or springs into their cities by using water tunnels known as aqueducts. Having enough water meant survival and life, but a lack of water led to crop failure, food shortages, and death.

Water is often at the center of the story in the Bible. In Genesis, God creates the heavens and the earth by bringing under control the great roaring ocean that surrounded the earth (Gen 1.2). In the creation stories of Israel's Mesopotamian and Canaanite neighbors, creation happened when the waters of chaos, sometimes pictured as a monster, were killed. Hints of this idea can be found in some Old Testament texts in which Israel's God of creation kills or imprisons a water monster known as Leviathan or Rahab (Job 9.13; Ps 89.8-10; Isa 27.1). Rain is considered a direct blessing from God (Job 5.10; Isa 44.1-4; Joel 2.23). God saves the people of Israel by making the waters of the Red Sea open for them so they can get away from Pharaoh's army (Exod 14), and by giving them water from a rock as they wander in the desert (Exod 17.1-7).

Water is dangerous and a source of fear in many Bible stories. For example, God uses a great flood to wipe out the earth's sinful people (Gen 6-9). A shortage of water causes rival herders to fight with one another (Gen 26.17-22). Those who are suffering or in distress say they feel like they are being drowned in deep water (Ps 69.1,2; Lam 3.54), and being saved from an enemy is like being pulled out of the waters of death (Ps 18.16). Sometimes the Lord holds back the rain as a punishment when the Israelite people disobey him (Amos 4.6-8). The people of Israel were severely punished when they openly worshiped the Canaanite gods which were thought to bring rain to fertilize crops (Jer 2.22-28), and when they forgot that God alone was to be their "source of life-giving water" (Jer 2.13).

Water was also used in religious ceremonies to make people clean after being healed of certain kinds of diseases (Lev 14,15), after touching certain kinds of animals that were said to be unclean (Lev 11), or after touching dead bodies (Num 19). If a husband thought his wife had been unfaithful, she was to drink water mixed with dust from the floor of the holy place and ink from a sheet that a curse had been written on (Num 5.11-31).

In the New Testament, Jesus claims to be a source of life-giving water, "like a flowing fountain that gives eternal life" (John 4.10-14). Christian baptism brings together two symbolic meanings for water that echo Old Testament themes. The water of baptism is a symbol of being made ritually clean, or cleansed from sin (Matt 3.11), and the water of baptism is compared to the waters of the great flood that God used to save Noah and his family (1 Pet 3.20,21). Baptism waters are a source of both death and life. In the waters of baptism, Christ's followers die (are drowned or buried) with Christ who gave his life on the cross to defeat the power of sin, but they also are raised up out of the water to new life (Rom 6.3,4).

Water is also important in hope-filled visions of the future. John's vision of a river filled with life-giving water flowing from God's throne in the New Jerusalem (Rev 22.1,2) is similar to the life-giving stream that flows from the temple in the prophet Ezekiel's vision (Ezek 47.1-12). And both are reminders of the river that God made flow out of the ground to water the beautiful garden of creation (Gen 2.10-14).