[1] Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the house; and, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward: for the forefront of the house stood toward the east, and the waters came down from under from the right side of the house, at the south side of the altar. Ezekiel 47:1.

When rain falls upon limestone it forms a weak, carbonic acid, which slowly eats away at the basic composition of limestone, so that the water permeates downward through the limestone.  It is this process which eventually forms vast underground water reserves and streams on top of impermeable rock layers below the limestone.  The topography of Jerusalem and its environs is one of permeable limestone over impermeable rock layers.  This karst type of landscape has produced a system of underground water reserves and streams.  This system slopes downward from the middle ridge of the Judean Mountains eastward under the city of Jerusalem.  It is the watershed zone for the springs in and around Jerusalem.  The royal cistern of Solomon’s Temple, which now underlies the courtyard immediately to the north of the Dome of the Rock, is supplied by permeation and limestone springs.  This system is only a part of a vast underground water supply stretching north, west, and south of Jerusalem.  Sorek  Cave is located just fifteen miles west of Jerusalem within the Avshalom Reserve.  Permeation of water downward has created this great limestone cave, and upon the floor of this great cavern are pools of clear water.  These types of underground water reservoirs exist all across the earth’s surface.   Figure 43, from a geological text by Tarr shows the immergence of springs at the surface from underground reservoirs.  In his text, New Physical Geology, Tarr states: “Water percolating through soluble rock, like limestone, dissolves the rock along joint planes and bedding planes.  This often results in the formation of long, irregular, underground valleys, or caverns, such as the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.  In such places much of the drainage is underground.  There are large surface streams and few tributaries, the chief water supply coming from the springs that bring the cavern water to the surface.”  There are numerous springs to the immediate south, west, and north of Jerusalem, as well as one under it, and another under the old city of David.

Figure 42 shows the exposed scarp (or bluff) generated by the lifting along the line through the Tyropoeon Valley.  This lifted zone consists of layer after layer of permeable limestone, and at its base is a thick layer of impermeable flint and hard dolomite.  When this layer of permeable limestone is lifted, its water zone, flowing above the flint and dolomite, will suddenly burst forward as a limestone spring just to the north of the Dome of the Rock.  This is the spring of Ezekiel 47:1.  Figure 44 shows the geological formation that will exist after the lifting.  There will be a continuous feeding of meteorologically stored water into the system throughout the millennial reign of Christ.  As rain falls upon uplifted western Jerusalem, and its Judean watershed, it will seep slowly downward through the limestone to constantly re-supply a great invisible reservoir perched above an impermeable layer of rock.  This is quoted from a standard earth science text, concerning this type of spring: “However, one type of hillside spring is likely to flow continuously.  This is a spring formed at the zone of contact between permeable and impermeable rocks.  Water filters down through the permeable rock and comes to the surface on a hill side when it meets the impermeable rock layer.”  The Bible indicates Ezekiel’s spring will flow continuously throughout the millennial reign of Christ, and this is exactly what happens when strata, like that under Jerusalem, is lifted.

There are some commentaries that identify the waters found in Ezekiel 47 as “spiritual” waters, not literal waters.  But this is not the case, for we are told in this chapter that:  (1) the waters empty into a river, (2) the river empties into a salty sea, (3) the fresh water eventually removes most of the salt, and (4) fish will live in the freshened water.  I have great difficulty in accepting “spiritual” water that has “physical” fish living in it.

Once the spring has been formed, the remnant of Israelites, which God brought through the Tribulation Period, will see the spring where Solomon’s Temple once stood.  They will take the blueprint narrative instructions, contained after chapter 39 in Ezekiel, and will build the Millennial Temple such that the waters will issue out “from under the threshold of the house eastward,” and such that they come “down from under from the right side of the house, at the south side of the altar.”