John 7:38

New Testament

37 On the last day of the feast, the greatest day, Jesus stood up and shouted out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me, and 38 let the one who believes in me drink. Just as the scripture says, ‘From within him will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 (Now he said this about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were going to receive, for the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus was not yet glorified.) 40 When they heard these words, some of the crowd began to say, “This really is the Prophet!” 41 Others said, “This is the Christ!” But still others said, “No, for the Christ doesn’t come from Galilee, does he? 42 Don’t the scriptures say that the Christ is a descendant of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?” 43 So there was a division in the crowd because of Jesus. 44 Some of them were wanting to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him.

Pirkei Avot 6:1

Mishnah
Rabbinic

1 The sages taught in the language of the mishnah. Blessed be He who chose them and their teaching. Rabbi Meir said: Whoever occupies himself with the Torah for its own sake, merits many things; not only that but he is worth the whole world.He is called beloved friend; one that loves God; one that loves humankind; one that gladdens God; one that gladdens humankind. And the Torah clothes him in humility and reverence, and equips him to be righteous, pious, upright and trustworthy; it keeps him far from sin, and brings him near to merit. And people benefit from his counsel, sound knowledge, understanding and strength, as it is said, “Counsel is mine and sound wisdom; I am understanding, strength is mine” (Proverbs 8:14). And it bestows upon him royalty, dominion, and acuteness in judgment. To him are revealed the secrets of the Torah, and he is made as an ever-flowing spring, and like a stream that never ceases. And he becomes modest, long-suffering and forgiving of insult. And it magnifies him and exalts him over everything.

 Notes and References

"... With similar reference to the Isaiah passages, Jesus also spoke to the people at the last day of the feast of Tabernacles, and proclaimed according to John 7:37–39, 'If any one thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water”' ... when the rabbis in this manner spoke about the Torah, they did not only mean the written Law of the Pentateuch but also included the ‘Oral Torah’, the rabbinic legal decisions concerning ritual purity and a life according to the commandments (halakhot) that later were gathered in the Mishnah and the Talmud already mentioned. This oral Torah, these halakhot, were understood to have been transmitted from Moses on Sinai in an oral manner down to New Testament times and further. Accordingly, Rabbi Meir, a famous rabbi of the second Century AD and other rabbis, could say that a man who occupies himself with the Torah and learns new halakhot every day, becomes ‘like a spring of water, whose waters fail not’ (Pirkei Avot 6:1) ..."

Kvarme, Ole M. Torah and Christ: On the Use of the Old Testament in the Early Synagogue and in the Early Church (pp. 15-27) Evangelical Review of Theology, Vol. 8, No. 2, 1984

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