6 Behold, I stand there before thou come, on the rock(petra) in Choreb, and thou shalt smite the rock(petra), and water shall come out from it, and the people shall drink. And Moses did so before the sons of Israel.(Exo 17:6 LXE)
This prefigured the risen Christ from whom flows a fountain of living water:
4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock(petra) that followed them, and that Rock(petra) was Christ. (1Co 10:4 NKJ)
Christ is the Rock who followed them, "I stand there before you", not a traveling well or rock as some suppose.
who brought thee through that great and terrible wilderness, where is the biting serpent, and scorpion, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee a fountain of water out of the flinty rock(Aram. kepa; Gr. petra): (Deu 8:15 LXE)
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."
11 The woman said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?
12 "Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?"
13 Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again,
14 "but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."
(Joh 4:10-14 NKJ)
Moses ruined the analogy to the once crucified Christ by striking the Rock twice and inserting himself into imagery:
8 Take thy rod, and call the assembly, thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye to the rock(Aram. kepa; Gr. petra) before them, and it shall give forth its waters; and ye shall bring forth for them water out of the rock(Aram. kepa; Gr. petra), and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.
9 And Moses took his rod which was before the Lord, as the Lord commanded.
10 And Moses and Aaron assembled the congregation before the rock(Aram. kepa; Gr. petra), and said to them, Hear me, ye disobedient ones; must we bring you water out of this rock(Aram. kepa; Gr. petra)?
11 And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock(Aram. kepa; Gr. petra) with his rod twice; and much water came forth, and the congregation drank, and their cattle.
12 And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, Because ye have not believed me to sanctify me before the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.
13 This is the water of Strife, because the children of Israel spoke insolently before the Lord, and he was sanctified in them. (Num 20:8-13 LXE)
In the Aramaic Versions this is KEPA Rock, in the Greek PETRA Rock:
He brought them up on the strength of the land; he fed them with the fruits of the fields; they sucked honey out of the rock(Aram. kepa; Gr. petra), and oil out of the solid rock(Aram. kepa; Gr. petra). (Deu 32:13 LXE)
In John 1;40-42 Jesus called Simon Petros a KEPA Rock:
42 And he brought him to Jesus. Now when Jesus looked at him, He said, "You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas(kepa) " (which is translated, A Stone(petros)). (Joh 1:42 NKJ)
That Christ was applying this imagery to Peter, albeit as a smaller version of it, is clear from Peter's reapplication of this to believers:
3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
4 Coming to Him as to a living stone(lithos), rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious,
5 you also, as living stones(lithos), are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
6 Therefore it is also contained in the Scripture, "Behold, I lay in Zion A chief cornerstone(lithos), elect, precious, And he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame."
7 Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, "The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone(lithos),"
8 and "A stone of stumbling And a rock of offense." They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed.
9 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
(1Pe 2:3-9 NKJ)
"Lively stones" = "proclaim the praises of Him" = "from whose belly flows living water"
Peter's use of LITHOS rather than PETRA and John's translation of KEPA as PETROS, kept many from making the proper connection.
However, thanks to Bibleworks 8.0 we can easily compare the ancient Aramaic versions see how KEPA = LITHOS, and also see the reference to "precious" stone. The following lists every occurrence of KEPA in the Aramaic versions that is translated as LITHOS in the Greek Septuagint, numerically coded to Strong's Hebrew:
NFM 0068 אֶבֶן 'eben LITHOS
LXE Genesis 11:3 And a man said to his neighbour, Come, let us make bricks and bake them with fire. And the brick was to them for stone, and their mortar was bitumen.
FTM 0068 אֶבֶן 'eben LITHOS
LXE Genesis 28:11 And came to a certain place and slept there, for the sun had gone down; and he took one of the stones of the place, and put it at his head, and lay down to sleep in that place,
TAM 06443 פָּנִין paniyn LITHOS
LXE Proverbs 3:15 And she is more valuable than precious stones: no evil thing shall resist her: she is well known to all that approach her, and no precious thing is equal to her in value.
TAM 06443 פָּנִין paniyn LITHOS
LXE Proverbs 8:11 For wisdom is better than precious stones; and no valuable substance is of equal worth with it.
TAM 0068 אֶבֶן 'eben LITHOS
LXE Proverbs 24:31 If thou let him alone, he will altogether remain barren and covered with weeds; and he becomes destitute, and his stone walls are broken down.
TAM 0068 אֶבֶן 'eben LITHOS
LXE Proverbs 26:8 He that binds up a stone in a sling, is like one that gives glory to a fool.
TAM 0068 אֶבֶן 'eben LITHOS
LXE Proverbs 26:27 He that digs a pit for his neighbour shall fall into it: and he that rolls a stone, rolls it upon himself.
TAM 0068 אֶבֶן LITHOS
LXE Proverbs 26:27 He that digs a pit for his neighbour shall fall into it: and he that rolls a stone, rolls it upon himself.
TAM 0068 אֶבֶן LITHOS
LXE Proverbs 27:3 A stone is heavy, and sand cumbersome; but a fool's wrath is heavier than both.
TAM 06443 פָּנִין paniyn LITHOS
LXE Proverbs 31:10 Who shall find a virtuous woman? for such a one is more valuable than precious stones.
TAM 1ST KEPA 0068 אֶבֶן 'eben LITHOS
2ND KEPA 06697 צוּר tsuwr PETRA
LXE Isaiah 8:14 And if thou shalt trust in him, he shall be to thee for a sanctuary; and ye shall not come against him as against a stumbling-stone, neither as against the falling of a rock: but the houses of Jacob are in a snare, and the dwellers in Jerusalem in a pit.
*Strong's numbers and transliteration
LXE English Translation of the Septuagint by Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton
FTM Bibleworks TargumFrags/NeofMaginalia/SheniSuppEsther Morphology
NFM Bibleworks Targum Neofiti Morphology
TAM Bibleworks Targumim (Aramaic Old Testament) Morphology
Why did John, writing years after the event, translate KEPA as PETROS and not LITHOS?
He was connecting this event to Mat 16:17ff, to KEPA/PETRA, and not PETROS as some have supposed.
The analogy John sees is Simon is the smaller KEPA/Petros born of the larger PETRA truth he confessed in Mat 16:17. The divine revelation Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, is the PETRA-TRUTH from which flows living water to the church.
THIS is why Simon is truly blessed, having confessed the divinely revealed Gospel of Christ, he has been born again (Rom 10:5ff).
Simon has become the PeTeR (Heb. 6363, PaTaR Aram. "Firstborn) of the divinely revealed Gospel of Christ, hence he truly is Bar-Jonah, like Jonah, risen from the dead preaching the Word of God.
Hence Jesus responds to Simon's identifying Him as the Christ, by identifying Simon as the Firstborn of the Gospel of Christ, upon which He will build His church.
"YOU [now] are Firstborn and upon this very Rock-Truth I will build my church."
That there was in Aram. a proper name Petros (Str.-B., I, 530) which perhaps meant “firstborn” (Levy Wört., s.v., פֶּטֶר; Dalman Wört., s.v.) might have influenced the preference for Petros, but this is by no means certain.
Aram. Aramaic.
Str.-B. H. L. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum NT aus Talmud und Midrasch, 1922 ff.
s.v. sub voce.
Dalman Wört. G. Dalman, Aramäisch-neuhebräisches Wörterbuch, 1901.
s.v. sub voce.
Theological dictionary of the New Testament. 1964- (G. Kittel, G. W. Bromiley & G. Friedrich, Ed.) (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.