During biblical times, it was brought down from the mountains as a luxury item to cool drinks on hot days. During the winter, snow storms were deadly to the unprepared. In many areas, snowfall is an important source of moisture. Jeremiah writes that no farmer would trade a farm watered by the snow water of Lebanon for another field watered by a muddy or uncertain stream. The Jordan River, itself, was fed by the melting snows of Mt. Hermon.
Snow also protects the roots of various plants from cold weather.
Job says that the wicked should be consumed by the grave just as snow water, stored in the public cisterns, was quickly depleted by heat and drought. These annual floods made the Euphrates an emblem of the sweeping punishments of God. Job compares his fickle friends to deceitful streams and brooks caused by melting snow. Their waters were abundant, cool, and refreshing until it got really hot and he desperately needed them. Then they vanished, leaving Job like a caravan in the desert, searching for the life-giving streams he thought he could count on.