A Conversation Crosses the Boundary

The report makes Jesus a rival in the Pharisees’ eyes, picking up the complaint of John’s disciples in 3:26 that “all men come to him.” Calling Jesus “the Lord” in plain narration is rare this early in the Book of John, and a number of old manuscripts read “Jesus” here instead.

The parenthesis amends 3:22, which said that Jesus “baptized.” Nowhere else do the four Gospels show his followers baptizing during his lifetime; the command to baptize the nations comes only after the resurrection, in Matthew 28:19.

“Again” points back to his first going into Galilee in 1:43 and the wedding at Cana. The verb for “left” is aphiemi, the word for letting go or leaving behind, which the New Testament also uses for forgiving a debt.

“Must needs” is the Greek dei, the word the Book of John keeps for what has to happen: “Ye must be born again” (3:7), “so must the Son of man be lifted up” (3:14), “He must increase” (3:30). Samaria lay squarely between Judaea and Galilee, and Josephus says Galilean pilgrims usually crossed it.

Sychar is usually placed at the village of Askar under Mount Ebal, though Jerome took the name for a slip for Shechem. The field goes back to Genesis 33:19, where Jacob bought land at Shechem, and 48:22, where he left Joseph a portion. Joseph’s bones were buried there (Joshua 24:32).

The Old Testament never mentions Jacob digging a well here; the tradition is known only from this verse and later pilgrims. “Sat thus” means just as he was, with no ceremony. The sixth hour, counted from sunrise, is noon, the same hour at which Pilate will present him in 19:14.

Readers of Genesis and Exodus know what happens when a stranger meets a woman at a well: Rebekah (Genesis 24), Rachel (Genesis 29) and Zipporah (Exodus 2) were all found that way. Whether the Book of John means the echo is an inference, but the setting invites it. In Greek his request is three words.

“Meat” is provisions of any sort, not flesh. The aside explains why Jesus is alone and why he has to ask. It also shows the disciples willing to buy provisions in a Samaritan town, so whatever “no dealings” means in the next verse, it did not forbid trade.

“Have no dealings” translates a verb meaning “use together”. David Daube argued it means sharing vessels: a later rabbinic ruling (Mishnah Niddah 4:1) counted Samaritan women permanently unclean, which would make her jar unclean for him. Several early manuscripts lack the closing clause, which reads as the book’s own aside rather than her words.

“Living water” was ordinary speech for running water from a spring or stream, as opposed to a cistern; Leviticus 14:5 requires it for cleansing, where the King James says “running water”. Jeremiah 2:13 calls the LORD “the fountain of living waters”. “Gift” is dorea, a thing given freely.

“Sir” is kurie, the same word as “Lord”, used here as a courtesy. Travellers carried a leather bucket on a rope; Jesus has none. Verse 6 called the well a pege, a spring, but the woman calls it a phrear, a dug shaft, and both are right: the well is fed from underground water.

The Samaritans traced their descent to Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh, which is why she says “our father Jacob”; Jewish writers disputed the claim. The Greek form of the question expects the answer no. The Jerusalem crowd will ask the same thing about Abraham in 8:53.

Jesus does not disparage Jacob’s gift; he simply states its limit. The Greek participle is present tense, the one who goes on drinking, which is exactly the woman’s daily life at this well. He answers her question about rank by speaking about what each water does.

The tense changes from verse 13: here it is a single drink, once taken. “Never thirst” is an emphatic double negative, “shall not thirst, not ever.” “Springing up” is hallomai, to leap, used in Acts 3:8 of the lame man leaping, and nowhere else in the New Testament of water.

She now says to him what he said to her in verse 7, “give me”, and so does exactly what verse 10 said she would have done. Her reason is still the labour of the walk: the verb for coming “hither” suggests the whole trip out from town.

Three commands, go, call, come. Her wish in verse 15 was never to come hither again; his first instruction is to come hither. In public a woman’s husband would normally be party to such a conversation, which may be why the request sounds natural, though that is an inference.

Her answer is three words in Greek. Jesus repeats them back but moves “husband” to the front, “a husband I have not”, putting the weight exactly where her reply was careful. “Well said” is kalos, rightly, the verdict of a teacher on an accurate answer.

From Origen onward some readers took the five husbands as the five nations settled in Samaria by the Assyrians, each with its gods (2 Kings 17:24–41). The verse itself gives no allegory. “Truly” is alethes, true, the word that returns twice in the talk of worship that follows.

The Samaritans accepted only the five books of Moses, so the only prophet they awaited was the one Moses promised in Deuteronomy 18:15, a prophet like himself. “I perceive” is theoreo, to observe closely; it marks a conclusion drawn from what she has just heard.

“This mountain” is Gerizim, rising above the well, the mount of blessing in Deuteronomy 11:29. The Samaritan temple on its summit had been destroyed by the Jewish ruler John Hyrcanus over a century earlier. The Samaritan Pentateuch reads Gerizim at Deuteronomy 27:4 where the Hebrew has Ebal.

“Woman” is a respectful address in Greek, the one Jesus uses for his mother at Cana (2:4) and from the cross (19:26). “Believe me” stands where he usually says “Verily, verily”. She spoke of “our fathers”; he answers with “the Father”, the first time the chapter names God so.

“What” is neuter in Greek, not “whom”. Jesus speaks here as a Jew among Jews, “we”, a rare stance for him in the Book of John, where “the Jews” are usually his opponents. “Of the Jews” is ek, out of: salvation’s source, not its limit, as verse 42 will show.

“And now is” pulls the coming hour into the present, and the same phrase returns in 5:25. “True” is alethinos, genuine, a favourite adjective of the book: the true light (1:9), the true bread (6:32), the true vine (15:1). In verses 20 to 24 the word worship occurs ten times.

Greek has no indefinite article, so the sentence reads “God is spirit”, a statement about his nature like “God is light” (1 John 1:5) and “God is love” (1 John 4:8). The King James “a Spirit” comes from Tyndale. “Must” is dei again, the necessity word of verse 4.

Only the Book of John uses the word Messias in the New Testament, here and at 1:41, and both times translates it. Later Samaritan writings call the coming one the Taheb, the restorer, a teacher more than a king, which fits her expectation that he will “tell us all things”.

The Greek is ego eimi, “I am”, with “the one speaking to thee” after it; the King James supplies “he”. It is the first “I am” in the book. He says to a Samaritan outright what the Jerusalem crowd will beg him in vain to say plainly (10:24).

He was talking, in the Greek, “with a woman”, with no article: any woman. A saying preserved in the Mishnah (Avot 1:5) warns a man against much talk with women, and the disciples’ wonder fits that custom. “Marvelled” is imperfect, a wonder that went on.

Her waterpot is a hydria, the same word as the six stone waterpots at Cana (2:6–7), and those are the only places in the New Testament the word appears. Leaving it suggests she means to return, and it leaves Jesus, who had nothing to draw with, beside a bucket.

“Come, see” echoes Jesus’ “Come and see” (1:39) and Philip’s to Nathanael (1:46). Her question in Greek begins with meti, which leans towards doubt: “Could this be the Christ?” The tentative form invites the town to decide for itself rather than taking her word.

The two verbs differ in Greek. They went out, a single act, and then they were coming, a movement still in progress. The townspeople are on the road across the fields while Jesus speaks the next eight verses, which gives “lift up your eyes” in verse 35 something to look at.

“Prayed him” is the 1611 sense of pray, to ask or entreat. “Master” is rabbi. “In the mean while” sets the conversation in the gap between the woman going into the city and the crowd arriving at the well.

“Ye know not of” is the phrase he used to the woman in verse 22, “ye worship ye know not what”. What was said of Samaritans is now said to his own disciples. The Greek for “meat” here is brosis, the act of eating.

The question expects the answer no. The only person they have seen with him is the woman, and they have just been too awkward to ask about her. “Ought” is the old spelling of aught, anything at all.

“Him that sent me” becomes the usual way the Book of John has Jesus name the Father. “To finish” is teleioo, to bring to completion; he says “I have finished the work” in 17:4, and the cognate verb is his last word on the cross, “It is finished” (19:30).

Grain sown in late autumn was not harvested till spring, nearer six months than four, so “four months” may be a farmer’s proverb about waiting. If it is a date instead, the scene falls in winter. “White” describes grain bleached pale and dry, ready for the sickle.

Reapers were paid at harvest, so wages and reaping arrive together. Sower and reaper rejoicing at the same time recalls the prophets’ picture of the last days, when “the plowman shall overtake the reaper” (Amos 9:13). “Gathereth” is the verb of 11:52, gathering the scattered children of God.

In the Old Testament “one soweth, and another reapeth” was a curse: “thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap” (Micah 6:15; compare Deuteronomy 28:30). Jesus keeps the saying and turns its sense from loss to partnership.

“Laboured” is kopiao, the verb behind “wearied” in verse 6, so the one who sat tired at the well is among those who have laboured. Who the “other men” are is disputed: the prophets, John the Baptist, or Jesus and the woman. The Greek verb “sent” is past, as if the mission had already begun.

“Testified” is martureo, the verb of John the Baptist’s witness (1:7). She is quoted again, in slightly shorter form than verse 29. A Samaritan woman is the first person in the book whose testimony brings a town to faith.

“Tarry” and “abode” are both meno, the book’s word for remaining and dwelling, the verb of the first disciples who “abode with him that day” (1:39). A Jewish teacher staying as a guest in a Samaritan town for two days is itself the boundary crossed.

“His own word” is logos, the book’s first noun (1:1). The Greek “many more” is literally “far more”. The Book of John records no sign done in Samaria; the town believes on hearing alone, which will stand out sharply against verse 48.

“Saying” is lalia, talk, a word that can mean mere chatter, though here it need mean no more than her report. “The Saviour of the world” appears only here and in 1 John 4:14. Greek inscriptions gave Roman emperors similar titles, so the phrase would not have sounded purely religious.

The two days of verse 40 are completed. The Book of John records nothing done in them but hearing, and moves straight on. The journey from Judaea to Galilee begun in verse 3 now resumes, and Samaria has been a two-day interruption on the way.

If “his own country” is Galilee, it is odd as a reason for going there. Origen took it to mean Judaea, which he is leaving; others take it as Galilee, whose welcome in verse 45 rests on signs; the other Gospels set the saying in Nazareth (Mark 6:4). The book does not settle it.

The feast is the Passover of 2:13–23, where many believed “when they saw the miracles”. Galileans travelled to Jerusalem for the feasts as the law required of every male three times a year (Deuteronomy 16:16), so these hosts are eyewitnesses of Jerusalem.

“Nobleman” is basilikos, a royal official, most likely in the service of Herod Antipas, whom Galileans called king (Mark 6:14). The book ties the scene back to Cana by name and by the wine, so the second sign is set beside the first.

Capernaum lies on the lake, about two hundred metres below sea level, and Cana is in the hills some sixteen miles away, hence “come down”. “Besought” is imperfect in Greek: he kept asking. “At the point of death” is literally “about to die”.

This is the only place in the Book of John where “wonders” appears. “Signs and wonders” is the Exodus phrase for the plagues and the deliverance (Deuteronomy 4:34, 6:22). The “ye” is plural, and the negative is doubled for emphasis in Greek.

He does not argue with the rebuke. “Child” here is paidion, a diminutive, “my little boy”, where verse 47 said “son” and the servants in verse 51 use yet another word. “Ere” means before. His plea keeps to the one thing he believes can work, Jesus’ presence at the bedside.

“Liveth” is present tense: your son is alive, not “will live”. Elijah said the same words to the widow of Zarephath, “See, thy son liveth” (1 Kings 17:23), and the Greek Old Testament wording matches. The phrase occurs three times in five verses here.

The servants’ news repeats Jesus’ words exactly, “Thy son liveth”. That they meet him on the way, and the next verse speaks of “yesterday”, means he did not race home that afternoon. A father who believed the word could travel at an ordinary pace.

The seventh hour is about one in the afternoon. Since the Jewish day began at sunset, “yesterday” may mean only a few hours earlier if they met after dark. “Began to amend” is a colloquial phrase for a patient doing better, and “the fever left him” is the wording used of Peter’s mother-in-law (Mark 1:31).

In verse 50 he believed “the word”; here the Book of John says simply that he believed, with no object, its usual way of describing full faith. A whole household believing is a pattern Acts will repeat with Cornelius, Lydia and the Philippian jailer.

“Miracle” is semeion, sign, and the counting links back to 2:11, “This beginning of miracles”. Both signs are at Cana, both follow a journey from Judaea, and in both the servants know what happened before anyone else. After this the book stops numbering its signs.