Christ and the woman of Samaria
4
📚Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees 📖 had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John 2 📚(though Jesus himself was not the one who baptized, but his disciples), 3 📚he left Judea and went back again to Galilee.4:3 In the Gospels, Pharisees are nearly always seen as hostile to the Lord Jesus, and they eventually plotted to kill Him (John 7:32; 11:57; 18:3). Jesus knew their hearts (John 2:24-25), and He knew that the time for His death for sinners in Jerusalem had not yet come. He had no fear of them, but to avoid useless confrontations with them He left Judea.⚜
4 📚And he had to go through Samaria.
4:4 Samaria was the area between Judea and Galilee. It was inhabited by a people despised by most Jews (v 9. Note on Samaritans at 2 Kings 17:24; Matt 10:5). The route through Samaria was the shortest one between Judea and Galilee, but many Jews took the long route around the area to avoid contact with Samaritans. John says Jesus “had to go through Samaria”. He had to go that way only if He were in a great hurry to reach Galilee, or if He had a work He must accomplish there. In the rest of the chapter we see He did have a work to do there, and a wonderful work it was! We see also He was not in a hurry (v 40). Another possible reason why He went through Samaria was to show that He did not share the Jewish prejudice against its people.⚜
5 📚Then he came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 📚Now Jacob’s well was there. Therefore, tired from his journey, Jesus sat on the well. It was about noon.
4:6 Jesus’ tiredness here indicates His true human nature. As God He could not be tired (Isa 40:28). As a man a long journey on foot wearied Him as it would any man. On His two natures see John 1:14; Heb 2:14-17. The sixth hour was noon.⚜
7 📚A woman of Samaria came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink”
4:7 Again the Lord’s human nature is indicated. Thirst is an experience of men, not of God.⚜
8 📚(for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food).
9 📚Then the woman of Samaria said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, are asking a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.
4:9 At first, to this woman, Jesus was simply a thirsty Jew. But as the story unfolds we see her developing understanding of Who He is – someone who makes great promises (vs 10-15), then a prophet (v 19), and finally the Messiah (vs 25,26,29). Increasing understanding of Who Christ is – this is a common experience of all believers (though, of course, not necessarily following the steps that woman took).⚜
10 📚Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, ‘Give me a drink’, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water”.
4:10 Christ’s purpose was to win this woman for God’s kingdom. See how He captured her interest. “Living water” means the new life He brings. It includes the new birth (John 3:5), eternal life (John 3:16), and God’s Spirit to live in the hearts of believers (John 7:37-39). Observe that it is a gift (Rev 22:17), and can be had by asking the Lord Jesus for it. In fact only He can give it. In the Old Testament also water is used as a symbol of spiritual life – Isa 55:1; Jer 2:13; 17:13.⚜
11 📚The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing with which to draw, 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 children, and his livestock?”
4:11-12 Apparently, the woman completely misunderstood Jesus’ words. This happened often then and happens often now. She took His words literally. The term “living water” in common usage meant “water that flowed”, as in a river or brook. It seems she did not realize that Jesus was speaking of spiritual matters.⚜
13 📚Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 📚but whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never thirst, 📖 but the water that I give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to everlasting life”.
4:13-14 Jesus now tried to show her that He is speaking of spiritual things, not material water. There is no literal water which can take away thirst permanently or spring up to eternal life.⚜
15 📚The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I will not thirst, nor come here to draw”.
4:15 Did the woman understand that Jesus was speaking of spiritual matters? If so, she did not reveal it. But perhaps a longing for spiritual life was rising in her heart.⚜
16 📚Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here”.
4:16 This remark does not seem to have anything do with the previous conversation. But we can be sure it does. Jesus now leads her to see He is no ordinary man, and He brings to her remembrance her sinful life, which she must be willing to forsake if she would receive “living water”.⚜
17 The woman answered and said, “I have no husband”. Jesus said to her, “You have rightly said, ‘I have no husband’, 18 📚for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. In that you spoke the truth”.
19 📚The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
20 📚Our fathers worshipped on this mountain. And you say 📖 that the place where men ought to worship is Jerusalem”.
4:20 She did not want to speak about the several men in her life. So she changed the subject.⚜
21 📚Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain, nor at Jerusalem. 22 📚You do not know what you worship. We know what we worship. For salvation is of the Jews 📖. 23 📚But the time is coming, and now is, when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such persons to worship him. 24 📚God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth”.
4:21-24 Her change of subject gave Jesus the opportunity to reveal to her some profound truth about worship: God may be worshiped anywhere (v 21), the place now has no significance (though once it did to some extent. See Deut 12:5; 2 Chron 6:6-7). God will be worshiped as the Father (vs 21,23; note at Matt 5:16). The Samaritans (and by implication other peoples and nations) did not really know what they worshiped (v 22). Compare Acts 17:23; Rom 1:21-23. They were not worshiping in accordance with the revelation God had given of Himself, as believing Jews were.⚜
25 📚The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah 📖 is coming, who is called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things”.
26 📚Jesus said to her, “I who am speaking to you am he”.
4:26 Jesus plainly states that He is the expected Messiah. See also John 1:49-50; 9:37; 10:24-25; Matt 26:63-64.⚜
27 📚And then his disciples came and were surprised that he was talking with the woman, but no one said, “What are you seeking?” or, “Why are you talking with her?”
4:27 In those days usually a Jewish rabbi would not carry on a conversation with a woman or risk being seen alone with one. The Lord Jesus did not look down on women. He treated all human beings alike in their need, and did not worry about what others might say about Him. The disciples did not question Him. They were learning that He had good reasons for what He did.⚜
28 📚The woman then left her water pot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, 29 📚“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Is not this the Christ?”
4:29 Verse 25.⚜
30 📚Then they went out of the city and came to him.
4:30 Her testimony stirred up great interest in the town. This is still a method God uses to bring people to Christ.⚜
31 📚In the meantime his disciples urged him, saying, “Rabbi, eat”.
32 📚But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know”.
33 📚Therefore the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?”
4:32-33 Jesus meant spiritual food, but they took His words literally. Literal-minded people will have difficulty with many things Jesus said (for example see John 6:52-58).⚜
34 📚Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to finish his work.
4:34 Jesus found His highest satisfaction in doing God’s work according to God’s will (compare John 5:30; 6:38; 8:29; 9:4; 14:31; 15:10; 17:4). There is more joy in obedience to God, heartily doing His work, and leading others to faith in Christ, than in feasting on all the good things of the world.⚜
35 📚Do you not say, ‘There are still four months before the harvest comes?’ I say to you, Lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest.
4:35 In Israel there was a period of about four months between the end of the sowing season and the beginning of harvest. Jesus is saying that they need not wait so long. At that time and in that place a “harvest” was there for the reaping. He was referring to the readiness of some of the Samaritans (and others) to believe in Him when they heard the truth. In our times too there is always a harvest ready somewhere, always people prepared by God to receive the Lord Jesus. God’s servants should seek for them with zeal and confidence in God. The 2000 years from Christ’s day to ours has been a time of continual spiritual harvest on earth.⚜
36 📚And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. 37 📚And in this that saying is true, ‘One sows, and another reaps.’ 38 📚I sent you to reap for what you did not work. Other men laboured, and you have entered into their labours”.
4:36-38 The Lord here gives some general truths about God’s service. The reapers (those who lead many people to Christ) will have wages (v 36). We are not told what they are, but since they begin immediately (“even now”) they speak of the satisfaction and joy and deep bonds of love and fellowship which result from winning souls for Christ (see Phil 4:1). But their wages will appear in eternity as well (see Dan 12:3; 1 Thess 2:19-20; 1 Pet 5:4; Rev 22:12).
The “fruit” (people who come to faith in Christ by the efforts of the reapers) is not merely for this little time on earth but forever (v 36). If there is to be a harvest it is necessary that someone first sow the good seed of the Word of God. It may be the same person who reaps, but often it is someone else (vs 37,38; 1 Cor 3:5-9). The sower should not be jealous of the reaper but both rejoice together (v 36). In heaven they will both forever share Christ’s joy in the harvest. In the light of all this let us be wise (Prov 11:30), and labour earnestly while we have opportunity (John 9:4).⚜
39 📚And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in him because of the word of the woman, who testified, “He told me everything that I ever did”.
4:39 See the results of one woman’s testimony! Let us be always ready to speak for Christ and see what God will do. All of God’s servants are to be witnesses (compare Acts 1:8)⚜
40 📚So when the Samaritans came to him, they begged him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 📚And many more believed because of his own word, 42 📚and said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of your word, for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world”.
4:42 While the Jews as a whole refused to believe that Christ was the Saviour (John 1:11), these Samaritans whom the Jews despised came into the knowledge of the truth. Note on “Saviour” at Luke 1:47. Jesus is the Saviour of all who trust in Him, no matter their race or country (1 Tim 2:3-6; Rom 1:16-17; Acts 4:12; Mark 16:15-16).⚜
Christ heals the officials son
43 📚Now after two days he left there, and went to Galilee. 44 📚For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honour in his own country. 45 📚Then when he arrived in Galilee, the Galilaeans received him, having seen all the things that he did in Jerusalem at the feast. For they also went to the feast.
4:45 They welcomed him because of the miracles He did, but they did not honor Him as the Messiah, the Son of God and Saviour of the world.⚜
46 📚So Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee, where he made the water into wine. And there was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum. 47 📚When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him, and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.
48 📚Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you see miraculous signs and wonders, you will not believe”.
4:47-48 Evidently this official thought of Jesus as a prophet, but did not believe in Him as the Son of God or as the Saviour of the world. The words of Jesus to him were a rebuke. Compare Matt 12:38-39; 16:4; 1 Cor 1:22. True faith trusts Christ’s character and words without needing signs and miracles to support it. Compare v 41.⚜
49 📚The nobleman said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies”.
4:49 The official did not defend himself, but simply appealed to Christ’s compassion. Even when faith was weak such appeals never failed with the Lord Jesus during His ministry on earth. Can we think they will fail now?⚜
50 📚Jesus said to him, “Go your way. Your son is living”. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken to him, and he went his way.
4:50 The official learned from Christ’s rebuke in v 48, and was willing to believe Him without any sign.⚜
51 📚And as he was going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, “Your son is living”. 52 Then he asked them the hour when he got better. And they said to him, “Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him”.
4:51-52 The word of Jesus was just as powerful as His presence. Compare Ps 107:20. The official at first thought Jesus had to go where the sick child was, but Jesus had no more difficulty healing at a distance than near at hand. Now He can heal from heaven as easily as if He were on earth in the flesh. If He does not always do so, it may be a lack of faith on the part of those who ask Him, or there may be wise purposes in each case which He does not choose to reveal.⚜
53 📚So the father knew that it was at the same time when Jesus said to him, “Your son is living”. And he himself believed 📖, and his whole household.
54 📚This is the second miraculous sign 📖 that Jesus did after he had come from Judea to Galilee.