John 4:1–45: Jesus and the Woman of Samaria
Passage
In this passage Jesus finds out that the Pharisees have heard that his disciples have been baptizing more people than John the Baptist has been baptizing. So he decides to leave Judea and head for Galilee, which will bring him through Samaria.
As he’s going through Samaria he comes to a certain place where he finds himself sitting beside a well, wearied from his journey, at noon. His disciples have gone into the nearby city to buy some food, but a local woman comes to the well to draw water, and Jesus asks her to give him a drink as well.
The woman is surprised by this request, however, because she knows that Jews of her day refuse to associate with Samaritans, so why would a Jew be asking a Samaritan woman for a drink? But Jesus points out that something even deeper than Jewish/Samaritan relations is going on:
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” (verse 10)
Notice that he’s not actually answering her question; as is so often the case, he would rather get to the heart of the matter than take the conversation where she wants to take it. But she is still stuck on the Jewish/Samaritan thing, for the moment:
The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” (verses 11–12)
I think she might be starting a theological debate with Jesus when she mentions “our father Jacob,” given that Samaritans and Jews had different theological beliefs, but if so Jesus isn’t getting into that theological debate, he wants to go deeper still:
Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” (verses 13–15)
She is finally ready to have the conversation Jesus wants to have, and no wonder! She will no longer have to come to this well every single day for water? Especially at noon, when she’s been having to come? (See below.) Fantastic! But before Jesus can give her this “living water,” she needs to deal with some things; it almost seems like he’s been teeing her up just to knock her back down:
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” (verses 16–17)
She tells Jesus that he seems to be a prophet, but then switches the subject to mention that the Samaritans worship on the Mount Gerizim (where they’re currently standing), whereas the Jews say that the proper place for worship is Jerusalem. But Jesus still refuses to be pulled into debating any theology other than the theology he wants to bring out—all of these debates are surface, and he wants to get to the heart:
Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” (verses 21–26)
At this point in the conversation Jesus’ disciples come back and marvel at the fact that he’s talking to a woman, which shows the number of boundaries Jesus is crossing here: Not just a Samaritan, and not just a woman, but a female Samaritan! They don’t ask him about it, however, and given the number of times in the Gospels that Jesus has to rebuke his disciples for erroneous thinking, this is perhaps the wisest course for them.
Regardless, the woman leaves to go back to town and tell everyone that she might have found the Christ—she’s in such a hurry she leaves her jar behind—so the townspeople come out to the well to see him.
While she’s gone, there’s a brief interlude in which there’s a misunderstanding between Jesus and his disciples:
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” (verses 31–38)
But the woman Jesus had been speaking to has convinced many of the other Samaritans that Jesus is something special, so they come back out to the well to talk to him. (Interestingly, the only part of the woman’s testimony that we’re told is in verse 39, “He told me all that I ever did.”) They convince Jesus to stay in town for a couple of days, and as a result even more believe in him; it’s no longer just the woman’s testimony about him, they’ve heard for themselves, and believe that he is “the savior of the world” (verse 42).
After this he leaves, and makes it to his original destination in Galilee. He’s welcomed when he arrives, because many of the Galileans had been in Jerusalem during Passover, and saw all that he’d done in Jerusalem. (See John 2:13–25.)
Thoughts
This will be a longer post than usual, because there’s so much to unpack1 in this seemingly simple story! Makes me wonder how I’ll ever get through the Gospel of John, when so many of the passages I read take so much unpacking…
I do kind of wish John had given us the woman’s name, though. It feels kind of rude to just keep referring to her as, “the woman … the woman … the woman …” (Wikipedia says that, “In Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic traditions, she is venerated as a saint with the name Photine (Φωτεινή), meaning ‘luminous [one]’,” but I don’t know how reliable that is, so I didn’t call her Photine in this post.)
Looking at a Map
I went looking for some maps that would show the geography—any time the Bible mentions someone going from one place to another it’s always a good idea to check a map—and I found one from Bible History that shows the geography at this particular moment in history.
It didn’t turn out to have much theological impact2, but as shown in the map, Judea is in the South, Galilee in the North, and Samaria is right smack in between. So it makes sense for Jesus to go through Samaria to get from Judea to Galilee, geographically-speaking.
That being said, one of the commentaries I found mentioned that, even though Samaria is right there between Judea and Galilee, a lot of Jews had so much contempt for the Samaritans that they still wouldn’t pass through it. Instead, they’d cross the Jordan river into Perea, travel into the Decapolis, and then cross the Jordan river again to go back into Galilee. (Again, see the map.)
The Pharisees Find Out
The passage mentions that Jesus is leaving Judea and heading for Galilee because the Pharisees have found out that his disciples are baptizing more people than John the Baptist. But I don’t know why that’s a problem. Why do the Pharisees care that Jesus’ disciples are baptizing so many people? Why isn’t it a problem that John the Baptist has been baptizing people?
The only tentative answer I can come up with is that maybe the Pharisees think Jesus is getting a bit too popular. (For all I know, maybe they were already worried about John’s popularity and it just wasn’t mentioned in the text.)
It’s not the main point of the story, it’s just the inciting incident that gets Jesus into Samaria to have the conversation with this Samaritan woman, but it was still interesting to think about…
Jews vs. Samaritans
Since it’s such a big part of the story, it’s worth going into the whole “Jews vs. Samaritans” thing a little bit—for which I have to rely heavily on other sources3.
Something I have mentioned before is that the Samaritans are a group of people with ties to the Jews, from their past, but who have some differences of opinion on religion. They trace themselves back to Jacob, as the Jews do, but there are some differences. One big one (that comes up in this passage) is that Samaritans rejected the Jews’ belief that Jerusalem was supposed to be the location of the temple, where sacrifices were to be made, and instead worship on Mount Gerizim (as mentioned by the woman earlier).
In fact, the ESV Study Bible notes say that, “The Samaritans were a racially mixed group of partly Jewish and partly Gentile ancestry, who were disdained by both Jews and non-Jews.” The notes also point us to 2 Kings 17:24–31, for the origin of the Samaritans: that was when the Assyrians brought foreign people to settle in the area in 722 BC, where they intermarried with the Jews who were living in that area, thus eventually becoming the people who’d be known as Samaritans in Jesus’ day.
In fact, the Samaritans were so reviled by the Jews of Jesus’ day that they (the Jews) would have actually considered Jesus to be unclean by drinking this Samaritan woman’s water. Jesus clearly disagrees: he’s rejected the usual Jewish approach of avoiding Samaria altogether, and he’s the one who broaches the conversation with the woman. But verses 21–24 make it clear that this is far from a clear, black-and-white, true-or-untrue discussion, and that, while the Jews are “correct” in their theology and the Samaritans are “incorrect,” a time is coming when worship will be bigger than either religion:
| Passage | Thoughts |
|---|---|
| Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. | Jesus is saying this in response to the woman wanting to talk about where the right place to worship is, and he’s telling her that that’s not the important question. |
| … You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. | … which is not to say that truth is somehow unimportant. Although he’s not interested in being drawn into an argument about where to worship, he also affirms that where the Jews and the Samaritans differ on the approach to worshipping God—or who God even is and what He’s like—it’s the Jews who have the truth of the matter, not the Samaritans. |
| … But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. | … but even the Jews only have part of the truth, and with Jesus’ death and resurrection everything is about to change, from a rule/law-based approach to worshipping God to a spiritual approach to worshipping God. |
| … God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” | … yet even with that change, it’s worshipping in spirit and truth. There is truth, and worshippers are to seek it. The Bible is our most reliable source of that truth. When we read it, the Holy Spirit will help us to understand it, and we’ll worship God all the more. |
A Samaritan and a Woman
Although the woman is surprised that Jesus would talk to her, since she’s a Samaritan, Jesus’ disciples are surprised for a whole different reason: she’s a woman! Both of which, I’d point out, are surprising, given the day and age. But Jesus is showing that some things are more important than cultural norms and traditions. People would have seen it as improper for Jesus to be talking to a woman—let alone a woman with her reputation—and would have considered him unclean for sharing water with a Samaritan, but what people think isn’t what’s important to Jesus. What’s important to him is what is right and what is wrong.
By coming to this Samaritan town, Jesus was able to save a number of people, who are now with Him for eternity.
It should make us wonder what norms and traditions we have, that would get in the way of our theology. Are there people in today’s world that we’d be shocked to see Jesus talking to?
Coming to the Well at Noon
Speaking of the woman’s reputation, there’s a reason that she’s coming to get water from the well at noon—the hottest part of the day—instead of in the morning when all of the other women in the town would be getting water: she’s avoiding them. She’s got a reputation for going through men, and the other women in her town don’t want to be associated with her.
Jesus doesn’t avoid this topic, however, he confronts it head on: Just as she is starting to get interested in the “living water” he’s talking about, he grinds everything to a halt and tells her to go get her husband, knowing full well that she doesn’t have a husband. And then, when she admits that, he takes it even further: she’s had five husbands already, and is currently living with a man who’s not her husband. He is not being cruel, however; he’s not teasing this woman, or talking to her the way the other women in town (whom she avoids) talk to her; he’s calling this out because in order to have the living water that he offers, she must confront her sin.
Which is because she’s so terrible, right? She’s such a bad sinner that, before she can be saved like the rest of us are she’s got some work to do? No, she must confront her sin because we must all confront our sin, in order to get Jesus’ living water. She’s not an anomaly; she’s the prototype for all Christians:
- We recognize our sins, whether by reading the Word, or talking to others, or hearing it directly from Jesus like she did (though the latter is, sadly, no longer possible)
- We admit it, and repent of it
- We are forgiven
- We are giving living water—eternal life—a relationship with God, that is not earned, but marvelous
Initially, she wouldn’t have liked it (see the next subsection). Nobody does. Who wants to have their sin pointed out to them? Who wants to have it thrown back in their face that they’re not capable of saving themselves from God’s wrath? Interestingly, however, when she runs back to town, to tell everyone that she thinks she might have found the Messiah, what does she tell them? “He told me all that I ever did.” There is a common saying in Christian circles that evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where she can find bread—or, in this case, living water. That’s what this woman is doing, when she runs back into town: she’s telling them that this guy recognized her for who she is—good and bad—and saved her anyway. And he can save them, too! (Side note: quite an act of bravery on her part! She’s been specifically timing her trips to the well to avoid anyone in town, and now she’s evangelizing to them!) And the result is that many in town believed because of her testimony.
Debating Theology Rather than Our Personal Lives
As mentioned, though, being confronted with our sin is not comfortable. It’s unpleasant. It is, frankly, one of the reasons that many people refuse to accept the Gospel. (I’d say that not being willing to submit ourselves to God would be an even more common reason.) So when Jesus delves into the woman’s past, she retreats back into the Jewish vs. Samaritan theological debate again, because it seems that she’d rather debate that than talk about her own sin.
This is a common reaction in a lot of people, at least in my experience. Many people would like to have a well-worn debate about what they think is wrong with Christianity than to examine their own lives in light of God’s Holiness. We all instinctively know that we don’t measure up. When Jesus steers the conversation toward the woman’s personal life and she tries to change the subject, that doesn’t surprise me at all. What’s surprising is that she eventually does confront her sin, and accepts Jesus’ Grace—just like it’s surprising that I did the same, when I accepted Him.
Jesus’ Food
In the middle of the story, we get one of a series of misunderstandings Jesus had with his disciples around food. (See, for example, Matthew 16:5–12 / Mark 8:14–21 where Jesus warns his disciples about “the leaven of the Pharisees,” and they respond with, “Dang, I knew we should have brought some bread!”)
This one is a bit more straightforward, though: the disciples offer Jesus some food, and he tells them that doing the will of his Father is more important than food right now:
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” (verses 31–38)
Is Jesus saying that evangelism is more important than food? Well… yes! I mean, in this case, there are people to whom he is delivering the Gospel right at this very moment. I’m not a farmer, but I have to assume that when he tells them that “the fields are white for harvest,” he means that now is the the time to be reaping. There will be time to eat later, but what’s important at this particular moment is saving people.
Maybe I shouldn’t use the word “unpack;” it feels kind of “jargon-y” to me, since Christians use it so often. But in this case, it means just what it sounds like it means: John has “packed” so much theology and teaching into this story, that it needs to be “unpacked” to get it all out. ↩︎
For a case where looking at a map does have a theological impact, see the beginning of the book of Jonah: God tells Jonah to go Nineveh and he goes to Tarshish instead. If you look at a map, you’ll see that Jonah is travelling in exactly the opposite direction from where God was sending him. In fact, given Jonah’s knowledge of the world, he was literally going to the opposite side of the world from where God was sending him! ↩︎
I thought I’d written about the differences between Samaritans and Jews before, but I couldn’t find it. ↩︎
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