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1: The Lord knew - Though none informed him of it.
3: He left Judea - To shun the effects of their resentment.
4: And he must needs go through Samaria - The road lying directly
through it.
5: Sychar - Formerly called Sichem or Shechem. Jacob gave - On his
death bed, (Ge 48:22).
6: Jesus sat down - Weary as he was. It was the sixth hour - Noon;
the heat of the day.
7: Give me to drink - In this one conversation he brought her to
that knowledge which the apostles were so long in attaining.
8: For his disciples were gone - Else he needed not have asked her.
9: How dost thou - Her open simplicity appears from her very first
words. The Jews have no dealings - None by way of friendship.
They would receive no kind of favour from them.
10: If thou hadst known the gift - The living water; and who it is
- He who alone is able to give it: thou wouldst have asked of him
- On those words the stress lies. Water - In like manner he draws
the allegory from bread, (Joh 6:27), and from light, (Joh 8:12);
the first, the most simple, necessary, common, and salutary
things in nature. Living water - The Spirit and its fruits.
But she might the more easily mistake his meaning, because
living water was a common phrase among the Jews for spring water.
12: Our father Jacob - So they fancied he was; whereas they
were, in truth, a mixture of many nations, placed there by
the king of Assyria, in the room of the Israelites whom he
had carried away captive, (2Ki 17:24).
Who gave us the well - In Joseph their supposed forefather:
and drank thereof - So even he had no better water than this.
14: Will never thirst - Will never (provided he continue to drink
thereof) be miserable, dissatisfied, without refreshment. If
ever that thirst returns, it will be the fault of the man, not
the water. But the water that I shall give him - The spirit of
faith working by love, shall become in him - An inward living
principle, a fountain - Not barely a well, which is soon exhausted,
springing up into everlasting life - Which is a confluence, or
rather an ocean of streams arising from this fountain.
15: That I thirst not - She takes him still in a gross sense.
16: Jesus saith to her - He now clears the way that he might give
her a better kind of water than she asked for. Go, call thy
husband - He strikes directly at her bosom sin.
17: Thou hast well said - We may observe in all our Lord's
discourses the utmost weightiness, and yet the utmost courtesy.
18: Thou hast had five husbands - Whether they were all dead or
not, her own conscience now awakened would tell her.
19: Sir, I perceive - So soon was her heart touched.
20: The instant she perceived this, she proposes what she thought
the most important of all questions. This mountain - Pointing to
Mount Gerizim. Sanballat, by the permission of Alexander the
Great, had built a temple upon Mount Gerizim, for Manasseh, who
for marrying Sanballat's daughter had been expelled from the
priesthood and from Jerusalem, (Ne 13:28). This was the place
where the Samaritans used to worship in opposition to Jerusalem.
And it was so near Sychar, that a man's voice might be heard from
the one to the other. Our fathers worshipped - This plainly refers
to Abraham and Jacob (from whom the Samaritans pretended to deduce
their genealogy) who erected altars in this place:(Ge 12:6,7), and (Ge 33:18,20). And possibly to the whole
congregation, who were directed when they came into the land of
Canaan to put the blessing upon Mount Gerizim, (De 11:29).
Ye Jews say, In Jerusalem is the place - Namely, the temple.
21: Believe me - Our Lord uses this expression in this manner but
once; and that to a Samaritan. To his own people, the Jews, his
usual language is, I say unto you. The hour cometh when ye - Both
Samaritans and Jews, shall worship neither in this mountain, nor
at Jerusalem - As preferable to any other place. True worship shall
be no longer confined to any one place or nation.
22: Ye worship ye know not what - Ye Samaritans are ignorant, not
only of the place, but of the very object of worship. Indeed,
they feared the Lord after a fashion; but at the same time served
their own gods, (2Ki 17:33).
Salvation is from the Jews - So spake all the prophets, that the
Saviour should arise out of the Jewish nation: and that from
thence the knowledge of him should spread to all nations under
heaven.
23: The true worshippers shall worship the Father - Not here or
there only, but at all times and in all places.
24: God is a Spirit - Not only remote from the body, and all
the properties of it, but likewise full of all spiritual
perfections, power, wisdom, love, holiness. And our worship
should be suitable to his nature. We should worship him with
the truly spiritual worship of faith, love, and holiness,
animating all our tempers, thoughts, words, and actions.
25: The woman saith - With joy for what she had already learned,
and desire of fuller instruction.
26: Jesus saith - Hasting to satisfy her desire before his
disciples came. l am He - Our Lord did not speak this so plainly
to the Jews who were so full of the Messiah's temporal kingdom.
If he had, many would doubtless have taken up arms in his favour,
and others have accused him to the Roman governor. Yet he did in
effect declare the thing, though he denied the particular title.
For in a multitude of places he represented himself, both as the
Son of man, and as the Son of God: both which expressions were
generally understood by the Jews as peculiarly applicable to the
Messiah.
27: His disciples marvelled that he talked with a woman - Which the
Jewish rabbis reckoned scandalous for a man of distinction to do.
They marvelled likewise at his talking with a woman of that
nation, which was so peculiarly hateful to the Jews. Yet none
said - To the woman, What seekest thou? - Or to Christ, Why talkest
thou with her?
28: The woman left her water pot - Forgetting smaller things.
29: A man who told me all things that ever I did - Our Lord had
told her but a few things. But his words awakened her conscience,
which soon told her all the rest. Is not this the Christ? - She
does not doubt of it herself, but incites them to make the inquiry.
31: In the meantime - Before the people came.
34: My meat - That which satisfies the strongest appetite of my soul.
35: The fields are white already - As if he had said, The spiritual
harvest is ripe already. The Samaritans, ripe for the Gospel,
covered the ground round about them.
36: He that reapeth - Whoever saves souls, receiveth wages - A
peculiar blessing to himself, and gathereth fruit - Many souls:
that he that soweth - Christ the great sower of the seed, and he
that reapeth may rejoice together - In heaven.
37: That saying - A common proverb; One soweth - The prophets and
Christ; another reapeth - The apostles and succeeding ministers.
38: I - he Lord of the whole harvest, have sent you - He had
employed them already in baptizing, (Joh 4:2).
42: We know that this is the Saviour of the world - And not of
the Jews only.
43: He went into Galilee - That is, into the country of Galilee:
but not to Nazareth. It was at that town only that he had no
honour. Therefore he went to other towns.
44: (Mt 13:57).
47: To come down - For Cana stood much higher than Capernaum.
48: Unless ye see signs and wonders - Although the Samaritans
believed without them.
52: He asked the hour when he amended - The more exactly the
works of God are considered, the more faith is increased.
