John 4:1-42: Jesus and the Samaritans

(1) Bible Study Questions

Note: Because of its length, the Bible Study Questions for John chapter 4 are divided into two separate studies.

Acknowledgement: These two studies are in part inspired by and expanded from a study written many years ago by Ray Galea, the senior pastor of my home church, MBM Rooty Hill Anglican. I have edited and augmented these studies. I thank Ray for his partnership in the gospel and permission to do so, but responsibility for the final product here is mine alone.

Part 1 of 2: A Weary Woman, and a Thirsty Saviour Who Can Quench Our Thirst (John 4:1-20, 25-26)

Discuss: The image of thirst is a useful one to describe deep human longings and desires. The things that we thirst for, however, are intimate, and it is risky to share them with others. However, think of something that you ‘thirst’ for that you are comfortable to share with the other group members.

• What is a thing that you thirst for?
• Do you know why you thirst for it?
• What do you do to pursue it?
• What if you don’t get it?

Jesus In Transit (vv. 1-6)

1. Where is Jesus going and why? (vv. 1-3)

2. Where does Jesus stop and why? (vv. 4-6)

3. Why was it necessary for Jesus to go through Samaria? (v. 4)

Meeting a Woman at a Well (vv. 7-9)

4 .Why is the Samaritan woman surprised when Jesus asked her for water? (vv. 7-9, 11, cf. 27)

5. Is there any significance that we can infer from (a) the woman being alone, or (b) the woman coming to the well during the hottest part of the day?

Note: The Samaritans and the Jews had a longstanding festering hatred toward one another for over 400 years. So intense was the bitterness that in John 8:48, when the Jews hurled the greatest insults they could think of at Jesus, they said of him “you are a Samaritan and have a demon”. This seems to equate the two! Jews “not dealing with Samaritans” (John 4:9) generally extended to only eating dry food bought from them, and not using their utensils. For men meeting women at wells, see Genesis 24, 29, Exodus 2.

Jesus Offers Living Water (vv. 10-15)

6. How does Jesus describe the “living water” he offers the woman? (vv. 10, 14)

7. What is the “living water” of which Jesus speaks, according to John 7:37-39?

8. What does the Samaritan woman think that Jesus means when he promises “living water”? (vv. 11-12, 15)

9. What does the woman think is her real problem? Is she right? Why or why not? (v. 15)

10. How and why has Jesus made this conversation about his identity? (vv. 10, 12, 14, cf. vv. 19, 25-26)

Bringing Up Her Past (vv. 15-20, cf. vv. 29, 39)

11. Why does Jesus so abruptly change topic and raise such a sensitive and personal issue? (vv. 16-18, 29) Is it relevant? How do verses 25-26, 36, 42 effect your answer?

12. Why might the Samaritan woman have raised the issue of which mountain matters? (vv. 19-20)

13. Given what the Samaritan woman thought her real problem was, (v. 15) and her sore spot (vv. 16-18), what do you notice in verses 28-29 about the effect of her meeting with Jesus?

Application

14. Remember back to our discussion question above and the thing you are ‘thirsty’ for. Whatever our particular ‘thirst’ might be, it is a spiritual reality which is there. What are the unhelpful ways you are tempted to satisfy that ‘thirst’?

15. In what ways might Jesus (a) touch on your ‘sore spot’ as he did the Samaritan woman and (b) satisfy your thirst?

Part 2 of 2: The True Worship Coming into the World: Of the Father Through the Saviour By the Spirit (vv. 19-42)

Discuss: Inherent in the Samaritan woman’s implied question (vv. 19-20) is the idea of ‘worship’. What comes to mind when you think of the idea of ‘worship’?

The Matter Of the Mountains (vv. 20-24)

1. What can you glean from the passage about the dispute between the Jews and the Samaritans? (vv. 20-22)

2. According to Jesus, what is the problem with the worship of the Samaritans? (v. 22)

3. According to Jesus, what is the problem with the worship of the Jews? (v. 21, 23-4)

4. What does Jesus mean when he says that, “salvation is from the Jews”? (v. 22)

Notes: The Samaritans were the descendants of the disobedient northern tribes of Israel, who married the pagans whom the Assyrians planted in their midsts (2 Kgs 17). The Samaritans only accepted the first five books of the Old Testament, and had made substantial changes to them to suit their theology. Their competing religious claims stem from this history.

However the Jews rightly accepted both the Prophets and the Writings (that is, the whole of our Old Testament), and thus correctly believed that Jerusalem was the only place where God, through David and Solomon, put his name, and thus should be worshipped (Deut 12:5).

The Samaritans however, read Deuteronomy 12:5 not as saying that God ‘will choose’ a dwelling place, but ‘has chosen’ one, and thus they searched the first five books of Moses for the place where God had already put his name. Mount Gerizim overlooks Shechem, the first place Abraham built an altar (Gen 12:6-7), and from Mount Gerizim the blessings for Israel were announced (Deut 11:29-30, etc). Exodus 20:17 and Deuteronomy 5:21 in the Samaritan Pentateuch were tied to Mount Gerizim. The Samaritans had built their own temple on Mount Gerizim in about 400BC, and it stood for 300 years until the Jews destroyed it in 108 BC. By the time of Jesus, the Samaritans worshipped among the remains of that temple.

Mountains Matter Momentarily But Messiah’s A Must (vv. 20-26)

Discuss: Ghandi famously said that, “the soul of all religions is one”, and that it’s only in outward form that they differ. What would Jesus say to this view?

5. Jesus makes it clear that a “time” or “hour” is coming when the way God is worshipped would change. When does that time come? (vv. 21, 23, cf. 12:23-24, 16:32)

6. What kind of worshipers does the Father want? (vv. 23-24)

7. How might people—indeed, us—become the worshippers God seeks? (John 3:3-8, 7:37-39)

8. Why is worshiping God in this coming way appropriate to the nature of God? (v. 24)

9. How do verses 25-26 relate the coming way of worship to Jesus himself? (cf. v. 42, 14:6)

10. How does one worship the Father in Spirit and truth? (vv. 39, 42, cf. 9:38)

Note: To worship God “in Spirit and truth” involves worshipping by “the Spirit of truth” (John 14:17). It is not about worshipping God ‘sincerely’, but about responding to God on the basis of how he has revealed himself to us. Jesus is “the way and the truth” (John 14:6), and to worship the Father now involves trusting the Son who claims to be the Messiah. To do so is only possible by the work of the Holy Spirit (the ‘living water’: cf. 7:37-39). In the same way that the Samaritans worshipped what they did not know, and so were not true worshippers, so now the unconverted Jew—or indeed anyone who does not believe in Jesus—are not true worshippers.

The Saviour of the World and the Samaritans (vv. 27-42)

11. What was wider result of the result of Jesus’ work with the Samaritan woman at the well? (vv. 28-29, 39-42)

12. Remember back to verses 6-7. How has Jesus embodied his statements in verses 32, 34? (vv. 6-7, 31, 33, cf. 6:1-6) How can we copy his example?

13. How might the disciples reap where Jesus has sown? (vv. 40-41, cf. Acts 8:1-25)

14. Why is the title that Jesus is given by the Samaritans so appropriate, given what Jesus has said and done in this chapter? (v. 42)

15. What can we learn from the Samaritan woman’s actions for her city and her people for the sake of our city and our people? (vv. 28-30, 39, 42)

(2) Sermon Script

Introduction: What Can Quench Our Thirst?

We are all thirsty people looking for something spiritual to drink. And all of us, at one point, have drunk spiritual salt water. And it satisfies for a short time, but ultimately we just get more thirsty.

Some people’s thirst is shown in their desire for a relationship. They are looking for a relationship that will fulfill and complete them. Sadly, some then stumble into a toxic relationship, that spirals into domestic violence, drugs, and alcohol abuse. And if they’re lucky they can get out. That describes a lonely person looking for love, but it’s actually a spiritual thirst.

I’ve heard of teenage girls who desperately want a baby. They want to feel wanted and needed by at least one other human being. That is a spiritual thirst, a thirst for significance and meaning and love.

Or our mentally ill men, depressed, hopeless, rudderless males, self-medicating with drugs and alcohol, or mistresses or prostitutes if they can afford them, pornography if they can’t. Spiritually thirsty men who throw themselves into work; or other men, driven, ambitious, thirsting for significance and respect, wanting to prove themselves in career, job, sport, house, family. They (that is, ‘we’, because I am one of them) long to think that people listen to what we say and value us. We want to be able to tell ourselves, “I’m a success not a failure. I’ll show my dad he was wrong about me.” Again, this is a spiritual thirst.

Augustine prayed, “Our souls are restless until they find rest in thee” (Confessions, 1.1). Another way of putting it is that we all have a ‘God shaped’ hole, and we fill it with all kinds of things that replace the God of the universe. But Jesus offers to fill our deepest needs. He doesn’t necessarily offer to fulfil our felt needs. But he offers us thirsty pilgrims living water that will well up into eternal life. John chapter 4 verse 14:

4:14but whoever drinks from the water which I will give him will never become thirsty for eternity, but the water which I will give him will become in him a well of water overflowing into eternal life.”

And the first one to take Jesus up on his offer is an outcast Samaritan woman, whom Jesus sought and singled out.

Context: Jesus in Transit (vv. 1-6)

In Judea, the disciples had been baptizing in water, like John the Baptist. Jesus himself doesn’t baptize in water, probably because Jesus baptizes in the Holy Spirit and fire, and not water. And Jesus’ disciples are out-baptizing John the Baptist, and beating John the Baptist at his own game, because Jesus must become greater and John the Baptist must become less.

Jesus decides to return to Galilee. On the way, Jesus and his disciples stop in Samaria (vv. 4-6). Samaria sits between Judea, the main Jewish province, and Galillee, the Jewish country cousins. And John says in verse 4, that ‘it was necessary’ for Jesus to stop in Samaria. That might mean Samaria is on the way. Or it could indicate a divine necessity. Jesus had work to do in Samaria for his Father. In other words, it was probably no accident that Jesus was there. Perhaps the very reason he went into Samaria and sat at that well that lunch hour was to talk with the Samaritan woman. After all, Jesus seems to have done his research, for he knows everything she ever did.

Meeting a Woman at a Well (vv. 7-9)

Jesus was wearied from the journey. We must remember that Jesus was fully human. Being fully God as well as fully man doesn’t mean Jesus is Superman. As a human, he doesn’t have endless stores of energy. He is resting on the well, in the midday sun, tired out from the journey, as you or I would be. And a woman comes to the well and draws water. Everything suggests she is an outcast, because usually the women went to the well in the cooler parts of the day, in the morning and evening. And usually they went in groups for safety. It is not too much of a stretch to infer that she had a bad reputation. And so desirous of avoiding the crowd at the well at more congenial times, she meets Jesus during the hottest part of the day, resting by the well.

Now, for those who know their Old Testament, the setting is suggestive. A man meeting a woman at a well: where else do we see this?

At a well, Abraham’s servant asks Rebekah for a drink, and she later becomes Isaac’s wife (Gen 24). Later, at a well, Jacob waters Rachel’s sheep, and she becomes Jacob’s wife (Gen 29). Later still, Moses’ waters Jethro’s sheep, and his daughter Zipporah becomes Moses’ wife (Exod 2). Romances begin at wells. The watering hole is where you meet your wife.

But there’s a difference here. Those women were ideal matches for men God favoured. But the woman Jesus met at the well is completely unsuitable. She is in a different category all together.

Jesus breaks social taboos to speak with her. First, she is a woman, and Jesus is alone. Second, she is a Samaritan, and Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. And third, if she is not immoral, she is a failure in marriage at the very least. She has had five husbands, and she is now in a cohabiting relationship to a man who is not her husband.

But John has already said, “To all who believed in him, to those who received his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” He has said, “God so loved the world.” He has said, “Whoever believes shall not perish but have eternal life.” And this woman’s past does not disqualify her for relationship with Jesus. And neither does your past, and neither does mine, thanks be to God.

Jesus Offers a Gift: Living Water (vv. 10-15)

Jesus offers the woman a gift, free of charge. He offers her living water. Look with me at John chapter 4 verse 10:

4:10Jesus 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 ask him and he would give you living water.”

Again verse 14:

4:14but whoever drinks from the water which I will give him will never become thirsty for eternity, but the water which I will give him will become in him a well of water overflowing into eternal life.

Jesus promises a gift that keeps on giving. Not just a drink, but a bottomless cup. As a kid at primary school, I fantasized that the bubblers would run with lemonade. Here, Jesus offers the woman the beverage equivalent of the magic pudding: endless refills that bubble over forever.

She misunderstands Jesus, of course, like Nicodemus, who misunderstands Jesus' statement about being born from above. Jesus is not easy to understand. The religious leaders don’t understand about Jesus’ body being the temple. Even the disciples don’t understand, but they believe. She thinks Jesus is talking about better plumbing, maybe getting town water on, or a bigger tank. But she perceives that Jesus claims to be greater than Jacob. And she is right. But she doesn’t know how right.

Touching a Sore Sport: Her Past (vv. 15-18, 29)

The woman doesn’t understand Jesus. But she knows enough to know that the offer is good. And she does the thing that Jesus recommends. She asks Jesus for what he offers. Verse 15:

4:15The woman said to him, “Lord, give me this water, so that I won’t become thirsty, or have to come here to draw water.”

Jesus then touches a sore spot. It is true, Jesus extends his hand out to her in a desire for relationship. Jesus wants to satisfy her thirst. But sin is still sin. And Jesus puts his finger on her failure, not as a tormenter or a torturer, but as a spiritual doctor. He is gentle but firm, not to aggravate and humiliate, but to heal. Jesus not only knows her skeletons in the closet, but also brings them up in conversation with her. Verses 16 to 18:

4:16He said to her, “Go and call your husband and come back here.” 4:17The woman answered and said to him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “Well did you say, ‘I have no husband’, 4:18for you have had five husbands and the one who you now have is not your husband. You have spoken this truthfully.”

Jesus with divine insight puts his finger on her failed romantic relationships. She is either a serial fornicator, or has had a string of failed marriages. And it may be that the man she is now living with is someone else’s husband.

In our world, serial monogamy is now quite normal. It is modelled by our TV shows. It’s Home and Away. And it’s Hollywood. Judy Garland married 5 times, and Joan Collins married 5 times not out. Elizabeth Taylor married 8 times, and she wasn’t married to her partner when she died. Zsa Zsa Gabor scored 9 marriages to 95 years of age. It’s normal for our celebrities to divorce and remarry, to break up and then repartner.

And it’s our community, too. It’s all around us. I’m not telling you anything if I say that marriages are fragile in our community. Divorce, re-partnering, cohabitation without marriage, all this is par for the course. And Jesus throws it all up in the face of this woman. Why?

Well, she thinks Jesus is talking about physical thirst. But Jesus is talking about her spiritual thirst. And this woman has been trying to quench her thirst with the love of a man. And it hasn’t worked. So Jesus touches her sore spot, like a good doctor, to show it is there.

In a marriage, I’ve heard it said each person goes in with needs. Each of us is like a tick to a dog. But the problem is, in every marriage, there are two ticks and no dog. Another way of putting it is we never marry the right person. This is how one thinker put it:

Destructive to marriage is the self-fulfillment ethic that assumes marriage and the family are primarily institutions of personal fulfillment, necessary for us to become “whole” and happy. The assumption is that there is someone just right for us to marry and that if we look closely enough we will find the right person. This moral assumption overlooks a crucial aspect to marriage. It fails to appreciate the fact that we always marry the wrong person. We never know whom we marry; we just think we do. Or even if we first marry the right person, just give it a while and he or she will change. For marriage, being [the enormous thing it is] means we are not the same person after we have entered it. The primary problem is […] learning how to love and care for the stranger to whom you find yourself married. [1]

That is the problem in our society. People enter into marriage without seeing it is a blank cheque. The relationship comes before parents, children, friends, job, even self. Don’t go into marriage for self-fulfillment, go into it for other person service.

We don’t know why this nameless woman was so unsuccessful in love. Maybe it was the type of blokes she attracted and attached herself to. But she seems to think it is a problem, because she says “he told me everything I ever did”.

The Religious Controversy (vv. 19-20)

So she then changes the topic. She raises an old religious controversy. John chapter 4 verses 19 to 20:

4:19The woman said to him, “Lord, I see that you are a prophet. 4:20Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and yet you say that Jerusalem is the place where it is necessary to worship.”

There are two ways to take her change of topic.

First, this ancient religious disagreement had been weighing on her mind. For a long time she’d been worried about who was right. And with the appearance of this prophet, she really wants it sorted. It would be like us saying, "Jesus, can you please tell me who is right: the Catholics, the Protestants, the Muslims, or the Atheists?" That is possible.

Or second, maybe she changes the topic because she doesn’t want to fetch her live-in boyfriend and bring him to Jesus. The discussion is getting a bit too close for comfort. Let’s move it away from my lovers to an age-long theological dispute.

For myself, I suspect it is the second one. Or maybe it’s a bit of both. Anyway, Jesus drops the line of questioning about her love life. And taking her lead, he deals with the matter of the mountains.

Mountains Won’t Matter: True Worship (vv. 21-24)

The Samaritans are the half cast, heretical descendants of the marriages between the disobedient northern tribes of Israel and the pagan nations whom the Assyrians planted in their midsts to dilute their bloodline (2 Kgs 17). The Samaritan religion was syncretistic. It was smorgasbord religion, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. They worshipped the LORD in a manner of speaking, in a way they thought best, but they also worshipped other gods and their idols. And they persisted in this unfaithful version of worship for the best part of 800 years, until the time of Jesus.

Now, part of their worship involved worship on Mount Gerizim. And for centuries Jews and Samaritans debated whether worship should be on Mount Gerizim and Mount Zion.

The Samaritans used only the first 5 books of the Old Testament. They got rid of any of the other books of the Bible, like the Psalms or Chronicles, which show that God chose Mount Zion or Jerusalem. And even the books they accepted they substantially changed. However, they were not the only ones to blame. The settlers in Jerusalem refused their offers of help to build the temple. So the Samaritans built their own, in about 400BC. It stood for 300 years until the Jews destroyed it in 108BC.

However, by the time of Jesus, the Samaritans weren’t idol worshippers. But they worshipped among the remains of the temple on Mount Gerizim. And the woman asks, who is right?

Jesus answers two ways. First, the Jews are right, not the Samaritans. Verse 22:

4:22You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews.

The Samaritans are in a large part ignorant of God. The Jews know the God of the Old Testament. And salvation comes from the Jews, because Jesus was a Jew, and salvation comes from him, and that was the way God was going to save the world, through the descendant of Abraham and David that he chose.

But second, soon both Mount Zion and Mount Gerizim will become obsolete. In the matter of mountains, mountains won’t matter. Verse 21:

4:21Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain [Mount Gerizim] nor in Jerusalem [Mount Zion].

We don’t understand how big a thing this was. 1400 years before, God had said that Israel must worship only in the place that God chose. 1000 years before, God chose Mount Zion in Jerusalem. During the 70 year exile, faithful Jews longingly looked toward Jerusalem, awaiting their restoration. And even though God destroyed the temple, God also said to rebuild it after 70 years. For the best part of 1000 years, God had said to worship there. And now Jesus comes along and says, "the times, they are a changin’."

In a Moment Mountains Won’t Matter

Who does this Jesus think he is, overturning 1000 years of history? God, or something? So Jesus says in verse 23:

4:23But an hour is coming and now is when the true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth, for the Father looks for worshippers of him such as these.

Soon, sacrifice in Jerusalem won’t matter, because Jesus is the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:19-39). Soon, the temple building in Jerusalem won’t matter, because the body of Jesus is the true temple (John 2:13-22). Ritual washing under the Jewish law won’t matter, because Jesus turns water to wine (John 2:1-12). And mountains won’t matter, because God is spirit. Verse 24:

4:24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.

Jesus has already said that God the Holy Spirit, like the wind, blows and goes wherever he likes (John 3:8). God is not limited to any geographical place. It has always been the case. So Solomon at the dedication of the temple said, 1 Kings 8:27:

But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built! (NIV)

And so worship "in spirit and truth" is not limited to any place. And by extension, it is not limited to any building or part of building. It is not limited to any particular posture. It is not limited to any particular liturgy or rituals.

What then is true worship? Well, John’s Gospel tells us. It is faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus will say later, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). It is Jesus’ person and words that are truth. True worship of God comes through Jesus. And if you trust in Jesus, you’ve got it.

The Messiah Makes Himself Known (vv. 25-26)

And then Jesus done something that is nowhere else recorded of him. In no other encounter, in any of the four Gospels, does Jesus do what he does here. With no other person, does Jesus do this. Jesus himself clearly discloses and volunteers the information that he is the Messiah. Long before he asks the question of the twelve, "Who do you think I am?", he has already told this outcast Samaritan woman. Long before Pilate asks, "You are a King, then?" (John 18:37), we read, verses 25 to 26:

4:25The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah, the one called Christ, is coming. When he comes, he will make everything known to us. 4:26Jesus said to her, “I am, the one speaking to you.”

Jesus is the Messiah. He reveals his true identity to this rejected, sexually immoral, woman. And through her, Jesus reveals his true identity to you and me, us rejected, sexually immoral people. Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ. Jesus Christ is the one who offers living water, welling up into eternal life. He reveals himself to the worst of sinners. And he offers the most outrageous rebels ‘living water’.

I hope you take him up. And I hope you don’t say, “I’m too bad for Jesus”, or “I am good enough, I don't need Jesus”, or something as stupid as those things.

Jesus’ Food: The Mission to the Samaritans (vv. 27-42)

And through the woman, Jesus also reaches out to that Samaritan town. Many believe because of her testimony. Many more believe because Jesus spends two days with them.

This is the spiritual food that Jesus spoke of. His mission to the Samaritans is the food the Father gave him. Fulfilling his Father’s mission feeds Jesus more than physical food.

The mission of the Father is that in love he gave his Son to the sinful world. And that world includes the Samaritans. And those Samaritans include the woman we’ve met in this passage, with all her sins, just as it includes us, with all our sins. And she comes to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the saviour of the world, with many of her fellow townsfolk.

John the Baptist and Jesus have sown. And now Jesus will leave it to his disciples to reap. After Jesus rises and ascends to heaven, Peter and John will return to Samaria. And again the news that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, will be openly declared. And the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 8 records the work of the evangelist and the apostles, reaping where others have sown (Acts 8:1-25).

We know from experience that the saying is true, “One sows, another reaps”. Sometimes we sow. Maybe it’s teaching SRE, kids’ church, kids’ club, youth group. We might be sowing the seed for another to reap later on. And that’s OK.

And sometimes we reap, when we see people come to know Christ. If someone comes to know Christ, we often don’t see God’s work beforehand, often over many years, before we've come on the scene. Maybe through family, maybe through friends, patiently praying and sharing the gospel over decades. We might not have seen God working through good times and bad, softening the heart to make it ready to hear the gospel. We might have been the hundredth step for that person, and reap. They say to us, “Yes, I want to be a Christian now”, and we think we’ve done marvellously well as evangelists. But we may well have to remember the 99 others who sowed the word, getting that person ready. Others have done the hard work, and then we reap the benefits of their labour. We need to be prepared to do either, whether it is to sow, or to reap, because we don’t know how God’s great plan of saving the world will play out. But we are just glad to be a part of it.

Let’s pray.

[1] Stanley Hauerwas, “Sex and Politics: Bertrand Russell and “Human Sexuality,’” Christian Century, April 19 1978, 417-422. The quote was sourced through Tim & Kathy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage.

(3) English Translation

(4) Exegetical Notes

In verse 2, Jesus doesn’t baptize, because he is the one who comes to baptize with the Spirit.

In verse 4, John indicates that it was necessary (nb. imperfect Ἔδει) for Jesus to go through Samaria. This probably indicates not a geographical but a theological necessity. Jesus has a mission to undertake. He is in the center of Samaria, at Sychar. This was on the slopes Mount Ebal. Mount Gerizim is where the Samaritans offered sacrifice. There is no explicit record of the grant of the field in the Genesis account, so John is probably relating the local tradition.

In verses 6-7, the woman of Samaria who comes out to draw water was a social outcast, demonstrated by the fact that she went to the well at the time when no-one else could bear going. Women generally came out as a group to draw water in the morning and evening.

In verse 8, the pluperfect tense form ἀπεληλύθεισαν, meaning “they had gone away” into the town. The tense form foregrounds and emphasizes that Jesus was alone with the woman, again a socially questionable situation. The disciples had gone to get τροφὰς, nourishment, keep, living, rations. It was apparently acceptable to buy dry food from the Samaritans, and perhaps the Jewish disciples were maintaining their scruples, or also just going to buy food irrespective of their scruples.

The background to verse 9 is the a strong and mutual animosity and antipathy toward one another that the Jews and Samaritans shared in the first century. The Jews regarded the Samaritans as the children of political rebels and as racial half-breeds whose religion was unacceptable. In 400BC, the Samaritans erected a rival temple on Mount Gerizim. This was subsequently destroyed by the Hasmonean Jew John Hyrcanus toward the end of the second century. The Samaritans worshipped in the ruins of the temple at the time of Jesus, a constant reminder of their rivalry (Carson 1991: 216). The note in verse 9 about Jews not associating or dealing with (συγχράομαι) Samaritans extends to not sharing drinking utensils. Jesus apparently doesn’t care about such prejudiced, infantile, ‘you’ve-got-Samaritan-girl-germs’ attitudes. He is happy to use her cup.

In verse 10, Jesus’ promise of ‘living water’ echoes various Old Testament images and promises (Carson 1991: 219). God is described as the spring of living water (Jer 2:13), and the prophets looked forward to a time when living water will flow out from Jerusalem (Zech 14:8; cf. Ezek 47:9). Water promises cleansing (Isa 1:16-8; Ezek 36:25-27). The use of the ‘gift’ vocab (the noun δωρεά and the verb δίδωμι) is important. The ‘gift of God’ in Jewish technical language is the Law. Through the law the Jews considered that they had salvation, but for John, Jesus is the one to whom the law points, and who brings the grace and truth that the law, for all its benefits, could not bring. The ultimate gift of God is Jesus, the one God sent, who is the one speaking to her. However, associated with the gift of Christ is the freeness of the gift of eternal life by ‘believing’. The phrase ‘living water’ (ὕδωρ ζῶν: v. 10, cf. v. 11) would have been understood by the woman as ‘fresh, flowing water’ (cf. Jer 2:13; Zech 14:8; Ezek 47:9).

In verse 11, the reference to the bucket (ἄντλημα) was to a foldable leather pocket bucket.

In verses 16-18, Jesus introduces into the conversation the abiding personal moral crisis in this woman’s life and touches on the thing that will hurt her, but only to bring her living water for eternal life.

Regarding verses 19-20, the background to the competing religious claims made by Samaritans is that the Jews accepted the Prophets and Writings, thus they accepted Jerusalem as the place where God, through David and Solomon, put his name (Deut 12:5). The Samaritans however, read Deut 12:5 not as ‘will choose’ but ‘has chosen’ and thus they searched the Pentateuch for the place God had put his name. Mount Gerizim overlooks Shechem, the first place Abraham put an altar (Gen 12:6-7), and from Mount Gerizim the blessings were announced (Deut 11:29-30, etc). Exod 20:17 and Deut 5:21 in the Samaritan Pentateuch were tied to Mount Gerizim.

Verse 21 makes clear that true Spirit worship is not a question of geographic place, Mount Gerizim or Mount Zion, but the worshipers possession and ministry of the Spirit of God, that is, being born again by the Spirit who blows wherever he will (John 3:1-12).

In verse 24, the verbless clause indicates that God is ontologically spirit. Because the Father is spirit by nature, the worshiper must worship the Father in the person of the Holy Spirit. The location of true worship is found ‘in Spirit’, and necessarily not on any mountain.

Regarding verse 26, the phrase ἐγώ εἰμι, translated “I am” absolutely, or with express predicate “I am the bread of life”, or implied predicate, such as here, “I am he”. In the LXX of Exodus of 3:14, Yahweh describes himself as ᾿Εγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν, “I am the one being”. It is a statement of self-existence. The phrase translates the MT אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֶֽהְיֶ֑ה , where the imperfect 1cs of the equative Hebrew verb הָיָה (hayah) is used. Compare the later “I am” statements in John’s Gospel. Some argue that John’s use of the phrase does not refer to Exodus 3:14 but Isaiah 40-55, but in Isaiah's case, the phrase is referring to Yahweh, and Isaiah’s use is probably dependent on Exodus 3:14.

In verse 27, the disciples were surprised to find Jesus talking to the woman. This may be because of the social taboo and possible romantic overtones. Some Jews thought that a rabbi talking to a woman (even his wife) was a waste of time or could lead to hell. Some said that to teach their daughters the torah was like teaching them prostitution (Carson 1991: 227).

In verse 28, it is significant that the woman has left the water jars, for Jesus is the one who promises living water. Implicitly and by her actions, she has accepted that he has ‘living water’ much greater than that of the well.

In verse 35, the reference to the fields ‘white for harvest’ may well be to the white robes of the Samaritans from the town coming out to him. The reaping of the disciples now is the result of the sowing of others (v. 38)—this time, of the Father and the Son. All missionary work is the reaping of the work of Jesus and God the Father. The harvest is to eternal life, and we reap that which God and Jesus has sown. God is the one who creates the harvest (Cf. 1 Cor 3).

In verse 42, the phrase “the Savior of the world” is found again in the NT only in 1 John 4:14.