In Lesson 5 we are asked to read John 4:1-41, the story of Jesus teaching the Samaritan woman at the well. The interesting thing is how the teachers manual notes that the Jews had nothing to do with the Samaritans. Yet Jesus went out of his way to go to Samaria (approx. 35 miles out of his way) so he could continue His Father’s work. The manual asks what does this reveal to us about Jesus. So, with that in mind, I wish to take a closer look at this episode.
KJV John 4:4 And he must needs go through Samaria.
Now when we realize that this is not a necessity based on geography, since it was only necessary to pass through Samaria in going directly north from Judea to Galilee. Travelers from the south of Galilee usually crossed over the Jordan river and came down through Perea to avoid the hostility of the Samaritans towards people who passed through their land to go to Jerusalem. Jesus once met this bitterness on going to the feast of tabernacles recorded in Luke 9:51-56. Here was where the Apostles of Jesus got hot-headed and asked if Jesus wanted them to call fire down from heaven as Elijah did to destroy them. Jesus’ response in verse 56 is significant. Jesus says he (as the Son of Man notice!) came not to destroy lives, but to save them. So, we sense his purpose of mission in making a deliberate detour into Samaria. The Greek Edei de auton dierxesqai dia thj Samareiaj shows us the imperfect indicative of the impersonal verb dei with subject infinitive (dierchesthai) and accusative of general reference (auton). In other words, this is very necessary, from the Greek idea of compulsion, an inward necessity. Jesus is out about His Father’s business, and hence goes to the last place any Jew would ever bother with.
Verse 5, they reach the city Sychar in Samaria, the area of land which Joseph was given from Old Testament times. (see. Genesis 33:19; 48:22)
The Samaritans were the new and mixed inhabitants whom Esarhaddon (B.C. 677) the king of Assyria, brought from Babylon and other places and settled in the cities of Samaria, instead of the original inhabitants whom Sargon (B.C. 721) had removed into captivity 2 Kings 17:24 compare Ezra 4:2,9,10. These strangers amalgamated with the Jews still remaining in the land, and gradually abandoned their old idolatry and partially adopted the Jewish religion. After the return from the Captivity, the Jews in Jerusalem refused to allow them to take part with them in rebuilding the temple, and hence sprang up an open enmity between them. They erected a rival temple on Mount Gerizim, which was, however, destroyed by a Jewish king (B.C. 130). They then built another at Shechem. The bitter enmity between the Jews and Samaritans continued in the time of our Lord: the Jews had "no dealings with the Samaritans" John 4:9, compare Luke 9:52,53. Jesus at one time was called "a Samaritan" in sarcastic contemputuous tones, John 8:48. Many of the Samaritans early embraced the gospel however. John 4:5-42 Acts 8:25 9:31 15:3.
John 4:14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
Jesus is conscious of his Messianic status and offers the Samaritan woman a chance for eternal life. With the Jews and Samaritans at such odds with each other, it is worth noting the absolute imperative journey Jesus undertook, and apparently to talk this merely one Samaritan! The worth of souls is great in the eyes of God. Who among us would walk out of our way 35 miles or so to talk to someone in another country whom we are at enmity with?
Verse 15 finds her saying to Jesus - Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, (The German is "Herr") To the woman, Jesus is not yet recognized as Lord. Then Jesus tells her to go get her husband, which she answers she doesn’t have one, and Jesus responds yes I know. Now he has her full attention. This is no ordinary stranger but one who knows her past history of having five different men! Notice her response now:
Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. (vs. 19)
Sir (the Greek Kurie). So still. I perceive (theôrô). This means "I am beginning to perceive" from what you say, your knowledge of my private life (verse 29). The Greek for theôreô is used by John 23 more times in his Gospel. It is used to mean of bodily sight or also of mental contemplation. Reading John 1:51 - Hereafter ye shall see heaven open…, this is the Greek ton ouranon aneôigota. The second perfect active participle of anoigô with double reduplication, meaning it is standing open. The words remind us of what happened at the baptism of Jesus (Mt 3:16; Luke 3:21), but the immediate reference is to the opened heaven as the symbol of free intercourse between God and man. In fact, this was what Isaiah lamented for (Isa. 64:1) and it was later illustrated in the death of Stephen (Acts 7:56). As heaven is promised to become open for us to see, so did Jesus begin to open the Samaritan woman’s mind to fuller truths about salvation.
Raymond Brown has noted something significant about the Gospel of John. Here there is more emphasis on the symbolism of water than anywhere else in the New Testament. The changing of water to wine, (John 2:1-10), the conversation with Nicodemus being born again of water, (John 3:1-15), the conversation with the Samaritan woman we are discussing, (John 4:1-26), the pool of Bethseda, (John 5:1-9), the blind man and the pool of Siloe, (John 9:1-12), the washing of the feet at the Last Supper, (13:1-16), the blood and water from the side of Christ, (19:34), the use of living water, etc. (Raymond Brown, "The Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles," in Krister Stendahl, ed., The Scrolls and the New Testament, Crossroad Publishing, 1992: 202).
Notice that the woman left Jesus went to town and told all the folks that Christ was near. Her perception of him being a "sir" to being the "Christ," is indeed significant. Here is one reason why Jesus must have had to go to Samaria, the land of despised people from the Jewish viewpoint. Samaria again plays an interesting role in Jesus’ theology in another story worth looking at.
Luke 17 Jesus heals 10 lepers and only one returns to say thanks. It is the despised Samaritan. Jesus’ words to him are seriously significant:
Luke 17:18 There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. Robertson’s New Testament Word Pictures has a most interesting note on this!
Luke 17:18 - Save this stranger (ei mę ho allogenęs). The old word was allophulos (Acts 10:28), but allogenęs occurs in the LXX, Josephus, and inscriptions. Deissmann (Light from the Ancient East, p. 80) gives the inscription from the limestone block from the Temple of Israel in Jerusalem which uses this very word which may have been read by Jesus: Let no foreigner enter within the screen and enclosure surrounding the sanctuary (Męthena allogenę eisporeuesthai entos tou peri to hieron truphaktou kai peribolou).
This is the kind of man who was not allowed into the Jerusalem temple. He was lower than the Jews, he was less than the Chosen People, he was inferior following the Jews attitude of Jesus’ day. Yet Jesus concludes to him these words:
Luke 17:19 And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole. h pistij sou seswken se, he pistis sou sesoken se, which is fascinating in light of the double meaning here to the despised Samaritan. The Greek word here, sesoken, means, as John P. Meier has noted, "the meaning of healed" (A Marginal Jew, vol. 2, Doubleday, 1994: 702). But the BDAG Lexicon also shows this word indicates - to preserve or rescue from natural dangers and afflictions, to save, keep from harm, preserve, rescue. It also means to save from death, as well as to be healed. It is also a saving from destruction. Meier poignantly demonstrates the significance here, which relates to the discussion of the Samaritan woman, because she is not one of the chosen, yet is offered salvation:
[All ten lepers are "cleansed" (ekatharisthesan, v. 14) and "healed" (iathe, v. 15); they receive the physical miracle conferred by Jesus’ word of command, with which they comply. But the nine who do not return to Jesus to express their gratitude receive only a physical healing – and that is their loss. Only the grateful Samaritan is described as having faith (pistis) and Jesus declares that his faith has brought him not only physical healing but also salvation (sesoken in v. 19, with its full sense of "saved"). It is one thing to be healed by Jesus; it is another to see in that healing a token of the saving action of God at work in Jesus, respond in faith to that token with praise and gratitude, and so be assured of salvation by Jesus.] (Meier, Ibid., p. 703).
The Samaritans, by their faith, their reason, their willingness to listen to Jesus, may be the despised of the Jews, but are the faithful and saved in God’s eyes as they turn to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is a lesson in that today for us, as we learn to realize that our non-member friends and neighbors, whom we may look down upon as less than we, the covenant people are, may very well be the first in the Kingdom of God, and we be the last, if we are not very careful in our judgments of others.