John 4 - The NIV Application Commentary on the Bible: One-Volume Edition

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman (4:1–26). By Jesus’s day, a smoldering tension existed between the regions of Judea and Samaria. Partly based on race and religion, it echoed many centuries of terrible political fights. Therefore, when we read that Jesus, in passing through the region, meets a “Samaritan woman” (v. 7), the story does not mean that she is a resident of the city of Samaria but that she is from the region of Samaria. She is a woman bearing the history, language, religion, and attitudes of people on the far margin of Judaism. A first-century reader would barely expect Jesus and the woman to acknowledge each other’s presence, much less speak.

In John 4:6 the Greek word for “well” actually refers to a “spring” (Gk. pēgē), that is, a free-flowing water source or fountain (such as Jerusalem’s Gihon Spring). Jesus arrives at the well and sits on the wall at its edge to relieve his fatigue. Throughout this Gospel, John emphasizes the divinity of Jesus in the strongest terms. But here he easily and comfortably shows an incidental human feature: Jesus is tired. John’s Christology does not emphasize one dimension of Jesus at the expense of the other.

It is noon. In this culture, water collection was a responsibility of women. In a world that isolated women socially, the task was not entirely burdensome but became an opportunity for women to meet and talk. Historically, water-drawing took place either in the early morning or at dusk in order to avoid the Mediterranean heat. She draws water when other women are absent. Later, of course, we learn the reason for her isolation: she has doomed her reputation and broken the morals of her community. This makes Jesus’s overture and conversation all the more remarkable. In this world men rarely speak to women in public. Single men never speak to or touch women at any time. Above all, a rabbi would observe these ideals scrupulously. The surprising thing is not that Jesus would ask her for help with a drink; rather, it is that he would ask her anything.

The conversation between Jesus and the woman is a delightful, dramatic play. Woven through are two questions, two challenges launched by Jesus in 4:10: Will this woman comprehend the gift of God and its giver? Will she ask for a drink? We are left in suspense, wondering if the woman will have the courage to ask Jesus to be her water source and will identify him accurately for who he is.

Jesus says something unexpected: he is able to provide “living water” (v. 10). “Living water” refers to water that flows as in a spring, river, or stream—that is, moving water. Living water was precious and was the only water that could be used in ritual washings to make pure unclean worshipers. Everyone knew that Shechem had no rivers or streams. How could a Jewish outsider, someone who barely knew the terrain, offer water that no one else had found?

But the woman stumbles on the metaphor and misunderstands. She is curious about the possibility of a nearby stream or spring, but Jesus wants her to look beyond, to the spiritual significance of what this water means. Living water is life nourished by God. God is the source of spiritual renewal, and other avenues simply must be rejected.

Jesus is talking about a new life that is available through the Spirit of God. Water has become a symbol of this new reality since the beginning of the book and later will be defined as the Holy Spirit. Christ himself is the source of precious living water, which can transform even this woman in her isolation.

But Jesus takes this promise a step further. It is not simply an experience that changes our state, but it is a dynamic experience that makes a life as living as the water itself. The water (or Spirit) will transform a life into a well that “wells up” (hallomai, v. 14). The woman in search of a well discovers that the Spirit could transform her life into a well that does not require reaching and dipping, but which roils and gurgles with water until it spills over its rim.

The woman has requested water, but she does not understand the gift, nor does she know the identity of the giver. No doubt Jesus’s request that she summon her husband was a shock. Her response that she has no husband may have been true were she divorced or a widow. But Jesus reminds her that she has had five husbands, and her current lover is either a sixth husband or a man to whom she is not married.

She has sinned, and the reputation that has dogged her incessantly now has surfaced again. But Jesus is not simply judging her. She rightly sees that this uncovers his abilities as a messenger from God, and so she recoils, looking for a way to deflect the moral probing of this stranger.

The Samaritans understood the expectation of Deuteronomy 18:18, which said a great prophet would follow Moses. But this was to be the messianic figure of the final day. Therefore, in referring to Jesus as a prophet the woman unwittingly has opened the subject of messianism for Jesus.

In verse 20 the woman launches what she hopes will be her most potent salvo. She refers to the historic religious division between Jews and Samaritans. Both groups understood that God had commanded a place be set aside for worship, but they had serious disagreements about its location. King David decided to select Jerusalem, and after he acquired land and brought the tabernacle there, his son Solomon built God’s temple.

The Samaritans rejected this tradition. In the Pentateuch, the first place where Abraham built an altar was at Shechem beneath Mount Gerizim. Given their historical commitments, it made sense that this mountain was deemed to be the place chosen by God. Even following the destruction of the Samaritan temple in the second century BC, priests continued to sacrifice and worship there. Jesus is therefore being invited to enter this historical-religious quagmire and give comment. But once again Jesus deflects her appeal to racial division and supplies a sharp commentary on worship.

Jesus comments on the inadequacy of Samaritan worship. Jesus is a Jew. The Messiah was to be a Jew. Therefore, Judaism is the trajectory of religious history through which God has been at work. Jesus indicates that the debate between Gerizim and Jerusalem is only marginally important anyway since both places will soon be obsolete. A cataclysmic change will occur in worship when Jesus goes to the cross, offering himself as sacrifice. Finally, Jesus defines carefully what is coming and what is even now dawning on earth. Worship in “spirit and truth” (NIV 1984; NIV 2011: “in the Spirit and in truth”) is the key phrase that controls what Jesus means and is no doubt tied to Jesus’s affirmation that “God is spirit” (v. 24). Jesus is describing something of the dynamic and life-giving character of God.

Worship in spirit is dynamically animated by God’s Holy Spirit. But it is more. This is worship empowered by God but also informed by the revelation of God and provided to humans by the one who is the truth, Jesus Christ. This is worship not tied to holy places but impacted by a holy person, who through his cross will inaugurate the era in which the Holy Spirit will change everything.

The woman’s final statement to Jesus again tries to deflect his clarification. The Samaritans did believe in the coming of the Messiah and understood that this person would explain everything to them. But the woman implies that both she and Jesus will have to wait. To this woman, Jesus does not qualify to be this Messiah, but such spiritual explanations are on the horizon for them. But unwittingly, she has used the very words that best describe Jesus. With simple dignity, Jesus accepts the titles for himself. The woman has rightly identified Jesus.

The Greek phrase of 4:26 (literally “I am—who speaks to you”) holds a term that is peculiar to the Fourth Gospel and will recur with some frequency: “I am” (egō eimi). The phrase is emphatic and unusual. As we will see later, it is not always just a term of self-identification that bears a predicate. It is also the divine name of God uttered on Mount Sinai to Moses. Throughout John we will see Jesus’s absolute use of this phrase without a predicate to disclose more of his divine identity.

The Food of Jesus (4:27–42). Jesus’s disciples, who had left to get food, now return and express normal amazement that he is talking with a woman, much less a Samaritan. Of course, they are likely thinking about the prohibitions lived in tradition and written in law that forbade a man to talk casually with a woman. But they may also have been intrigued that Jesus would engage a woman theologically. The rabbis taught that theological education, that is, instruction in the law, was for men alone.

Much has been made of the woman leaving her jar behind (v. 28) in order to report to her neighbors. Her zeal to share her discovery made her leave behind anything that would hinder her. One sign of discipleship is the testimony given to others—words that eagerly spill out because of the preciousness of discovery. Potential converts need only to come and have their own experience with him.

In the woman’s absence, the disciples urge Jesus to eat. Jesus’s claim to possess food baffles them since their assignment was to acquire food. Did someone (the woman?) give him food? Their misunderstanding enables Jesus to press their thinking to another level. Obeying the Father is Jesus’s more deeply satisfying task.

In verse 35 Jesus reminds his disciples of a farming proverb in order to point them to their present obedience. Jesus is thinking about the span of time between planting and harvest when the grain is growing but not mature, when the fields are full but not ready for cutting. The farmer relaxes and enjoys the promise of plenty. But Jesus abruptly changes the image. The fields are now ready for gathering! Jesus is in the world, God has invaded the field with seed, and it is bearing fruit already.

Sometimes those who do the preparatory work are not the same as those who harvest. But what does Jesus mean by “others [who] have done the hard work” (v. 38)? This is possibly John the Baptist or Jesus himself. Either way it is an important theological statement since it defines Christian mission in terms of what has gone on before, what God has been doing in advance of our efforts.

In verse 39 the Samaritans reenter the scene, and the harvest is at hand. Their faith is based on the woman’s testimony, which underscores the value of human witness to the work of God. Evangelism is a cooperative effort, in which the preparatory work of God joins with our witness to what he has done and is doing in the world.

The narrative’s final statement is an important summary of the fruit of the woman’s labor. The Samaritans evidence what every believer must have—a faith that is not secondary or dependent on someone else. Rather, they have come and seen and experienced Christ for themselves. This personal experiential feature is a constant concern for John.

Jesus Returns to Cana (4:43–54). This small story brings us full circle from where Jesus began his public ministry—namely, in Cana. In fact, the story provides a closing “frame” to the section of the Gospel that outlines Jesus and four institutions of Judaism (purification, temple, rabbi, a well). Each Cana miracle is even numbered for our convenience.

John is writing with genuine irony in verse 45 when he talks about the Galileans’ welcome. As the next section in Galilee makes clear, they do not understand him; in fact, they readily misrepresent his aims, and some of his disciples even fall away. As a Jew, Jesus is commenting on his home culture, Judaism, which cannot provide one of its own prophets with honor.

When Jesus visits Cana, he is approached by a man from Capernaum whose son is desperately ill and about to die. He was an important man since he likely worked for Herod Antipas in Galilee. The man asks Jesus persistently if he will come down to Capernaum to heal his son. Jesus heals the boy at a distance instead of traveling to Capernaum. Later, as the man returns home, his servants meet him with news of the healing that occurred precisely when Jesus uttered his words of healing.

Even though the official and his family believe in Jesus, the critical sentence in the story is verse 48: “ ‘Unless you people see signs and wonders,’ Jesus told him, ‘you will never believe.’ ” The attitude of the Galileans is the issue here. In this case, the Galileans miss the revelatory sign Jesus has given and press him to do something spectacular so that they can believe. Jesus’s point is sharp: they simply want miracles, but they do not want to see what God is really doing among them.