John 4 - NIV LifeConnect Study Bible

4:4 “Samaria” here refers to the whole region, not simply the city. Jews often avoided Samaria by crossing the Jordan and traveling on its eastern side (see the notes on Mt 10:5; Lk 9:52). Perhaps the necessity of going through Samaria had to do with Jesus’ mission rather than with geography.

4:5 Sychar was a small village near Shechem.

4:6 At its most basic, a well is a pit or hole dug in the earth down to the water table (the level at which the ground is permanently saturated with water). For both safety and permanence, wells in Bible times were generally surrounded by walls of stone. In the case of some famous wells, like that of Jacob (see ch. 4), the walls were beautifully constructed with dressed stone. A well is to be distinguished from a cistern (which is merely for storing water; Jer 2:13), a spring (which is found at the surface of the ground) or a fountain (from which water actively flows; SS 4:15). For additional commentary on wells, see the note on Joel 1:20.

4:7 People normally drew water at the end of the day rather than in the heat of midday (see v. 6; see also Ge 24:11).

4:9 Jews would become ceremonially unclean if they used a drinking vessel handled by a Samaritan since they believed all Samaritans were unclean.

4:18 The Jews held that a woman might be divorced twice or at most three times. If the Samaritans had the same standard, this woman’s life had been exceedingly immoral. Apparently she had not married her present partner.

4:20 The proper place of worship had long been a source of debate between Jews and Samaritans. Samaritans thought that Mount Gerizim was especially sacred. They had built a temple there in about 400 BC, which the Jews destroyed in 128 BC.

4:25 The Samaritans expected a Messiah, but their rejection of all the inspired writings after the Pentateuch meant that they knew little about him. They thought of him mainly as a teacher.

4:26 This is the only occasion before his trial in which Jesus specifically said that he was the Messiah (but see Mk 9:41). The term “Messiah” did not have the political overtones in Samaria that it had in Judea, which may be part of the reason Jesus used the designation here.

4:27 Jewish religious teachers rarely spoke with women in public.