John 4 - NKJV Know the Word Study Bible

4:1 Therefore, when. This refers the reader back to 3:22–36. Christ’s success in winning disciples had created jealousy among John’s followers and provoked questions among the Pharisees. Since Jesus did not want to be drawn into a controversy over baptism at this stage of His ministry, He left Judea for Galilee (v. 3).

4:4 He needed to go through Samaria. The shortest route from Judea in the south to Galilee in the north went through Samaria. The journey took three days if He wanted to travel the direct route. The Jews often avoided Samaria by going around it along the Jordan River. The hatred between the Jews and Samaritans went back to the days of the exile. Samaria was the region between Judea and Galilee. When the northern kingdom was exiled to Assyria, King Sargon repopulated the area with captives from other lands. The intermarriage of these foreigners and the Jews who had been left complicated the ancestry of the Samaritans. The Jews hated the Samaritans and considered them to be no longer “pure” Jews.

4:14 a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. Jesus desired a drink of water. He then directed the focus of discussion from physical water to spiritual water, pointing out the tremendous advantages of the second kind, which is obtained without cost or effort. This water satisfies completely and eternally.

4:16 Go, call your husband. Jesus mentioned the woman’s husband in order to expose her sin (v. 18).

4:20 you Jews say that in Jerusalem. The Jews insisted that the exclusive place of worship was Jerusalem. But the Samaritans had set up a rival worship site on Mount Gerizim, which according to their tradition was where Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac and where later on he met Melchizedek.

4:24 God is Spirit . . . must worship in spirit and truth. God is not limited by time and space. When people are born of the Spirit, they can commune with God anywhere. Spirit is the opposite of what is material and earthly, for example, Mount Gerizim. Christ makes worship a matter of the heart. Truth is what is in harmony with the nature and will of God. The issue is not where a person worships, but how and whom.

4:29 all things that I ever did. In her excitement, the woman exaggerated. She did not report what Jesus actually told her, but what He could have told her. Note the woman’s spiritual journey. She first viewed Christ as a Jew (v. 9), then as a prophet (v. 19), and finally as the Messiah.

4:36 receives wages. The reaper of a spiritual harvest receives wages—that is, fruit which brings joy. In this case, Jesus sowed by giving the message to the woman. The disciples were going to reap the harvest that He had sown.

4:42 Savior of the world. This title is used only here and in 1 John 4:14. The Jews of Jesus’ day taught that to approach God, one first had to be a Jew. By including this incident in the Gospel, John demonstrates that Jesus is for all people of the world.

4:46 a certain nobleman. This was probably someone who was in the service of the king. Herod Antipas was technically the “tetrarch” of Galilee, but he was referred to as a king.