John 4:13Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

He is called water to express the purity and renewal given by Him to the souls that receive Him. And rightly so.

Like a garden blooming with many fruitful and ever-green trees, He prepares the zealous soul. He does not allow it to feel either sorrow or the assaults of Satan, but easily quenches the fiery darts of the evil one.

But notice the wisdom of Christ, how little by little He raises the woman. He did not say to her from the beginning, “If you knew who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink.’”

But when He gave her occasion to call Him a Jew and provoked her reproach, then, repelling the accusation, He said this.

Then, having said, “If you knew who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would ask Him,” He compelled her by the promise of something great to remember the forefather.

In this way He gives the woman sight. Then, when she objected, “Are You greater than our father Jacob?” He did not say, “Yes, I am greater than he.”

That might have seemed to her mere vainglory, since no proof of it had yet appeared. Instead, He prepares her for this precisely by what He says.

He does not simply say, “I will give you water.” First He shows the insufficiency of Jacob's water, and then He exalts the significance of His own water.

He wishes to show, from the nature of the gifts themselves, the distance and difference between the givers, and His own superiority over Jacob.

If you marvel that Christ spoke in this way to Jacob, because Jacob gave this water, what will you say if I give you an even better one?

You have already anticipated Me by confessing that I am greater than Jacob, when you objected to Me, “Are You greater than our father Jacob?” You said this because I promise to give better water.

When you receive this water, you will fully acknowledge Me as greater than he. Do you see the impartial judgment of the woman, who judges the forefather and Christ by their works?

The Jews did not act this way. Even when they saw Him casting out demons, they not only did not consider Him greater than the forefather, but even called Him demon-possessed.

The woman bases her judgment precisely on what Christ wishes, that is, on proof from His works. For He Himself based the judgment concerning Himself on this, saying thus.

“If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me. But if I do them, even if you do not believe Me, believe My works” (Jn 10:37-38).

By exactly this path the woman also comes to faith. Therefore Christ, hearing her words, “Are You greater than our father Jacob?” leaves aside the discussion about Jacob and speaks about the water.

“Everyone who drinks of this water,” He says, “will thirst again.” He makes this comparison between the two waters, not disparaging one, but only showing the superiority of the other.

He does not say that that water is worthless, means nothing, and deserves contempt. Rather, He affirms what the very nature of that water also testifies.

“Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst” (Jn 4:13-14).

Through grace they receive the seeds and firstfruits of good things, and they themselves increase and cultivate them. The Lord indicates this in the parable of the talents (Mt 25:14-31) and in that of the innkeeper (Lk 10:35).

The one who received two talents gained two more by putting them to use (Mt 25:17). To the innkeeper who received the man wounded by robbers, the Lord promises, "Whatever more you spend, I will repay you" (Lk 10:35).

The Lord indicates the same thing here. I give water to the thirsty. Yet the water that I give does not remain in the same measure, but increases and becomes a spring.

Thus, in Ananias's catechesis, the Lord gave Paul a little water (Acts 9:17). Yet Paul showed this small water of Ananias's teaching to be a spring, so that the streams of that spring reached from Jerusalem to Illyricum.

Therefore, He says, the Giver of the greater gift must be higher than the one who has the lesser. What is lower cannot have equal glory with what is higher.

Again, one must know that here the Savior calls the grace of the Holy Spirit water. If anyone becomes a partaker of it, he will already have within himself a constant spring of divine teachings.

Thus he will no longer need instruction from others. He himself will be able to instruct those who thirst for divine and heavenly teaching.

Such in this present life were the holy prophets and apostles, and such are those heirs of their ministry who still live on earth. Of them it is written, "You shall draw water with joy from the springs of salvation" (Isa 12:3).

“Therefore,” He says, “whoever drinks of this water will thirst again. But if he receives water from Me, he shall never thirst.” “We shall be satisfied,” says the Psalmist, “with the good things of Your house” (Ps 65:4).

What water is He going to give, if not that of which it is said, “With You is the fountain of life” (Ps 36:9)? And how will those thirst who are made drunk with the abundance of Your house? (Ps 36:8).

Jesus answered her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. The water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water flowing into eternal life” (Jn 4:13-14).

The Lord spoke more openly: “It will become in him a spring of water flowing into eternal life.” “Everyone who drinks of this water shall never thirst.”

What could show more clearly that He promised not visible water, but invisible? What could show more clearly that He was speaking not bodily, but spiritually?

Still, that woman was still thinking in a fleshly way. She rejoiced that she would no longer feel thirst, and supposed that this was given by the Lord in a fleshly sense.

This will indeed happen, but at the resurrection from the dead. She already wanted this absence of thirst now.

For in His time the Lord granted something similar to His servant Elijah, so that for forty days he felt neither hunger nor thirst (cf. 3 Kgs 19:8). Could He who gave this for forty days not give it forever?

Yet she sighed, wishing to be freed from need and from the heavy labor of repeatedly coming to this spring. She had to burden herself with a heavy water jar to supply her need.

When the water she had brought was finished, she had to return again to the spring. She performed this labor every day, for her need returned and did not end.

Therefore, rejoicing in the gift, she asks Him to give her living water (cf. Jn 4:15).

Let us nevertheless not overlook that the Lord promised something in a spiritual sense. What does it mean, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again” (Jn 4:13)?

It is true of that water, and true of what that water signified.

For the water in the well is the pleasures of the age in a gloomy depth, from which people draw them with the jar of desires.

Indeed, bending down, they lower their desire there in order to reach pleasure, drawing it from the depth. They take delight when they reach pleasure, yielding to the desire that draws them.

For the one whom desire does not draw cannot reach pleasure. Cast away, then, the jar of desire and the water of pleasure from the depth.

When any person reaches the pleasure of this age, whether food, drink, bath, spectacle, or sexual union, does he not thirst for it again?

Therefore, “Everyone who drinks of this water,” He says, “will thirst again. But if he receives water from Me, he shall never thirst” (Jn 4:13).

“We shall be satisfied,” says the Psalm, “with the good things of Your house” (Ps 65:4). What water did He intend to give, if not that of which it is said, “With You is the fountain of life” (Ps 36:9)?

How will those thirst who are satisfied from the abundance of Your house? (Ps 36:8).

Thirst for pleasures, wealth, and power is unquenchable. If a man places all his happiness in attaining these goods, then in essence he is the most unhappy of beings.

For however much he drinks from this cup of earthly goods, he will still thirst again.

“But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.” Whoever believes in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, comes to know in Him the true God.

Through this he comes to know the purpose of his brief life on earth, which is only a step on the path to eternal life.

Having satisfied his thirst for the knowledge of God and of his own calling, he will never again thirst for this knowledge. Rather, he will strive toward eternal life, disregarding everything earthly.

Only this striving for eternal life, for life in God, can explain the spiritual calm of Christians who went to execution during the persecutions for faith in Christ.

They believed in the immortality of the soul and in the future life beyond the grave, the eternal life proclaimed by Christ, the Son of God.

Therefore they calmly left the earthly world, full of unsatisfied earthly desires and unquenchable thirst for ever newer sensations. They even feared that someone might temporarily hinder them in this striving.

Thus, for example, Saint Ignatius the God-bearer, sent to Rome for execution, feared that his admirers among the Christians of Rome would intercede for him before the emperor and obtain his pardon.

Therefore, in his Epistle to the Romans, he begs his friends not to prevent him from attaining God.

“The water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water flowing into eternal life.” The teaching of Jesus Christ shows people that their calling is to do the will of God.

It shows that the exact fulfillment of this calling opens for them the path into eternal life.

Therefore, comparing His teaching with water, Jesus says that a flowing spring of water leads every traveler who follows its course to the place into which it pours, whether a river, lake, or sea.

So also His teaching leads everyone who lives according to it and does the will of God to God and to eternal life. It becomes in him, as it were, a spring of water flowing into eternal life.

I think that the words “will thirst again” may also be applied to all who seek knowledge of the truth.

All so-called God-seekers who seek God apart from Christ, and all philosophers who dream of knowing truth apart from Revelation, will always thirst. They will never quench their thirst for truth, because they themselves reject this truth.

When we study various philosophical systems for the purpose of knowing truth, we shall never quench our thirst. However much we draw from this spring, we will still thirst again.

Almost every philosopher begins by criticizing all philosophical systems created before him. On their ruins he builds his own structure, his own temple of truth.

But later philosophers enter this temple and do not find in it what they sought. They do not find truth. Having destroyed it, they vainly begin to build a new temple.

They dimly realize that their own work will suffer the same fate. Why, then, do they, who thirst for knowledge of truth, not quench their tormenting thirst?

Because they draw water from the wrong spring, not from the one indicated by the Lord. They forget His words, “I am the truth.”

They do not wish to labor impartially, without prejudices and intrusive thoughts, over the resolution of the question: Who was Christ?

If they thoroughly studied the Gospel, they would learn that Christ could not be other than the One He called Himself.

Therefore He truly was the God-man, the Son of God, who brought Truth to earth. Then, having quenched their thirst, they would know that whoever drinks the water Christ gives shall never thirst.

Or living water is the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, the preaching and teaching of the Messiah. Whoever hears it has the thirst of the spirit brought to an end.

For hearing and receiving this teaching begets faith in Christ as the Redeemer of the world (Rom 10:14). This faith is the spring of living, inexhaustible water, flowing into eternal life.

The fruits of such faith are eternal life, eternal blessedness, and the satisfaction of all the soul's true needs forever, unto eternity.

This is a beautiful image, especially intelligible and striking to an inhabitant of the East, in places poor in water, amid the great heat and burning climate.

The human soul by nature is like a traveler journeying through the desert in a burning season. He feels tormenting thirst, seeks water and does not find it, and looks in every direction without seeing anything to satisfy his thirst.

So too man's spirit is not satisfied by anything temporary on the path of its life. It attaches itself to one thing, then another, and in the end all proves vanity. A thirst for something torments man.

For such a man, the teaching of Christ is what a spring is to a traveler in the desert, and even more. The spring satisfies the thirst of the body, and therefore a temporal thirst, and does so only temporarily.

Christ's teaching satisfies the thirst of the immortal soul, and therefore forever, eternally. His thirst ceases, because faith in the Lord Redeemer is always able to satisfy it. With this faith, man has blessedness within himself, that is, eternal life.

"As one who has a hidden spring within himself would never be tormented by thirst, so also is the one who has this spiritual water" (Chrysostom).

Let us also observe that living, flowing water is a beautiful image precisely of Christ's living and life-giving teaching. It stands opposite to stagnant water, turbid and unclean.

Such stagnant water serves as an image of the teachings, traditions, and decrees of the people's teachers in Christ's time, the Pharisees and scribes, grown moldy from immobility.