John 4:15Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

The woman immediately believed, showing herself wiser than Nicodemus, and not only wiser, but also more courageous.

He heard many similar things, yet called no one to Christ, and he himself remained undecided. She performs an apostolic work, proclaiming the good news to all, calling them to Jesus, and drawing the whole city to Him.

When Nicodemus heard the Savior's words, he said, “How can these things be?” Even when Christ showed him the clear example of the wind, Nicodemus did not receive His word.

The woman is not like this. At first she is perplexed. Then, receiving Christ's word without prejudice and as direct truth, she immediately inclines toward faith.

What disposition appears in the woman at this point? It is not yet lofty, for she thinks that the speech concerns sensible water. Yet she does show a certain movement forward.

Earlier she was perplexed and said, Where do You get living water? But now, receiving the saying as certain, she says, Give me this water.

Therefore she seems more receptive than Nicodemus. After hearing much of the same kind, he said, "How can this be?" (Jn 3:9).

She is already beginning to disregard Jacob's spring. If, she says, You have such water, give it to me, and I will no longer come here to draw. Do you see how she already places the Lord above Jacob?

Again she speaks and imagines only ordinary things, understanding nothing of what the Savior is saying. She thinks that the whole ministry of our Savior will consist in freeing us from petty labors. She defines the measure of God's grace by the fact that there will no longer be thirst. She does not at all receive, with a pure mind, the teaching about things above the world.

Until now this woman thinks according to the flesh. She is content not to thirst, and thinks that what the Lord promised her was promised according to the flesh.

This will indeed come to pass, but after the resurrection of the dead. She already wanted this. For God once granted His servant Elijah that he should feel neither hunger nor thirst for forty days.

Could He who was able to grant this for forty days not grant it forever? Yet she sighed, not wishing to be in need and not wishing to labor.

She had to keep coming to this spring and be burdened with the load that would quench her thirst. Need drove her to labor, while weakness rejected the labor.

Little by little she is raised to the height of the teaching. Because of the superiority of the water that Jesus Christ gives, she believed that He was greater than Jacob.

She thought that He gives water of another and higher quality, although she did not yet fully know who the Giver of this water was. Nor did she understand what this water was.

She supposed only that the water He gives takes away this sensible thirst. Therefore this woman was not frivolous, since she did not simply believe the words, but only after much reasoning.

Nor was she unbelieving and contentious. Having found that Jesus Christ was greater than Jacob, she did not remain in her prejudice.

When Jesus Christ said to the Jews, "He who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst" (Jn 6:35), they not only did not believe, but were scandalized.

But when she heard the Lord say that "the water which I shall give will be, for the one who receives it, a spring of water flowing into eternal life," she uttered the voice of a thirsty soul being led to faith. Yet it was not yet strong enough to look upon the light. "Lord," she says, "give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw."

Again the woman thinks earthly thoughts. She understands material and earthly water, not the incorruptible and heavenly water of the Savior. "Therefore give me," she says, "Lord, this water, that I may not thirst and not come here to draw water." Since even these words could not turn her mind toward knowledge of the higher reality, the most loving Lord brings her to faith in another way.

If the Samaritan woman could not understand the Lord's words in such a definite sense, at least it should have been clear even to her that He was speaking of spiritual drink.

This drink satisfies the thirst of that side of human existence which lives eternally, the thirst of the human spirit.

Therefore the Samaritan woman's request, that He give her water and free her from the need to come to this well, is interpreted in different ways.

If she continues to imagine material water, then she imagines miraculous water, which will not diminish when used. It would then be like the small quantity of flour and oil of the widow of Zarephath of Sidon.

The Samaritan woman did not understand these words. She thought that the water Christ promised to give her would only free her from bodily thirst and from the need to draw water from Jacob's deep well. She still looks at Jesus as an ordinary man and therefore cannot understand the true meaning of His words. Wishing to bring her to an understanding of these words, Jesus first commands her to call her husband. Then He directly exposes her, saying that, after having had five husbands, she is now living in an adulterous relationship.

This water is undoubtedly good, the Savior answered her. Yet "everyone who drinks this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks the water that I shall give him will never thirst. The water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water flowing into eternal life."

Becoming more and more interested, and feeling that she saw before her an extraordinary man, the woman finally asks Him for this living water. Yet her mind had not yet fully grasped the essence of this water.

She asks only so that, after drinking it, she may no longer be thirsty and may not come here again for water.

"Give me this water," and so forth. However transparent the figurative veil beneath which the new and lofty truth is offered to the Samaritan woman, her spiritual gaze does not pierce through that veil. It stops only at the veil itself.

She herself doubts that the One speaking with her could have spring water with Him (Jn 4:11-12). Yet she thinks that He is speaking precisely of spring water, only of some special, miraculous kind.

It would truly satisfy thirst once and for all. She asks Him to give her this water, so that she need not come to the well any longer.

This is an example of spiritual dullness caused by the lack of true teachers among the people. Such dullness is certainly excusable in a simple woman.

Verse 15. The Samaritan woman recognizes in Jesus a wondrous man of God, one who can miraculously bring forth water where there is none. And how burdensome the needs of life are! How much trouble, how much labor, how much time it takes a poor woman to go far away every day for water. How good it would be if the great man helped with the need for water, the woman thinks. Thus the Samaritan woman gradually gains spiritual sight. She recognizes Jesus as a prophet, but she does not yet understand His spiritual water.

The Samaritan woman still thinks of earthly water, though, as she supposes, endowed with special miraculous properties. The Lord answers her thoughts by transferring them into another sphere of thought.

He awakens in the woman the consciousness of her sinfulness by commanding her to call her husband. The consciousness of sin suddenly arises in the Samaritan woman's soul and manifests itself in the form of a lie.

She is ashamed to admit to such cohabitation with a man. By her own awareness, it is not lawful marriage, but concubinage.

Moreover, this concubinage had been repeated several times with different persons, to whom she had given herself while her previous companions were still alive.