John 4:19Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Yet what love of wisdom there is in this woman! With what meekness she accepts the rebuke! Why should she not accept it, you will say?

But tell me: did He not often rebuke the Jews, and even more strongly? It is not one and the same thing to reveal hidden thoughts and to expose secret deeds.

The first belongs to God alone, for no one knows thoughts except the one who has them. Deeds, however, are known to all who share in them.

Yet the Jews did not bear rebukes with meekness. When Christ said, "Why do you seek to kill Me?" (Jn 7:19), they did not marvel like the woman, but blasphemed and reviled Him.

Did she become irritated after hearing this? Did she leave Him and run away? No. She was still more amazed and strengthened, and says, "Lord, I perceive that You are a prophet." She asks Him about divine matters, not about worldly things, such as bodily health or possessions. So chaste and well-disposed toward virtue was her soul.

She is only barely enlightened toward understanding, and again very imperfectly. For she still calls the Master of the prophets only a prophet.

Nevertheless, little by little she becomes better than before, since she is not offended at the rebukes. Instead, she gains benefit from the wondrous sign.

In this way she comes out of the slackness of her thoughts and rises somewhat toward a manly mind. She directs the eye of her heart toward an unusual contemplation of spiritual realities.

Here the long-suffering of our Savior and His almighty power should especially arouse wonder. He so easily transforms coarse hearts into a wondrous state.

The husband begins to come, but he has not yet come completely. She considered the Lord a prophet. And He truly was a prophet, for He says of Himself, "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country" (Mt 13:57).

The same was also said to Moses: "I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brothers" (Deut 18:18). Of course, He was like him according to the flesh, not according to greatness.

Thus we find that the Lord Jesus is called a prophet. Therefore the woman was not so very mistaken. "I see," she says, "that You are a prophet."

She begins to call the husband and to drive out the lover: "I see that You are a prophet." And she begins to ask about what usually troubled her.

Being plainly exposed, the woman did not grow angry and did not take this exposure as an insult. Struck by the exactness of His knowledge, she understood that He was truly a prophet. "I perceive," she says, that is, "I understand." Then, not asking Him about worldly affairs, but immediately about doctrine, she says:

Immediately recognizing that a Prophet is speaking with her, she proceeds to greater questions.

There were two mountains on the eastern side of Jericho: Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. On Mount Gerizim the Jews pronounced blessings, and on Mount Ebal curses.

God commands, "You shall put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal" (Deut 11:29).

Holding to this, the Samaritans worshiped on Mount Gerizim, for it was the mountain of blessing. The Jews, however, rightly maintained that the place for worship is in Jerusalem.

For the law commanded, "Take heed to yourself that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see. Only in the place which the Lord your God shall choose, in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you today" (Deut 12:13-14).

Struck by Jesus' omniscience, which had revealed her secret, the Samaritan woman now understood that she was not speaking with an ordinary man. Therefore, breaking off the conversation about her family affairs, unpleasant as it was for her, she hastens to learn from Jesus where God is.

Where must He be worshiped? I see, she says, that You are a prophet. Tell me, then, are we Samaritans right in worshiping God on this mountain, as our fathers worshiped?

Or should we worship in Jerusalem, where, in your opinion, the only place for worshiping God is found?

The temple built by the Samaritans on Mount Gerizim was destroyed by John Hyrcanus in 130 BC. Yet the Samaritans continued to offer sacrifices to God on the same mountain, at the site of the ruined temple.

These words of the Knower of hearts struck her like thunder, and she reverently exclaimed, "Lord, I see that You are a prophet." At that moment a thought flashed through her like lightning: perhaps the Jewish faith is right, from which such prophets can appear.

And so her lively thought quickly passes from her own life, on which she certainly did not wish to dwell any longer, to another question.

This was the question over which a bitter dispute constantly raged between her people and the compatriots of the One with whom she was speaking. It was the cause of their mutual enmity.

Chance had brought her together with a great Teacher. Could she not use this occasion to settle the endless dispute between Jews and Samaritans?

"I perceive that You are a prophet." From the Lord's manifested knowledge of hearts, the woman concludes that He is a prophet. She understands this word in a broad sense, not merely as a seer and foreteller of the future. She means one who receives revelations from God in general, and therefore can know what is hidden and secret in a person's life (1 Sam 9:9). The woman is certain that the One speaking with her could not have learned the secrets of her life from others. They were known only to her. Otherwise she would not have been so struck by His words, nor would she have acknowledged Him as a prophet.

Verses 19, 20. "You are a prophet," the woman exclaims, struck by His insight into her past and present life.

She does not linger over her own life, whose uncleanness she now feels. Instead, she seeks from the great Prophet the resolution of a question that occupied all her compatriots.

She feels that the solution of the common question is also joined to the solution of the question concerning her private life. She seeks the truth needed for all, not for herself alone.

Where must one worship God: on the mountain honored by the Samaritans, or in the Jerusalem temple?

"Do you see how she became loftier in her thoughts? She who cared only about quenching her thirst is already asking about doctrines" (Chrysostom).