John 4:30Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Nor does she call one or another only, as Andrew and Philip did. She sets the whole city in motion and leads a multitude of people to Jesus.

Thus, when man loved this sixth adulterer and fell into idolatry, the Lord came and freed us from him. Therefore He says, “the one whom you now have.”

For by the time of Christ’s coming, the wise men of the Jews had indeed turned toward paganism, as the heresy of the Pharisees shows, who believed in fate and astrology.

The Samaritan woman is also every soul that has irrationally subjected itself to the five senses, and then accepted false teachings as a sixth adulterer. Jesus benefits such a soul either by Baptism or by the spring of tears.

Tears too may be called Jacob’s well, that is, the well of our mind, which tramples malice. This water is drunk by reason itself, by its children, the thoughts, and by its cattle, the irrational parts of the soul, anger and desire.

For tears bring refreshment to the mind, to the thoughts, and to the other powers of the soul.

The ready obedience of the Samaritans serves to expose the hard-heartedness of the Jews, and the Jews’ inhumanity is revealed by the meekness of the Samaritans.

Let the lover of knowledge again see the difference in disposition between the two, so that he may justly marvel that Jesus departs from the synagogue of the Jews and gives Himself to the foreigners.

The Law of Moses announced to the Jews that Christ would come and why He would appear. The all-honored choir of the prophets proclaimed Him.

Then, when He was already, as it were, standing at the doors, it pointed to Him in the words, “Behold your God, behold the Lord” (Is 40:9).

Hear, “I who speak to you am He.” Having received the Lord Christ in her heart, what else could she do but leave her hydria and go to proclaim the good news?

She cast away desire and hastened to announce the truth. Let this be instruction for those who wish to preach the Gospel: let them leave the hydria at the well.

Remember what I said earlier about the hydria. It is a vessel for drawing water; in Greek it is called hydria, because in Greek hydor means water. It is as though we said “bucket.”

So she threw away the hydria, which was no longer useful to her but only weighed her down. For she longed eagerly to drink that water.

To announce Christ, having left the burden behind, she rushed into the city and said to the people there, “Come, see a Man who told me all that I ever did.”

The word of the Samaritan woman was effective. As soon as the Samaritans heard her words, they went out of the city and came to Jesus Christ. Meanwhile, that is, while they were reaching the place where Christ sat, His disciples knew that He was hungry. They asked Him to partake of the food they had bought. “Teacher,” they said, “eat.”

At the close of His conversation, the Lord also said directly to the Samaritan woman that He is the very Messiah whom Samaritans and Jews await. The woman hastens into the city to tell her people the joyful news of the extraordinary event.

Crowds of inhabitants went out from the city to Jesus. Meanwhile the disciples returned with their purchase and found their Teacher at the end of His conversation with the Samaritan woman.

Although His conversation with a woman, in which He was deeply engaged, seemed strange to them and stirred their curiosity, no one dared ask the reason or the subject of the conversation.

They also marveled that the Lord did not touch the food they had brought. Occupied with His great work, He forgot earthly needs.

The disciples returning from the city interrupted Jesus Christ’s conversation with the Samaritan woman. They were surprised that Christ was speaking with a woman, since Eastern customs did not permit this. Yet no one expressed any remark to Him on this matter.

Meanwhile Christ’s interlocutor, strongly stirred by His word, forgets her water jar at the well and hurries into the city. She burns with the desire to share with her countrymen her discovery of the Messiah in the person of the One who had spoken with her.

Wishing them to be convinced for themselves of the truth of such a discovery, she does not say affirmatively that He is the Christ. Rather, she invites them to go, look at Him, and decide with one voice: “Can this be the Christ?”

They went to Jesus.

Meanwhile the woman, forgetting even her water jar from the amazement that had seized her, ran into the city to tell of her wondrous meeting. A man had appeared who disclosed to her the very secrets of her life. Could He be the Christ, the Messiah? The Samaritans, who in every Gospel notice concerning them appear simpler and more receptive to persuasion than the Jews, soon ran out of the city at her word. When their approach could already be seen, the disciples urged the Savior to eat, for it was already past noon, and He was so exhausted from the journey.

They went out of the city. Probably the force, and perhaps the fervor, of the woman’s speech was such that the inhabitants left their usual occupations and hastened to see for themselves the extraordinary man of whom she had spoken.

The Samaritan woman could not at once penetrate the deep meaning of the Savior’s words about worshiping God in spirit and truth. Therefore she only said, “I know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ; when He comes, He will declare all things to us.”

In answer to this remark of the Samaritan woman, Jesus says to her, “I who speak to you am He” (vv. 25-26).

Amazed and gladdened, the Samaritan woman ran into the city and told everything there. The Samaritans went to Christ in a great crowd and asked Him to enter their city.

Jesus Christ remained with them two days, and many Samaritans believed in Him as the Savior of the world. The disciples of Jesus Christ also received a lesson.

They learned that the Samaritans too, whom they despised according to Jewish prejudice, are called by the Lord to salvation equally with the Jews.

Verses 28-30. The Samaritan woman was so struck by all that she had seen and heard that she forgot why she had come to the well. She leaves her water jars and runs into the city to share her impressions.

Both from the modesty of her soul and from the position in which a woman was then placed, she does not take it upon herself to assure her fellow citizens that she has found the Messiah.

She tells them what she heard from Jesus and leaves them to decide whether He is not the Messiah.

“He told me all that I ever did,” she says. Her soul was filled with reverence for the One sent and with dissatisfaction with herself. Before everyone she speaks of her sins and of the glory of God.

She thinks neither of human rumor nor of shame. How she has been reborn for a new life! The Shechemites were so sensible that they listened to the sensible woman and went to Jesus.

In her spiritual joy the woman leaves her water jar. Without completing the earthly task for which she had gone, cf. the parable of the pearl and similar passages, Mt 13:44-46, she runs into the city.

She wishes to share with her fellow citizens the radiant feeling that fills her soul. She tells them about the Lord and invites them to go and be assured whether He is not the Christ expected in the world.

Her faith lights other souls from its lamp, and the Samaritans “come to the Lord” to quench their spiritual thirst, according to His word: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me” (Jn 7:37).