John 4:5Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

There was a mountain called Somor, after the name of its owner. Isaiah also says, “The head of Ephraim is Samaria” (Is 7:9). Yet those who lived there were not called Samaritans, but Israelites.

In time, when they offended God, Tiglath-Pileser came during the reign of Pekah. He took many cities, attacked Elah, killed him, and gave his kingdom to Hoshea.

Shalmaneser attacked Hoshea, took other cities, made them subject to himself, and imposed tribute on them. Hoshea at first submitted, but then rebelled against his authority and sought help from the Ethiopians.

When the Assyrian king learned this, he came with an army and defeated the Israelites. To prevent further rebellions, he no longer allowed them to remain in that land, but led them away to Babylon and Media.

From various places he brought other tribes and settled them in Samaria. In this way he secured his authority there for the future, since the land was occupied by inhabitants faithful to him.

Then God, wishing to show His power and to show that He had delivered up the Israelites not because they were powerless, but because of their sins, sent lions against the barbarians. The lions harmed the whole people.

When the king was informed of this, he sent a certain Jewish priest to teach them the Law of God. Yet even then they did not completely abandon their impiety, but only in part.

Only later, after rejecting idols, did they begin to honor the true God. Meanwhile, when the Jews finally returned from captivity, they conceived hatred for them as foreigners and enemies.

They called them Samaritans from the name of the mountain. A great part of the Jewish hostility toward them came from the fact that the Samaritans did not accept all the books of Holy Scripture.

They accepted only the books of Moses and gave little importance to the prophets. For their part, they tried to make themselves equal to the Jews in nobility of origin.

They boasted of their descent from Abraham and regarded him as their ancestor, since he came from Chaldea. They called Jacob their father as Abraham's descendant.

But the Jews abhorred them, as they abhorred all other nations. For this reason they insulted Christ with the name Samaritan when they said, “You are a Samaritan and have a demon” (Jn 8:48).

For the same reason, in the parable of the man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, Christ introduces a Samaritan who “showed him mercy” (Lk 10:37). In Jewish opinion he was low, despised, and abominable.

So too, among the ten lepers, He calls one a foreigner, and this man was a Samaritan. He Himself also commanded His disciples, “Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans” (Mt 10:5).

But the Evangelist reminded us of Jacob not only to note the history of the country. He also wished to show that this place had long since been lost to the Jews.

Already in the times of their forefathers, the Gentiles possessed this place instead of them. What their forefathers possessed, though it was not their own, their descendants lost through negligence and lawlessness, though it had become their own.

Thus there is no benefit in descending from good ancestors when the descendants are unlike them. The barbarians, merely to escape a greater calamity, immediately turned to Jewish worship.

But the Jews, even after suffering so many punishments, did not come to their senses.

After this, God wished to show the barbarians that He had delivered the Jews to them, not because of His own weakness, but because of their sin. He sent lions against the barbarians resettled in Samaria, and these destroyed them indiscriminately. When this was reported to the king, he summoned some of the Jewish elders who were in captivity. He asked what must be done so that the lions would no longer destroy the barbarians living in Samaria. They explained to him that the God of Israel looked upon that place and would not endure people living there who did not know His laws. Therefore, if he cared for the barbarians there, Jewish priests had to be sent to teach them the laws of God. In this way God would be propitiated. The king listened to them and sent one priest to teach the law of God to the Samaritan barbarians, 4 Kgs 17:24-28. But they did not accept all the divine books, only the five books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. They did not completely abandon impiety, but at times they turned away from idols and honored God. Therefore, when the Jews returned from captivity, they always treated them with hatred as Assyrians by origin. They called them Samaritans from the name of the mountain. The Samaritans called themselves descendants of Abraham and Jacob. They did so because Abraham was a Chaldean, and because they considered Jacob theirs on account of the spring located there. But the Jews counted the Samaritans unclean along with all the Gentiles. Therefore they said to the Lord in reproach, "You are a Samaritan," Jn 8:48. And He Himself said to the disciples, "Do not enter a city of the Samaritans," Mt 10:5.

How then, someone may ask, did He who was sent only to Israel instruct the Samaritan people, while Israel had not yet altogether rejected grace? The words give a fully persuasive answer to this question: "He needed to pass through Samaria." He did not come to the Samaritans precisely in order to preach the teaching among them and transfer to them the whole blessing of Israel. But because "He needed to pass" along the road, He therefore gives teaching and performs the work of Wisdom. Fire never ceases to show the power of burning that belongs to it by nature. In the same way, I consider it utterly impossible for the Wisdom of all not to do what belongs to wisdom. When He said that one must not take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs, He was moved to mercy by many tears and entreaties. He granted grace also to the woman, not because the time of giving grace had been fixed for Him from elsewhere. Rather, He Himself is the Lawgiver with the Father, as Son and God and Lord. So too He grants mercy to the Samaritans. Revealing the ineffable power of His authority befitting God, He enlightens a whole country while traveling on the road. Otherwise it would have been strange to show complete love toward Israel when Israel was already raging and plotting the Lord's murder. Yet since Israel had not yet reached the extreme of madness and was only beginning to persecute the Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ did not yet wholly deprive it of grace. Nevertheless, little by little He transferred the blessing to others. Christ's complete departure from the land of the Jews, and His hastening into the land of foreigners because of the inhumanity of His persecutors, was a kind of threat. It was as though, in the form of an event, He portrayed what was to happen. They were already being subjected to the complete loss of grace. They would hand over to others their own good, that is, Christ, if they did not restrain their madness against Him.

Thus it happened that various peoples, gathered by the Assyrian king, settled in their place. They were called Samaritans after Mount Somor. As Jacob once approached Shechem while passing by, so now Christ, while passing by, approached Samaria. But Jacob, as he himself says, approached with "sword and bow," that is, to exterminate and destroy its former inhabitants. Christ came with word and teaching, and therefore for salvation. "Jesus, wearied from the journey," says the evangelist, "sat thus by the well; it was about the sixth hour." Both the time and weariness moved Him who bore a body like our own to sit down. To confirm this and foreseeing the future benefit, He sat, as the Gospel says, by the well. That is, He sat simply on the ground, like a solitary traveler, because His disciples had gone into the city to buy food.

The Samaritans had received their name from Mount Samar. Yet the Jews, regarding them as foreign Gentiles, turned away from them. These Samaritans held to the Pentateuch of Moses alone and rejected the other books of Holy Scripture. They called themselves children of Abraham and Jacob. It must be known why our Lord commanded His disciples not to go into Samaritan cities: "Do not enter a city of the Samaritans." He told them to prefer the Israelites: "Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," Mt 10:5-6. In this way He showed them to be without excuse. They had been preferred to the Gentiles, yet they despised the preaching of piety. But the Savior of all wished to show that He came into the world to save all equally, Israelites and Gentiles. Therefore He comes to a Samaritan city called Sychar. This city was near the place inherited by the sons of the patriarch Jacob after they slew the Shechemites for the violation of the virginity of their sister Dinah, Gen 34. The patriarch Jacob gave this place to his son Joseph, Gen 48:22. Thus our Lord went to the city of Sychar.

In His answer, the Lord lets her understand that this is condescension toward her on His part. "If you knew," the Savior tells her, "with whom you have been counted worthy to speak, you yourself would ask Him, and He would give you living water." The Samaritan woman's carnal mind could not rise to the spiritual meaning of the Lord's last words. By "living water" she understands either running water, which she supposes Christ intended to take from the bottom of this well. In her thought, this water was in a spring flowing deep in the earth and filling this well among others, v. 11. Or else she understands water from some other spring, much better than the water in Jacob's well, v. 12. In the first case, she could not understand how Christ hoped to draw water from such a depth, since He had no vessel and the surface of the water was very far away. In the second case, she wondered whether her interlocutor could give better water than that in this well. Jacob himself had drunk from it. The great forefather Jacob could neither give nor leave anything better to others. Could her interlocutor really be greater than Jacob himself? Then the Lord reveals more clearly to her what water He is speaking of. At the same time He lets her understand that He truly is greater than Jacob. "This material water, beyond and better than which Jacob could not give his descendants, cannot give complete satisfaction, like everything sensory. Whoever drinks it will thirst again. But the water that I shall give will grant the one who drinks it complete satisfaction of life. Within him it becomes a spring of that which gives man eternal life." Clearly the Savior is speaking here of the grace of redemption given to man. This was either ancient Shechem, called Neapolis in the time of Christ and now Nablus, or else a suburban place near Shechem. In any case, the mention of Jacob's well makes it certain that the event took place near Shechem.

Nablus is a corrupted form of the name Neapolis, given to this city by Vespasian when he rebuilt it after its destruction during the Jewish war. Modern Nablus, both by its position and by the remains of its antiquity, leaves not the slightest doubt that it is ancient Shechem. The road coming from the south leads into a valley. On either side rise the mountains Ebal and Gerizim, famous for their historical memories. Among them, about two versts from the mouth of the valley, the modern city of Nablus has taken shelter. Behind its old, half-ruined walls stretch luxuriant gardens, richly watered by mountain streams. At the place where the city itself stands, the valley is so compressed by the mountains that a strong man could shoot an arrow from one mountain to the other. Therefore the blessings and curses once proclaimed from them, when the Israelites entered the promised land, could be heard quite distinctly from one mountain to the other, Josh 8:33. The houses in the city are of stone. Some have several stories, with small windows and balconies and low doors. Above these doors texts from the Quran are often inscribed, as a sign that their owners have made the pilgrimage to Mecca. In itself the city is very small and poor. It is only a pitiful remnant of ancient Shechem, once famed for wealth and population. The Savior arrived in the vicinity of this city.

The Hebrew word shikar means "he gave wine to drink." The Ephraimites, in whose tribe Shechem lay, are already portrayed by the prophet Isaiah as especially fond of drinking wine, Is 28:1, 7; cf. Sir 50:28. Further, the Hebrew word sheker means "falsehood." The Jews regarded the religion and worship of the Samaritans as false. Is it surprising that, by a slight change of a letter, the people thought to express their aversion or mockery toward the inhabitants of the city? They then used this altered name. This belongs to popular custom. There is another opinion: Sychar was a suburb of Shechem and was properly called Sukar, the burial mound. For the bones of the patriarch Joseph were buried there, Josh 24:32. In any case, there is no doubt that the city in question is Shechem. Today the city is called Nablus, a name formed by the Arabs from the Latin Neapolis. The Romans gave it this name when they brought Palestine under their power, Flavius, De bello Judaico 4.8.1. Near the portion of land, and so on: the patriarch Jacob bought a part of a field from the sons of Hamor, father of Shechem, near the city of Shechem, Gen 23:18-20. To his son Joseph, Jacob gave, in preference to his brothers, one portion conquered by him from the Amorites, Gen 48:21-22. These plots were probably adjacent and formed one field belonging to the house of Jacob, namely to Joseph and his sons, near Shechem. Therefore the book of Joshua relates that the bones of Joseph, which the sons of Israel had brought out of Egypt, were buried in Shechem. They were buried in the portion of the field that Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor, father of Shechem, Josh 24:32.

Here Jacob rested after being delivered from Esau's persecutions, and raised an altar to God his protector, Gen 33:18-20. Here he received the command to build an altar in Bethel, Gen 35:1 and following. Here Joseph pastured the sheep of his father, and his brothers wanted to kill him; afterward they sold him to merchants, Gen 37:12 and following. In Shechem, Joshua gathered the whole people before his death and renewed its covenant with God, Josh 24:1-25. Here also in later times the seductive Samaritan schism appeared, 3 Kgs 12:25.

Yet one cannot affirm that the Lord visited Shechem itself, the capital of Samaria. It appears that the city called Sychar is not Shechem.

The English Palestine Exploration Commission, as well as Eusebius of Caesarea in his Onomasticon, distinguishes Shechem from Sychar. It came to the conviction that the city of Sychar lay opposite Shechem, on the other side of the valley formed by Mounts Ebal and Gerizim.

Compare Deut 27 concerning the ceremony that was to be performed in the valley between these two mountains when the Jews took possession of Palestine.

The Samaritan temple stood on Gerizim. The spring, or better, the well, lay at the foot of Mount Gerizim, to which the Samaritan woman points in verse 20.

We say “well” not only on the basis of our excellent Russian translation, but also on the basis of the studies of the Palestine Commission and the testimony of Anderson in Warren.

The Greek text has the word Πηγὴ, “spring.” Yet this can also mean an artificial structure intended to preserve and gather the waters of springs seeping from the mountain.

According to the testimony of the explorers of Palestine, this was precisely the meaning of the discovered well, beside which the Lord most probably sat.

At the foot of Mount Gerizim there was found a cistern of the deepest antiquity, or a kind of well. Its chief purpose was to preserve, during great heat, the water of the many living springs breaking forth from the ground there.

This most ancient well is seventy-two feet deep. Its walls are built of rough stones. The well has recently been repaired, cleaned, and restored by the English Palestine Exploration Fund.

Near this ancient well, not far away, there is a village now bearing the name Iskar or Askar. Evidently, by tradition, it has preserved the name of the Samaritan city Sychar.

For this reason the Palestine Commission and Lieutenant Conder, relying on Eusebius of Caesarea's opinion that Shechem and Sychar are not identical places, reached a firm conviction.

They held that the ancient well at the foot of Mount Gerizim, not far from the village of Iskar, is precisely the well at which “Jesus, wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.”

Remembering with deep compunction this place, where the Lord, in the flesh of the Son of Man, wearied as man, sat down by the well to rest, we turn with ardent love in our soul to Him.

Being God, He “took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.” He is “a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Is 53:3, 4).

It was the sixth hour when the weary Son of Man sat down to rest. The sixth hour, in accordance with what we said above on Jn 1:39, corresponded to noon.

Most probably the Lord and His disciples had set out from their lodging at sunrise. This corresponded to the beginning of the first hour. Thus He had been six hours on the road when He reached Sychar.