John 4:6Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Foretelling this, David also said: "He shall drink from the brook by the way" (Ps 109:7), showing the simplicity of His way of life. John shows the same here: "Jacob's well was there. Jesus, wearied from His journey, sat by the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, Give Me to drink. For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food" (Jn 4:6-8). From this we learn how strenuous His journeys were.

Further, this shows not only Christ's endurance in labors, but also His avoidance of splendor. He not only grew weary and sat down on the road, but remained alone, while His disciples had departed. Of course, if He had wished, He could have sent not all the disciples. Or after they had gone, He could have had other servants with Him. But He did not wish this. In this way He trained the disciples to despise every kind of splendor.

What is so great, someone may say, if they lived modestly, being fishermen and tentmakers? True, they were fishermen and tentmakers. Yet they suddenly soared to the height of heaven and became greater than all kings. They were counted worthy to converse with the Master of the universe and to follow this wondrous Teacher everywhere.

You also know that people of lowly station, when they attain honors, are more easily carried away by arrogance, using honors ignobly. Therefore Christ, wishing to establish His disciples in unchanging humility, taught them to be moderate in all things and never to demand attendants.

He Himself, as the Evangelist says, "wearied from His journey, sat by the well." Do you see that He sat from weariness and heat, and also to wait for the disciples? He knew what was to happen among the Samaritans, but He did not come here chiefly for this. Yet although He did not come for this, He had no need to drive away the woman who came and showed such great zeal for His teaching.

The Jews persecuted Him, though He had come especially to them. The Gentiles drew Him to themselves even when He was going elsewhere. The former hated Him, while the latter believed in Him. The former were indignant, while the latter marveled and worshiped Him. What then? Was it necessary to neglect the salvation of so many and leave such sincere zeal unnoticed? This would have been unworthy of His love for mankind.

Therefore He orders everything in the present case with His proper wisdom. He sits by the spring to rest His body and cool Himself. It was noon, which the Evangelist indicates by saying: "He sat by the well; it was about the sixth hour." What does "sat" mean? He sat not on a throne, not with a cushion, but simply, as it happened, on the ground.

Today Christ has proclaimed to us the struggles of the Samaritan woman, and our poor word must set out upon the sea of her virtues. Looking upon her faith, I wish to devote a word of praise to her and to glorify her together with you. She was poor and yet rich, a harlot and an apostle, lost and faithful. She had many husbands and received many powers. She defiled many and ministered to the Only-begotten Word of God. She was defiled and purified, thirsty and desiring the living water, and she inherited the grace of the heavenly springs.

What then does the Evangelist John say, he who thundered forth these ineffable mysteries? "So He came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. Jesus, wearied from His journey, sat by the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, Give Me to drink. For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food" (Jn 4:5-8).

"Jesus, wearied." How then does the prophet Isaiah say: "The everlasting Lord God does not grow weary and does not faint. His understanding is unsearchable" (Is 40:28)? Yet the Evangelist Matthew writes of Him in his Gospel: "And after fasting forty days and forty nights, He was afterward hungry" (Mt 4:2). The Evangelist John, as you have just heard, says: "Jesus, wearied from His journey, sat by the well. It was about the sixth hour." One says that He hungered, and the other attributes weariness to Him. But the prophet Isaiah, speaking by the Holy Spirit, clearly says: "The everlasting Lord God does not grow weary and does not faint. His understanding is unsearchable" (Is 40:28).

Is there a contradiction here between the Gospels and the prophecy? Certainly not. The prophet did not err. Far from it. Nor did the apostles write anything contrary to the Holy Spirit and the prophecy. Rather, the divine economy of our Savior, the great God, has a certain twofold and unusual character. I mean the union in Him of Godhead and humanity, according to His will and counsel. Thus the prophet proclaims the power and majesty of His Godhead, while the apostles and Evangelists depict His true divine economy according to the flesh.

Here, beloved, we must examine why the Evangelist indicated the place where this happened, the hour, and the disciples' absence. He indicates the place in the words, "He sat by the well." He indicates the hour: "It was about the sixth hour." He indicates the disciples' absence by noting that "His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food."

Why did he indicate the place? I will explain. Christ had in view a spiritual catch. For this purpose He came to the place where His quarry awaited Him. Do you know what fishermen do? They do not cast their nets at every place in the sea, but where they already know fish are found. In the sea there are many places which provide food for fish more than others.

So also our Lord Jesus Christ, the great God, knew as God, according to the prophecy, that here He could meet His quarry, that is, this Samaritan woman. Just as fishermen choose the places where they hope to catch fish, so Christ came to the place where He could catch the Samaritan woman and, through her, make a great catch of people. This explains why the Evangelist indicated the place.

Why did he also indicate the hour? For he says: "Jesus, wearied from His journey, sat by the well. It was about the sixth hour." Now listen also about the time. The Samaritan woman was evidently poor and earned her sustenance by constant labor. She was poor in body and possessions, but not in the piety of her soul. Standing at the loom, she zealously practiced the work by which she fed herself.

At the sixth hour, when everyone gave himself to rest, she took her water vessel and carried water. The all-knowing Lord, of course, knew that she used for carrying water the very time everyone else used for rest, refusing rest herself. Therefore He came here precisely at the sixth hour, knowing that this was the very time when she came for water and could serve Him as a spiritual catch.

The place given by Jacob to Joseph was called Shechem. The sons of Jacob destroyed the Shechemites and laid waste the city. After it had been laid waste, it was handed over by their father as an inheritance to Joseph. When the evangelist says that the Lord was wearied from the journey, he shows us His modesty and moderation. For He did not use draft animals for travel, but went on foot, teaching us also not to demand much. He also shows that He made the journey with effort, not carelessly. From this we learn to accomplish the work of God with effort and diligence. The word "sat" means that He sat simply and as it happened. He did not sit on a throne, but quite simply, resting His body on the ground and refreshing it by the well. Then he introduces another reason why He sat by the well: it was midday. "It was," he says, "about the sixth hour." Furthermore, lest someone accuse the Lord because He commanded His disciples not to go on the road to the Gentiles, while He Himself comes to the Samaritans, he says this. His sitting in that place was due to weariness, and His conversation with the woman had a blessed occasion: thirst. Notice, if you will, the evangelist's precision. He did not state absolutely, "It was the sixth hour." Lest he sin against the truth, he said, "It was about the sixth hour," thus giving reliability to his word.

He stops “wearied from the journey,” as it is written, in order by this also to accuse the impiety of His persecutors.

They ought to have drawn Him to themselves with fitting honors. They ought to have surrounded Him, as their Benefactor, with reverence and fear. Instead, they compel the Lord to labors.

Thus the one who speaks of them in the book of Psalms is shown to be true: “They repaid Me evil for good” (Ps 35:12).

Here, then, the audacity of the Jews is exposed. But what will the Arians, who are close to their madness, say to us about this?

To them one may justly say, “Sodom is justified by you” (Ezek 16:52; cf. Mt 11:24). The former crucify Christ according to the flesh. The latter rage against the ineffable nature of the Word itself.

Behold, He was wearied from the journey. Who endures this? Will you really assert that the Lord of powers needed restoration of strength?

Will you attribute weariness from the journey to the Only-begotten Himself from the Father, so that He who knows no suffering should be thought passible?

Or will you rightly renounce such thoughts, attribute this only to the bodily nature, and say that weariness belongs only to the humanity, not to the Word existing and contemplated separately in Himself?

He who by nature possesses almighty power and is the strength of all that exists is said to be wearied. Yet do not divide the one Christ into two sons.

The weaknesses of humanity are attributed to Him, though He remains impassible, because He who by nature is incapable of weariness became man.

In the same way, if He says anything about Himself that must be regarded as proper only to man and not to God, we must not chase after the bare letter of the words.

Nor must we show ignorance precisely when skill in piety is especially required of us. We must not push the thought of the divine economy of the Incarnation as far away as possible.

Nor should we rush up to the very Godhead of the Word and, in great ignorance, touch matters that exceed us.

For if He had not become man at all, and if He had not appeared in the form of a servant, then one should be afraid of everything said of Him that belongs to a servant.

In that case, one should accept only what befits Him as God. But if, with firm and undoubted faith, we have received that, according to John, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14), then when you see Him speaking as flesh, that is, as man, receive the saying in a human way for the credibility of the preaching.

Otherwise it would not have been possible to give clear knowledge that God the Word became man, unless it had been written that the Impassible endured something human and the Most High spoke something proper to the lower nature.

“It was about the sixth hour.”

He shows us Jesus stopping at the well at the proper time. Since the sun from the middle of the heavenly vault was sending its hottest rays upon the inhabitants of the earth and was strongly burning bodies, it was not harmless to go farther.

It was necessary to rest a little. All the more, He could easily turn away from Himself any charge of softness, for the time itself required this.

He says that the hour was not exactly the sixth, but “about the sixth.” From this we too should learn not to be indifferent or careless even in the smallest matters.

Rather, we should carefully honor the truth in everything, wherever it may be encountered.

"Jesus, wearied from His journey, sat by the spring; it was about the sixth hour" (Jn 4:6). The mysteries are already beginning. For not without cause was Jesus wearied. Not without cause was the Power of God wearied. Not without cause was He wearied, through whom the weary are restored. Not without cause was He wearied, in whose absence we grow weary and by whose presence we are strengthened.

Yet Jesus was wearied, and wearied from the journey. He sits; He sits near the well. He sits weary at the sixth hour. All these circumstances hint at something and wish to indicate something. They compel us to be attentive and urge us to knock. May He Himself open both to us and to you, who deigned to urge us with the words: "Knock, and it will be opened to you" (Mt 7:7).

For your sake Jesus was wearied from the journey. We find Jesus strong, and we find Jesus weak. Strong and weak Jesus! Strong, for "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God" (Jn 1:1-2). Do you wish to see how strong this Son of God was? "All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made" (cf. Jn 1:3). And all things were made without toil.

What, then, is stronger than He through whom all things were made without toil? Do you wish to know weak Jesus? "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (Jn 1:14). The strength of Christ created you; the weakness of Christ restored you. The strength of Christ caused what did not exist to come into being. The weakness of Christ caused what existed not to perish. He established us by His strength, and He sought us by His weakness.

Thus, being weak Himself, He feeds the weak, as a hen feeds her chicks. For He likened Himself to her. "How often," He says to Jerusalem, "I wished to gather your children under My wings, as a hen gathers her chicks, and you were not willing" (cf. Mt 23:37).

You see, brothers, how a hen becomes weak with her chicks. There is no other bird that appears so motherly. We see various sparrows nesting near our houses. Every day we see swallows, storks, and doves making nests. Yet we do not recognize them as parents except when we see them in their nests.

But a hen becomes so weak toward her chicks that even if the chicks are not following her, and you do not see the young, still you see a mother in her. Her wings droop, her feathers are ruffled, her voice is hoarse, and all her members are weak and slack. Thus, as I have said, even if you do not see her chicks, you still understand that she is a mother.

So also was Jesus, weak and wearied from the journey. His journey is the flesh assumed for our sake. How can He who is everywhere present, and who is absent from no place, have a journey? Where does He go? From where does He go? Certainly He would not have come to us if He had not assumed the form of a visible body.

Therefore, since He deigned to come to us in this way, assuming flesh and manifesting Himself in the form of a servant, the very assumption of flesh became His journey. What else, then, does "wearied from the journey" (Jn 4:6) mean, if not "wearied in the flesh"?

Jesus is weak in the flesh, but do not be weak. In His weakness be strong, for "the weakness of God is stronger than men" (1 Cor 1:25).

According to this manner of thought, Adam, who was a type of Him who was to come (cf. Rom 5:14), gave us a great indication of the mystery. Rather, God gave it in Adam. For during sleep he was counted worthy to receive a wife, and from his rib a wife was made for him (cf. Gen 2:21-22). This was because from Christ, sleeping on the Cross, the Church was to arise from His side. It was from the side of Him who slept, for from the side of Him hanging on the Cross, when it was pierced by the spear, the Mysteries of the Church flowed forth (cf. Jn 19:34).

But why did I wish to say this, brothers? Because the weakness of Christ has made us strong. A great figure was prepared there in Adam. God could have taken flesh from the man in order to make the woman from it, and this would seem more fitting. For the weaker sex had to be made, and weakness might more readily have been made from flesh than from bone, since bones are marked by strength within flesh.

But He did not take flesh in order to make the woman. He took a bone, and having taken the bone, He made the woman, while the place of the bone was closed with flesh (cf. Gen 2:21). He could have restored bone in place of the bone. He could have taken flesh, not a rib, to make the woman. What, then, did this indicate? The woman was made from the rib, as though strong. Adam was made in flesh, as though weak. This is Christ and the Church. His weakness is our strength.

Why the sixth hour? Because it was the sixth age. Count in the Gospel, as by single hours. The first age is from Adam to Noah, the second from Noah to Abraham, the third from Abraham to David, the fourth from David to the migration to Babylon, and the fifth from the migration to Babylon to the baptism of John. Then comes the sixth age.

Why, then, are you amazed? Jesus came, and in His weakness He approached the well. He came wearied, for He bore weak flesh. He came at the sixth hour, because it was the sixth age. He came to the well, because He came to the depth of this dwelling of ours. Therefore it is said in the Psalm: "Out of the depths I cry to You, O Lord" (Ps 129:1). He sat, as I have said, because He was weak.

He did not say, "the sixth hour," but "about the sixth hour." By this he teaches us not to be careless even about the smallest circumstances. We must observe truthfulness in everything that happens. In order not to err by speaking categorically, he restrained himself and spoke conjecturally.

Then, on the sixth day of creation, God took dust from the earth and formed man (Gen 2:7). Here the Lord, seeking to receive water from the woman, moved her to desire His own water and seek it.

Therefore, by giving the woman "living water," He filled her soul with spiritual grace.

Jesus, being wearied from the journey, sat down. This means that He completed the whole divine economy for our sake.

He was wearied in His ascent upon the Cross and His descent into Hades. Then, having risen and ascended into heaven, He sat at the right hand of God the Father.

So too the Apostles were wearied in the present age, sowing the preaching of the Gospel in the hearts of men. Having passed on foot through the inhabited world, they will sit upon thrones to judge the whole world.

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.

They also show that our Savior walked on foot at midday for no other reason than seeking our salvation. And this phrase, "He sat thus by the spring," reveals His extreme humility.

He did not sit on a decorated and covered seat, but on a simple, unprepared place by the spring. This is enough to overthrow our vanity.

The Lord of heaven and earth walked on foot in the very heat and sat wherever it happened. We require horses and carriages, appoint the hours, and inspect the places where we will sit.

The Lord undertook both toil and journey for the salvation of His servants. We apply not the least care for the help and benefit of our brethren.

There, then, the Master of all was sitting, and behold,

Of course, the Lord could have stopped to rest both at noon and about six in the evening. But since in the East it is not customary to go for water at noon, we should conclude that the conversation with the Samaritan woman took place in the evening.

In essence, does it matter whether this conversation took place at noon or in the evening? Of course, the time of the conversation has no significance.

We call the readers' attention to it only because John's manner of reckoning the hours of the day will have great importance in resolving the question: at what hour was Christ crucified? See the second appendix.