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John 4 Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "//www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="//www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width; initial-scale=1.0;"/><title>John 4 Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers</title><link rel="canonical" href="https://biblehub.com/commentaries/expositors/john/4.htm" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/5001com.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="../spec.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 4800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 4800px)" href="/4801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1550px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1550px)" href="/1551.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1250px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1250px)" href="/1251.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1050px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1050px)" href="/1051.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 900px), only screen and (max-device-width: 900px)" href="/901.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 800px)" href="/801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 575px), only screen and (max-device-width: 575px)" href="/501.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-height: 450px), only screen and (max-device-height: 450px)" href="/h451.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/print.css" type="text/css" media="Print" /><script type="application/javascript" src="https://scripts.webcontentassessor.com/scripts/8a2459b64f9cac8122fc7f2eac4409c8555fac9383016db59c4c26e3d5b8b157"></script><script src='https://qd.admetricspro.com/js/biblehub/biblehub-layout-loader-revcatch.js'></script><script id='HyDgbd_1s' src='https://prebidads.revcatch.com/ads.js' type='text/javascript' async></script><script>(function(w,d,b,s,i){var cts=d.createElement(s);cts.async=true;cts.id='catchscript'; 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Jesus said to her, You have well said, I have no husband:">John 4:17-42</a>);<p>(e)<span class= "ital">In Galilee</span> (<a href="/context/john/4-43.htm" title="Now after two days he departed there, and went into Galilee.">John 4:43-54</a>). <span class= "ital">Received by the people. The courtier’s faith.</span>]<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-1.htm">John 4:1</a></div><div class="verse">When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John,</div>(1) <span class= "bld">When therefore the Lord knew.</span>—The second clause of this verse is given in the exact words of the report which came to the Pharisees: <span class= "ital">When therefore the Lord knew that the Pharisees heard, “Jesus maketh and baptizeth more disciples than John.”</span><p>The report which reached John (<a href="/john/3-26.htm" title="And they came to John, and said to him, Rabbi, he that was with you beyond Jordan, to whom you bore witness, behold, the same baptizes, and all men come to him.">John 3:26</a>) had come to them also, and the inference from His retirement is that it had excited their hostility. The hour to meet this has not yet come, and He withdraws to make, in a wider circle, the announcement which He has made in the Temple, in Jerusalem, in Judæa, and is about to make in Samaria and in Galilee.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-2.htm">John 4:2</a></div><div class="verse">(Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,)</div>(2) <span class= "bld">Though Jesus himself baptized not.</span>—This is a correction, not of the writer’s statement, but of the report carried to the Pharisees. The form of the report is quite natural. John did personally baptise, and when multitudes thronged him, it is probable that his disciples assisted. Greater numbers still (<a href="/john/3-26.htm" title="And they came to John, and said to him, Rabbi, he that was with you beyond Jordan, to whom you bore witness, behold, the same baptizes, and all men come to him.">John 3:26</a>) were thronging to the baptism administered ministerially by the disciples of Jesus. (Comp. <a href="/acts/10-48.htm" title="And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then prayed they him to tarry certain days.">Acts 10:48</a>; <a href="/acts/19-5.htm" title="When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.">Acts 19:5</a>; <a href="/context/1_corinthians/1-15.htm" title="Lest any should say that I had baptized in my own name.">1Corinthians 1:15-17</a>.) They had been drawn to Him by His teaching and miracles in Jerusalem and the country round about, and they spoke of receiving His baptism. But the writer cannot let the report appear in his Gospel without correction. There was a reason which they did not know for the fact that Jesus did not baptise with water, for it was He “which baptiseth with the Holy Spirit” (<a href="/john/1-33.htm" title="And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said to me, On whom you shall see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizes with the Holy Ghost.">John 1:33</a>). and this power His disciples had not yet received (<a href="/john/7-39.htm" title="(But this spoke he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)">John 7:39</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-3.htm">John 4:3</a></div><div class="verse">He left Judaea, and departed again into Galilee.</div>(3) <span class= "bld">Again.</span>—This word is almost certainly part of the original text, though it is not found in some MSS. Its omission is due to a difficulty of interpretation. What is the previous return into Galilee? The only one mentioned in this Gospel is that of <a href="/john/1-43.htm" title="The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and finds Philip, and said to him, Follow me.">John 1:43</a>. We have had another note of time in <a href="/john/3-24.htm" title="For John was not yet cast into prison.">John 3:24</a>, from which we learn that this Judæan period of the ministry preceded the imprisonment of John, and therefore the commencement of the Galilean ministry recorded in <a href="/matthew/4-12.htm" title="Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee;">Matthew 4:12</a> (see Note there) and <a href="/mark/1-14.htm" title="Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,">Mark 1:14</a>. This second return, then, is the starting-point of the history of our Lord’s work in Galilee as told by the earlier Gospels.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-4.htm">John 4:4</a></div><div class="verse">And he must needs go through Samaria.</div>(4) <span class= "bld">He must needs go through Samaria</span>—i.e., following the shortest and most usual road, and the one we find Him taking from Galilee to Jerusalem (<a href="/luke/9-52.htm" title="And sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him.">Luke 9:52</a>; see Note there). Josephus spoke of this as the customary way of the Galileans going up during the feasts at Jerusalem (<span class= "ital">Ant.</span> xx. 6, § 1). The Pharisees, indeed, took the longer road through Peræa, to avoid contact with the country and people of Samaria, but it is within the purpose of His life and work (“needs go,” <span class= "ital">i.e., was necessary that He should go</span>) to teach in Samaria, as in Judæa, the principles of true religion and worship, which would cut away the foundations of all local jealousies and feuds, and establish for all nations the spiritual service of the universal Father (<a href="/context/john/4-21.htm" title="Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour comes, when you shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.">John 4:21-24</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-5.htm">John 4:5</a></div><div class="verse">Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.</div>(5) The “Samaria” of this chapter is the province into which the older kingdom had degenerated, and which took its name from the capital city. This was the Shomĕron built by Omri, on a hill purchased from Shemer (<a href="/context/1_kings/16-23.htm" title="In the thirty and first year of Asa king of Judah began Omri to reign over Israel, twelve years: six years reigned he in Tirzah.">1Kings 16:23-24</a>). The city was given by Augustus to Herod the Great, who rebuilt it, and called it after the Emperor, Sebaste, a name which survives in the modern village <span class= "ital">Sebustiêh.</span><p><span class= "bld">Sychar</span> involves questions of greater uncertainty. The reading may be regarded as beyond doubt, the attempts to substitute “Sychem,” or “Sichem” being obviously made to avoid the topographical difficulty. The older geographers, followed by many modern commentators, suppose the word to be an intentional variation of the word Sychem, by which the Jews expressed their contempt for the city of the Samaritans, the sound being very nearly that of the Hebrew words for “lie” and “drunken.” Others suppose the change of termination is a natural dialectic variation. (Comp. <span class= "ital">Ben,</span> the Hebrew for son, as in <span class= "ital">Benjamin,</span> <a href="/genesis/35-18.htm" title="And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Benoni: but his father called him Benjamin.">Genesis 35:18</a>, which in the later language became <span class= "ital">Bar,</span> as in Simon <span class= "ital">Bar-</span>Jona, <a href="/matthew/16-17.htm" title="And Jesus answered and said to him, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father which is in heaven.">Matthew 16:17</a>.) These explanations assume that Sychar is the same place as Shechem; but it is very improbable that St. John would have spoken of a city so well known as Shechem with the prefix “which is called,” or would have thought it necessary to define it as “near to the parcel of ground. . . .” The only other places with the same prefix are Ephraim (<a href="/john/11-54.htm" title="Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went there to a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with his disciples.">John 11:54</a>), the Pavement (<a href="/john/19-13.htm" title="When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.">John 19:13</a>), and Golgotha (<a href="/john/19-17.htm" title="And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha:">John 19:17</a>), but in the latter instances, as in the mention of Thomas called Didymus (<a href="/john/11-16.htm" title="Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, to his fellow disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.">John 11:16</a>; <a href="/john/20-24.htm" title="But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.">John 20:24</a>), the words do not imply a soubriquet (comp. Farrar, <span class= "ital">Life of Christ,</span> i. 206, note, and Grove in Smith’s <span class= "ital">Dictionary of Bible,</span> “Sychar”), but are a citation of the names in Hebrew and Greek, for the benefit of Greek readers. To assert that Sychar is meant to convey a double meaning is to imply that this would be understood by readers for whom it is necessary to translate Gabbatha and Golgotha, Thomas and Cephas (<a href="/john/1-42.htm" title="And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, You are Simon the son of Jona: you shall be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.">John 1:42</a>), for whom Messias has been rendered in Greek in <a href="/john/1-41.htm" title="He first finds his own brother Simon, and said to him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ.">John 1:41</a>, and is to be again in this very discourse (<a href="/john/4-25.htm" title="The woman said to him, I know that Messias comes, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.">John 4:25</a>). Shechem, moreover, was then known by the Greek name Neapolis, which has become the present <span class= "ital">Naplûs</span> (see Ewald <span class= "ital">in loc.,</span> and comp. Jos. <span class= "ital">Wars,</span> iv.), and this name would have been as natural in this Gospel as, <span class= "ital">e.g.,</span> Tiberias, which is found in it only (<a href="/john/6-1.htm" title="After these things Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias.">John 6:1</a>; <a href="/john/6-23.htm" title="(However, there came other boats from Tiberias near to the place where they did eat bread, after that the Lord had given thanks:)">John 6:23</a>; <a href="/john/21-1.htm" title="After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise showed he himself.">John 21:1</a>). Nor can it be said that Shechem was near to Jacob’s well, for admitting that the old city extended considerably “farther eastward than at present,” it must still have been more than a mile distant.<p>As early as the fourth century, Sychar was distinguished from Shechem by Eusebius, Jerome, and the Bordeaux Pilgrim, and the name also occurs in the Talmud. (See quotations in Wieseler’s <span class= "ital">Synopsis,</span> p. 231 of the Eng. Trans.) It is still found in the modern village <span class= "ital">Askar,</span> about half a mile north from Jacob’s well. A plan and description of the neighbourhood, by Dr. Rosen, Prussian Consul at Jerusalem, appeared in the <span class= "ital">Journal of the German Oriental Society</span> (xiv. 634), and the results of this are now accessible to the English reader in the translation of Caspari’s <span class= "ital">Introduction</span> (p. 124). (Comp. Dr. Thomson’s <span class= "ital">The Land and the Book,</span> John 31) The identification is accepted by Ewald, Godet, and Luthardt, among modern writers. Mr. Grove (Art. “Sychar,” as above), inclines to it, but, as he says, “there is an etymological difficulty . . . ‘Askar begins with the letter ‘Ain, which Sychar does not appear to have contained; a letter too stubborn and enduring to be easily either dropped or assumed in a name.” One is tempted to think it possible that this ‘Ain is the first letter of the word for Spring or Fountain, the plural of which occurs in Ænon, in <a href="/john/3-23.htm" title="And John also was baptizing in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there: and they came, and were baptized.">John 3:23</a>, and that <span class= "ital">‘A-Sychar</span> (well of Sychar) = <span class= "ital">‘Askar.</span><p><span class= "bld">The parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.</span>—The reference is to the blessing of Joseph in <a href="/genesis/48-22.htm" title="Moreover I have given to you one portion above your brothers, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.">Genesis 48:22</a>, which is translated by Kalisch, “And I give to thee one portion above thy brethren, which I take out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.” The patriarch is confident that he will, in his posterity, drive out the Amorite and possess the land promised him by God (<a href="/john/4-4.htm" title="And he must needs go through Samaria.">John 4:4</a>; <a href="/john/4-21.htm" title="Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour comes, when you shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.">John 4:21</a>). In that land there is a portion where Abraham had raised his first altar, and received the first promise that his seed should possess that land (<a href="/context/genesis/12-6.htm" title="And Abram passed through the land to the place of Sichem, to the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.">Genesis 12:6-7</a>). That portion had been his own first halting-place on his return from Padan-aram; and he, too, had erected an altar there, in a parcel of a field where his tent rested, which he bought for a hundred pieces of money, and made it sacred to El, the God of Israel (<a href="/context/genesis/33-18.htm" title="And Jacob came to Shalem, a city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Padanaram; and pitched his tent before the city.">Genesis 33:18-20</a>). It comes to his mind now, when in the last days of his life he looks on to the future and back to the past, and he gives it to his own and Rachel’s son. The Hebrew word here used for portion is “Shechem” (Shekhem), and this, as the proper names in the following chapter, has, and is meant to have, a double meaning. The Greek of the LXX. could not preserve this play upon the words, and rendered it by the proper name <span class= "ital">Sikima,</span> understanding that the portion referred to was that at Shechem. This the children of Israel understood too, for they gave this region to Ephraim (Joshua 16), and the parcel of ground became the resting-place for the bones of Joseph (<a href="/context/joshua/24-32.htm" title="And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for an hundred pieces of silver: and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph.">Joshua 24:32-33</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-6.htm">John 4:6</a></div><div class="verse">Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with <i>his</i> journey, sat thus on the well: <i>and</i> it was about the sixth hour.</div>(6) <span class= "bld">Jacob’s well</span> is one of the few spots about the position of which all travellers are agreed. Jesus, passing from south to west would pass up the valley of <span class= "ital">Mochna</span> until the road turns sharp to the west, to enter the valley of Sichem between Ebal and Gerizim. Here is Jacob’s field, and in the field is Jacob’s well. It is dug in the rock, and is about 9 feet in diameter. The older travellers described it as more than 100 feet deep, and with several feet of water. Modern travellers have generally found it dry. Wilson describes it, in 1843, as only 75 feet deep.<p><span class= "bld">Sat thus on the well.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">was sitting thus at the well.</span> The words are one of the instances of exact knowledge which meet us in this Gospel. The tense is the descriptive imperfect. He was thus sitting when the woman came. He thus recalls the picture as it was impressed and remained fixed in the writer’s mind. He saw Him, wearied by the noontide journey, sitting thus by the well, while they went on to the city to procure food. The reality of this fatigue, as one of the instances witnessing to the reality of His human nature, is important.<p><span class= "bld">About the sixth hour</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> as elsewhere in St. John, following the ordinary mode of counting, about 12 o’clock. (Comp. Note on <a href="/john/1-39.htm" title="He said to them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelled, and stayed with him that day: for it was about the tenth hour.">John 1:39</a>.) It is contended, on the other hand, that this was not the usual time for women to resort to the wells to draw water, but the narrative perhaps implies an unusual hour, as it speaks of only one woman there.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-7.htm">John 4:7</a></div><div class="verse">There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.</div>(7) <span class= "bld">Of Samaria</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> of the country (<a href="/john/4-1.htm" title="When therefore the LORD knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John,">John 4:1</a>), not of the city, which was nine miles farther north. She was of the people inhabiting the valley between Ebal and Gerizim, not, like Himself, a chance passenger by the well. The contrast is at once drawn between Him, a Jew and a man, and her, of Samaria and a woman.<p><span class= "bld">Give me to drink</span> is the almost always asked and almost never refused favour as the traveller meets the native by the well-side. He was wearied by the heat of the journey, and seeks the ordinary refreshment.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-8.htm">John 4:8</a></div><div class="verse">(For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.)</div>(8) <span class= "bld">For</span> introduces His reason for asking this favour of her. The disciples had gone on. He was alone, and without the means of getting water for Himself (<a href="/john/4-11.htm" title="The woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from where then have you that living water?">John 4:11</a>).<p><span class= "bld">Meat.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">food,</span> as the former word is misleading in modern English. See <a href="/context/genesis/1-29.htm" title="And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.">Genesis 1:29-30</a>, and <a href="/deuteronomy/20-20.htm" title="Only the trees which you know that they be not trees for meat, you shall destroy and cut them down; and you shall build bulwarks against the city that makes war with you, until it be subdued.">Deuteronomy 20:20</a>, where herbs and fruits are termed “meat.” It will be remembered that the meat-offering did not consist of flesh, but of flour and oil and ears of corn (Leviticus 2).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-9.htm">John 4:9</a></div><div class="verse">Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.</div>(9) <span class= "bld">Woman of Samaria</span> (twice).—Better, <span class= "ital">Samaritan woman.</span> In both cases the Greek has the adjective. It is the religious and national position as a Samaritan which is prominent in this verse.<p><span class= "bld">Being a Jew.</span>—This she would know from dress and language. It has been noted that the Hebrew for “Give me to drink,” “Teni lishekoth,” contains the letter Sin, or Shin, which was one of the distinctive points in the Ephraimite pronunciation. They did not say Shibboleth, but Sibboleth (<a href="/context/judges/12-5.htm" title="And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said to him, Are you an Ephraimite? If he said, No;">Judges 12:5-6</a>). They would not say “Teni lishekoth,” but “Teni lisekoth.”<p><span class= "bld">For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.</span>—The original has not the articles, <span class= "ital">For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.</span> This is a remark made by the writer to explain the point of the woman’s question. She wondered that a Jew, weary and thirsty though he might be, should speak to her. For the origin of the Samaritans, see <a href="/context/2_kings/17-24.htm" title="And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelled in the cities thereof.">2Kings 17:24-41</a>, and Note on <a href="/luke/9-52.htm" title="And sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him.">Luke 9:52</a>. The later Jewish authors abound in terms of reproach for them—<span class= "ital">e.g.,</span> “He who eats the bread of a Samaritan is as he who eats swine’s flesh;” “No Samaritan shall be made a proselyte;” “They have no share in the resurrection of the dead” (<span class= "ital">Pirke,</span> Rabbi Elieser, 38; comp. Farrar, <span class= "ital">Life of Christ,</span> i. 209, note). Jesus Himself speaks of a Samaritan as an alien (<a href="/luke/17-16.htm" title="And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.">Luke 17:16</a>; <a href="/luke/17-18.htm" title="There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.">Luke 17:18</a>; comp. <a href="/luke/10-33.htm" title="But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,">Luke 10:33</a>), and is called a Samaritan and possessed of a devil (comp. <a href="/john/8-48.htm" title="Then answered the Jews, and said to him, Say we not well that you are a Samaritan, and have a devil?">John 8:48</a>). But the strictest Jews allowed exceptions to the forbidden intercourse. If bread was interdicted, fruit and vegetables were not; if boiled eggs were forbidden, fresh ones were not. At no time probably did the Galileans follow the practice of the Judæans in this matter, and hence they go to the city to buy food, while the woman asks this question of a Jew whom she met on the road from Jerusalem. Later, it was only “because His face was as though He would go to Jerusalem “that the Samaritan village did not receive Him; and it is the Evangelist of the Jerusalem ministry, who would have called down fire from heaven then, who adds this note of explanation for his Greek readers now (<a href="/context/luke/9-52.htm" title="And sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him.">Luke 9:52-53</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-10.htm">John 4:10</a></div><div class="verse">Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.</div>(10) <span class= "bld">If thou knewest the gift of God.</span>—Expositors differ very widely as to the meaning to be given to “the gift of God” and “living water.” See, <span class= "ital">e.g.,</span> the summaries of views in the notes of Meyer and Godet, both of which are now translated into English. Yet there can be little doubt of the true meaning if we observe the turn given to her question by the emphatic pronouns, “<span class= "ital">Thou</span> wouldest have asked of <span class= "ital">Him.”</span> You stand by this deep well that for centuries has been God’s gift of refreshment to man and beast; you have the means of drawing the water, and are thus the apparent benefactor to Him who asks for your aid. It is not really so. There is a deep well of spiritual truth in communion with God, as necessary for man’s true life as water is for the natural life. I stand here with the means to draw, with the power to enter the depths hidden from man, and reveal to your spirit the Being of God. It is really you that are the traveller in the journey of life, weary with the burning heat of its trials, and travel-stained by the sins through which you have passed, thirsting in the hopes and fears of that spirit that cannot rest apart from God, helpless at the very side of the well, for the Eternal is ever near you, and you know Him not. If you knew this gift of God, and knew Who it is that is now here to reveal it to you, you would have asked, and He would have given you that Spirit, which would have been in you as a fountain of living water.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-11.htm">John 4:11</a></div><div class="verse">The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?</div>(11) <span class= "bld">The woman saith unto him, Sir . . .</span>—Her tone changes to one of respect. Something in His voice and manner, it may be, has touched her. She does not understand His words, but she is conscious of their latent force. She feels the presence of One who teaches with authority, and the “Thou, being a Jew,” passes to the reverential “Sir.” Still, she does not see how He can give her living water. Where will He get it? He has no means for drawing it, and the water in the well is far below His reach. His word, too, strikes her, and she dwells on it;—“that living water.” She thinks of spring water, as in <a href="/genesis/26-19.htm" title="And Isaac's servants dig in the valley, and found there a well of springing water.">Genesis 26:19</a>, and <a href="/leviticus/14-5.htm" title="And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water:">Leviticus 14:5</a>, where the Hebrew is “living water.” He cannot draw from that well. Does He mean to say that He knows of another, with better water? The word used here for “well” is different from that in <a href="/john/4-6.htm" title="Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.">John 4:6</a>, where the surface only was thought of. Here, and in the next verse, the depth is prominent, and we have the same word, which is rendered “pit,” in <a href="/luke/14-5.htm" title="And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?">Luke 14:5</a>.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-12.htm">John 4:12</a></div><div class="verse">Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?</div>(12) <span class= "bld">Art thou greater</span> <span class= "bld">. . .?—</span>Again, the pronoun is the emphatic word, “<span class= "ital">Thou</span> surely art not greater.” “The well used to satisfy the wants of the patriarch, and his household, and his flocks, and has come down from him to us. It is surely sufficient for all our wants.” This claim of Jacob as their father was through Ephraim and Joseph, and the well was part of “the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his .son Joseph” (<a href="/john/4-5.htm" title="Then comes he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.">John 4:5</a>). There was abundance of water near to it, but a patriarchal household could not depend for a necessity of life upon neighbours who may be hostile, and Jacob had dug this well in his own purchased plot. It was sacred, then, as the very spot where their asserted ancestor had digged his well and built his altar. There was an unbroken continuity in the history of the place, and it was prized the more because it was not so in the history of the people.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-13.htm">John 4:13</a></div><div class="verse">Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:</div>(13, 14) <span class= "bld">Whosoever drinketh of this water.</span>—Jesus does not answer her question, but asserts the universal recurrence of thirst, after even the water of Jacob’s well, to lead her to the thought that His “living water” is something widely different.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-14.htm">John 4:14</a></div><div class="verse">But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.</div>(14) <span class= "bld">The water that I shall give him.</span>—These words are emphatic as opposed to <span class= "ital">this</span> water. It is not an external supply, which must be sought to meet the recurring physical want, but it is the inner never-failing source, the fountain of living water, which satisfies every want as it occurs. He who has it, therefore, can never thirst. Coming from the source of all life, it issues in eternal life. (Comp. Notes on <a href="/context/john/7-37.htm" title="In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink.">John 7:37-38</a>.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-15.htm">John 4:15</a></div><div class="verse">The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.</div>(15) <span class= "bld">Come hither.</span>—The Sinaitic and Vatican and some other MSS. read, “come through hither,” or as Alford, who adopts the reading, renders it, “come all the way hither.” Godet also adopts the reading, but renders it, in the service of a forced explanation, “pass by here,” thinking that the woman was on her way home from work at meal-time, and that this accounts for her presence at the well at noon. He regards this as <span class= "ital">sans doute,</span> but the reading itself is at least uncertain, and is probably to be explained by its first syllable being added from the last syllable of the previous word; and the translation is more than uncertain.<p>The woman understands the words in their physical sense. How many a toilsome hour, how many a weary journey would she be saved!<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-16.htm">John 4:16</a></div><div class="verse">Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither.</div>(16) <span class= "bld">Go, call thy husband.</span>—She has asked for this living water. She knows not that the well must first be dug. In the depth of her spirit there is a power of life; but like the source of a spring, it is hidden. Many a hard rock of impenitence was there, and many a layer of every-day transgression, and many a habit once formable as clay, now hard as adamant, and many a deposit of carnal thought which had left nothing but its dregs behind. All this must be dug through before she can have the living water, and this well, too, must be deep. The command, “Go, call thy husband,” is the first stroke breaking up the surface of that fair appearance, and revealing the foulness of the life beneath it.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-17.htm">John 4:17</a></div><div class="verse">The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband:</div>(17) <span class= "bld">I have no husband.</span>—The stroke has left its mark. It lays bare to her own consciousness the past and present life, but she does not know that it is laid bare to His. The reply is no longer prefaced by the half-sarcastic “Thou, being a Jew,” or the reverential “Sir.” The tone has passed from vivacity to earnestness, and from earnestness to sadness. That one word—what a history it has revealed! But she will hide it from Him and from herself. “I have no husband” (or, according to the Sinaitic MS., more emphatically still, <span class= "ital">A husband I have not</span>)<span class= "ital">.</span><p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-18.htm">John 4:18</a></div><div class="verse">For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.</div>(18) <span class= "bld">In that saidst thou truly.</span>—The stroke goes deeper. It lays bare the secrets of all those years over which she thought the veil of the past had for ever been drawn. The bright days of joy and dark days of sin; the heart’s promises made and broken; the sad days of death, which five times over had robbed her of a husband; or, worse than death, the sin which had severed the sacred bonds; the shame of the present shameless life—all these are at least hidden from a stranger. But His words pierce to the inmost thoughts, and prove Him to know all the acts of her life (<a href="/john/4-29.htm" title="Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?">John 4:29</a>). “Thou hast well said, A husband I have not. The holy name may not be given to the paramour thou now hast; with the loss of purity is linked the loss of truthfulness; the very truth thou utterest is meant to convey to Me an untruth, but to One who knows all, the words are really true;—“in <span class= "ital">that</span> saidst thou truly.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-19.htm">John 4:19</a></div><div class="verse">The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.</div>(19) But who can it be who thus enters her mind and reads the pages of her memory as if it were a book? He must be as one of those of olden time of whom she has heard. The tone of reverence prevails again, “Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-20.htm">John 4:20</a></div><div class="verse">Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.</div>(20) <span class= "bld">Our fathers worshipped.</span>—She gives a sudden turn to the conversation. It is not that the question of worship is the all-engrossing problem of her mind, for which she seeks solution at this prophet’s hands. Such questions hardly came then within the circle of a Samaritan woman’s thoughts, and this woman’s life had not been such as to make her an exception to the rule; but the heart, quivering before the eye that reads it as it never before had read itself, shrinks from the light that is let in upon it. She will speak of anything rather than of self. There is the mountain overhanging them, the theme of many a discussion between Samaritan and Jew; she will ask the prophet to decide that question.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-21.htm">John 4:21</a></div><div class="verse">Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.</div>(21) <span class= "bld">Woman </span>(comp. Note on <a href="/john/2-4.htm" title="Jesus said to her, Woman, what have I to do with you? my hour is not yet come.">John 2:4</a>),<span class= "bld"> believe me, the hour cometh.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">there cometh an hour.</span> The Authorised version of the latter clause gives the correct sense, if it is punctuated as follows: “When ye shall, neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem, worship the Father;” “when ye shall worship, but without the limitation of holy places; when ye shall worship the Father of mankind, before whom Jew, and Samaritan, and Gentile are brethren.” Both these thoughts are suggested by her words. She had referred in the past tense to the worship on Gerizim, when for more than a century and a half the temple had been in ruins, but she refers in the present to the temple at Jerusalem, where the form of worship was every day gone through. From that temple He had just come. The ruins of the one are before Him, the ruins of the other are present to His thoughts (<a href="/context/john/2-18.htm" title="Then answered the Jews and said to him, What sign show you to us, seeing that you do these things?">John 2:18-22</a>). Both centres of local worship are to cease. She had referred more than once to the claim which arose from direct descent from the patriarch (<a href="/context/john/4-12.htm" title="Are you greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?">John 4:12-20</a>). But <span class= "ital">the</span> Father is God, and the hour coming, and then present (<a href="/john/4-23.htm" title="But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship him.">John 4:23</a>), in Christ’s mission, had the Fatherhood of God and the sonship of humanity as its message to the world.<p><span class= "bld">In this mountain.</span>—Sychar was between Ebal and Gerizim, and she would point out the holy mountain with the ruins of the temple then in sight.<p>The contrast between “our fathers” and the emphatic “ye” carries back the thoughts to the rival temple and worship on Mount Gerizim from the time of Nehemiah. The enmity took its rise in the refusal to accept the help of the Samaritans in the restoration of the temple at Jerusalem (<a href="/ezra/4-2.htm" title="Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said to them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as you do; and we do sacrifice to him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assur, which brought us up here.">Ezra 4:2</a>; comp. <a href="/2_kings/17-24.htm" title="And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelled in the cities thereof.">2Kings 17:24</a> <span class= "ital">et seq.</span>)<span class= "ital">.</span> The next step is recorded in <a href="/nehemiah/13-28.htm" title="And one of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was son in law to Sanballat the Horonite: therefore I chased him from me.">Nehemiah 13:28</a>. Manasseh, the son of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, had married a daughter of Sanballat, and was chased from Jerusalem. Sanballat thereupon supported his son-in-law in establishing a rival worship, but it is not clear that the temple was built until a century later, in the time of Alexander the Great. The authority for the details of the history is Josephus (<span class= "ital">Ant.</span> xi. 8, § 2), but he seems to confuse Sanballat the Persian satrap, with Sanballat the Horonite. In any case, from the erection of the temple on Mount Gerizim, the schism was complete. The temple was destroyed by John Hyrcanus, about B.C. 129 (<span class= "ital">Ant.</span> xiii. 9, § 1), but the mountain on which it stood continued to be, and is to this day, the holy place of the Samaritans. All travellers in the Holy Land describe their Passover, still eaten on this mountain in accordance with the ritual of the Pentateuch. They claimed that this mountain, and not Jerusalem, was the true scene of the sacrifice of Isaac, and Gentile tradition marked it out as the meeting-place with Melchizedek (Euseb. <span class= "ital">Prœp. Evang.</span> ix. 22). In accordance with their claim, they had changed in every instance the reading of the Pentateuch, “God will choose a spot” (<a href="/deuteronomy/12-14.htm" title="But in the place which the LORD shall choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you.">Deuteronomy 12:14</a>; <a href="/deuteronomy/18-6.htm" title="And if a Levite come from any of your gates out of all Israel, where he sojourned, and come with all the desire of his mind to the place which the LORD shall choose;">Deuteronomy 18:6</a>, &c.), into “He has chosen,” <span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> Gerizim. “Ebal,” in <a href="/deuteronomy/27-5.htm" title="And there shall you build an altar to the LORD your God, an altar of stones: you shall not lift up any iron tool on them.">Deuteronomy 27:5</a>, had become “Gerizim,” and the Ten Commandments in Exodus and Deuteronomy are followed by an interpolated command to erect an altar in Mount Gerizim. Jerusalem, on the other hand, had never once been named in the Pentateuch, which was the only part of the Jewish canon which they accepted. It was but a modern city in comparison with the claim that Gerizin was a holy place from the time of Abraham downwards.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-22.htm">John 4:22</a></div><div class="verse">Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.</div>(22) <span class= "bld">For salvation is of the Jews.</span>—This verse has sorely tried critics who seek to construct the Gospel out of their judgments of what it should be. It can be no difficulty to those who seek to form their judgments from the Gospel as it is. Assume that the Gospel belongs to the Greek thought of the close of the second century, and the verse must be omitted, though it is certainly part of the original text; accept the Gospel as belonging to the Hebrew thought of the first century, and this touch of Jewish theology is in entire harmony with it. The contrast between the Samaritan and the Jewish worship lay in its history, its state at that time, and its rejection of the fuller teaching of the prophetical books of the Old Testament. “In every way the Jews had much advantage, but chiefly that unto them were committed the oracles of God.” Little as they knew the treasure they possessed, they were the guardians of spiritual truth for the world, and in a sense deeper than they could fathom, “salvation was of the Jews.” (Comp. <a href="/romans/3-2.htm" title="Much every way: chiefly, because that to them were committed the oracles of God.">Romans 3:2</a>; <a href="/context/romans/9-4.htm" title="Who are Israelites; to whom pertains the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;">Romans 9:4-5</a>, Notes; <a href="/isaiah/2-3.htm" title="And many people shall go and say, Come you, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.">Isaiah 2:3</a>; <a href="/micah/4-2.htm" title="And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.">Micah 4:2</a>.)<p>The “we” of this verse is in answer to the “ye” of <a href="/john/4-20.htm" title="Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and you say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.">John 4:20</a>. She identifies Him with those who claim Jerusalem as the place of worship. That “ye” contained its own answer. In using it she had said that the Messiah was of the Jews.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-23.htm">John 4:23</a></div><div class="verse">But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.</div>(23) <span class= "bld">But the hour cometh.</span>—Better, as in <a href="/john/4-21.htm" title="Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour comes, when you shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.">John 4:21</a>, <span class= "ital">but there cometh an hour.</span> He adds to this thought, what He could not add to the previous one, “and now is.” Local worship was not yet giving way to spiritual; but a band of true worshippers was being gathered, and some were then following Him.<p><span class= "bld">The true worshippers.</span>—Her distinction of place was of the accident, but the essence was the nature of the worship. What could any worship be to a God who saw the impurity of the heart, and the contradiction of thought and word? What could <span class= "ital">she</span> know of the worship of which she speaks? Yes; and the temple at Jerusalem was a house of merchandise, instead of one of prayer; what did priest and Levite, scribe and Pharisee, know of true worship?<p><span class= "bld">In spirit and in truth.</span>—The link between human nature and the divine is in the human spirit, which is the shrine of the Holy Spirit (<a href="/1_corinthians/6-19.htm" title="What? know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own?">1Corinthians 6:19</a>). All true approach to God must therefore be in spirit. (Comp. <a href="/romans/1-9.htm" title="For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers;">Romans 1:9</a>, and <a href="/ephesians/6-18.htm" title="Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;">Ephesians 6:18</a>.) Place, and time, and words, and postures, and sounds, and all things from without, are important only in so far as they aid in abstraction from the sensible world, and in elevation of the spirit within. The moment they distract they hinder true worship. Ritual cannot be discussed without risk of spiritual loss. The words “in truth,” already expressed in <span class= "ital">true</span> worshippers, and repeated in the following verse, are more than “truly.” Sincerity is not a test of acceptable worship, though it is a requisite. Bigots sincerely think they do God’s service. Worship which is “in truth” is in harmony with the nature of the God whom we worship. To think of God in hearing His truth, to kindle the soul by hymns of praise, to realise the earlier portions of collects and prayers which utter His attributes, are necessary to the truth of the petitions, and thanksgivings, and adorations of worship. The model prayer of Christianity brings home to the heart the Fatherhood of God in its first words.<p><span class= "bld">For the Father seeketh such to worship him.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">for such the Father also seeketh His worshippers to be.</span> The word “such,” <span class= "ital">i.e., of this character,</span> is emphatic. The “also” expresses that the worship, on the part of the true worshippers, is in accordance with the divine will: “the Father also (on His part) . . .” The reader will not fail to note the emphasis in this reply on the word “Father” (<a href="/john/4-21.htm" title="Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour comes, when you shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.">John 4:21</a> and twice in this verse). This name of God, which we teach children to lisp in earliest years, came to her, it may be, now for the first time. He is not Vengeance to be appeased, nor Power to be dreaded, but Love to be received. (Comp. Note on <a href="/john/3-16.htm" title="For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.">John 3:16</a>.) It is when men learn to think of God as Father that merely local and material worship must cease. The universal desire and practice of worship is the witness to a universal object of worship. The yearning of the human spirit is that of a child seeking the author of his being. The seeking is not human only. The Father also seeketh His child, and seeth him when he is a great way off (<a href="/luke/15-20.htm" title="And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.">Luke 15:20</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-24.htm">John 4:24</a></div><div class="verse">God <i>is</i> a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship <i>him</i> in spirit and in truth.</div>(24) <span class= "bld">God is a Spirit.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">God is spirit.</span> His will has been expressed in the seeking. But His very nature and essence is spirit, and it follows from this that all true worship must be spiritual. The appeal is here made to a doctrine of special prominence in the Samaritan theology. They had altered a number of passages in the Pentateuch, which seemed to them to speak of God in language properly applicable to man, and to ascribe to Him human form and feelings. But to believe in the spiritual essence of God contained its own answer both as to place and mode of worship.<p>The second “Him” (“they that worship Him”) should be omitted, as the italics show.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-25.htm">John 4:25</a></div><div class="verse">The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.</div>(25) <span class= "bld">I know that Messias cometh.</span>—She is puzzled by these new doctrines. “Father!” “Spirit!” what did all this mean? Was God in any real sense like the father who in childhood’s happy days had protected, and forgiven, and loved? Was the divine nature in any real sense approached by human nature in its highest and best moments, when it seemed lifted above earth, and things of the earth? Was there for her a Father who could still forgive, a Spirit whom her spirit could still love, and in the grasp of that love lift itself to virtue and truth? How different are His words to any she has ever heard before! She, as others, feels half unconsciously their power. Her answer is also a question. He, whom her countrymen called “The Converter,” or “The Returner,” and expected from such passages as <a href="/genesis/49-10.htm" title="The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and to him shall the gathering of the people be.">Genesis 49:10</a> and <a href="/deuteronomy/18-15.htm" title="The LORD your God will raise up to you a Prophet from the middle of you, of your brothers, like to me; to him you shall listen;">Deuteronomy 18:15</a>, and whom the Hebrews called “Messias,” and Hellenists called “Christ,” would come, and with Him the answer to every question. She uses the present tense, “Messias cometh.” Can it be that He stands before her now? (Comp. <a href="/john/4-29.htm" title="Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?">John 4:29</a>.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-26.htm">John 4:26</a></div><div class="verse">Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am <i>he</i>.</div>(26) <span class= "bld">I that speak unto thee.</span>—The announcement is being made. The solution of some of the problems which she connects with the Messianic advent is contained in the very words she has heard.<p><span class= "bld">Am he</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> the Messiah. (Comp. especially Notes on <a href="/john/8-24.htm" title="I said therefore to you, that you shall die in your sins: for if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sins.">John 8:24</a>; <a href="/john/8-58.htm" title="Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Before Abraham was, I am.">John 8:58</a>.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-27.htm">John 4:27</a></div><div class="verse">And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her?</div>(27) <span class= "bld">With the woman.</span>—Better, probably, <span class= "ital">with a woman.</span> They are surprised, not at His talking with a Samaritan, but at His talking in public with a woman, which was directly contrary to the Rabbinic precepts. The words of the Law were to be burnt rather than taught to a woman. A man should not speak in public to his own wife. They would like to ask Him, as He asked some of them (<a href="/john/1-38.htm" title="Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and said to them, What seek you? They said to him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) where dwell you?">John 1:38</a>), what He sought to learn from her, or else to know what truth He would teach her (comp. “speakest” with “I that speak,” in the last verse); but there is already a sense of the reverence due to Him, which checks the question as it rises to the lip.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-28.htm">John 4:28</a></div><div class="verse">The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men,</div>(28) <span class= "bld">The woman then left her waterpot.</span>—The waterpot left behind was a pledge of her return; and it is to us a mark of the presence of him who has related the incidents.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-29.htm">John 4:29</a></div><div class="verse">Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?</div>(29) <span class= "bld">Is not this the Christ?</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">is this the</span> <span class= "ital">Christ?</span> She felt that He was a prophet when His words revealed her past life (<a href="/john/4-19.htm" title="The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.">John 4:19</a>). She has had the thought of Christ present to her mind when He teaches the nature of true worship (<a href="/john/4-25.htm" title="The woman said to him, I know that Messias comes, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.">John 4:25</a>). She has heard that He is the Messiah from His own lips (<a href="/john/4-26.htm" title="Jesus said to her, I that speak to you am he.">John 4:26</a>); but she does not frame her question so as to expect the answer “Yes:” she states the fact of His knowing the life, known perhaps to many of them, and leaves them to form their own judgment.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-30.htm">John 4:30</a></div><div class="verse">Then they went out of the city, and came unto him.</div>(30) <span class= "bld">Came unto him.</span>—Literally, <span class= "ital">were coming unto Him.</span> They were still on the way when the conversation in <a href="/context/john/4-31.htm" title="In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat.">John 4:31-38</a> took place. The general expectation of the Messiah, and the receptive spirit of the Samaritans, is shown in her alacrity to go and tell the men of the place, and in their desire at once to see Him for themselves. Many, indeed, were convinced by her statement only (<a href="/context/john/4-39.htm" title="And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did.">John 4:39-40</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-31.htm">John 4:31</a></div><div class="verse">In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat.</div>(31) <span class= "bld">Master.</span>—The Hebrew word Rabbi has been preserved in the earlier passages (<a href="/john/1-38.htm" title="Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and said to them, What seek you? They said to him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) where dwell you?">John 1:38</a>; <a href="/john/1-49.htm" title="Nathanael answered and said to him, Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.">John 1:49</a>; <a href="/john/3-2.htm" title="The same came to Jesus by night, and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that you do, except God be with him.">John 3:2</a>; <a href="/john/3-26.htm" title="And they came to John, and said to him, Rabbi, he that was with you beyond Jordan, to whom you bore witness, behold, the same baptizes, and all men come to him.">John 3:26</a>), and will meet us again in <a href="/john/6-25.htm" title="And when they had found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when came you here?">John 6:25</a>. It is less ambiguous than the English word, and should be restored here and in <a href="/john/9-2.htm" title="And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?">John 9:2</a>; <a href="/john/11-28.htm" title="And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calls for you.">John 11:28</a>.<p>They had left Him weary by the side of the well (<a href="/john/4-6.htm" title="Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.">John 4:6</a>), and had gone to the town. They now return with the food they had obtained, and ask Him to partake of it.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-32.htm">John 4:32</a></div><div class="verse">But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of.</div>(32) <span class= "bld">I have meat to eat that ye know not of.</span>—The emphasis is on the pronouns, which are opposed to each other. “Meat” is better rendered <span class= "ital">food</span> (see Note on <a href="/john/4-8.htm" title="(For his disciples were gone away to the city to buy meat.)">John 4:8</a>). The Greek word here is the same as in <a href="/john/6-27.htm" title="Labor not for the meat which perishes, but for that meat which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give to you: for him has God the Father sealed.">John 6:27</a>; <a href="/john/6-55.htm" title="For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.">John 6:55</a>.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-33.htm">John 4:33</a></div><div class="verse">Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him <i>ought</i> to eat?</div>(33) <span class= "bld">Hath any man brought him ought to eat?</span>—The question expects the negative answer, “Surely no one hath brought Him anything to eat?” The only person with Him is this Samaritan woman. Surely she has not! They understand His words in the ordinary sense. He proceeds to explain their real meaning.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-34.htm">John 4:34</a></div><div class="verse">Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.</div>(34) <span class= "bld">My meat.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">My food,</span> as before (<a href="/john/4-8.htm" title="(For his disciples were gone away to the city to buy meat.)">John 4:8</a>).<p><span class= "bld">To do the will. . . . to finish.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">that I may do the will, . . . that I may finish.</span> These verbs point out the end which He ever kept in view. In some of the best MSS., and in the received text, the tenses are different. That. I may be constantly doing the will of Him that sent Me, and may then at last complete His work. (Comp. <a href="/john/17-4.htm" title="I have glorified you on the earth: I have finished the work which you gave me to do.">John 17:4</a>.)<p>This work He speaks of here, and in <a href="/john/4-32.htm" title="But he said to them, I have meat to eat that you know not of.">John 4:32</a>, as a<span class= "ital">ctual food,</span> as the supply of the truest needs, and the satisfaction of the truest desires of His nature. (Comp. Note on <a href="/matthew/4-4.htm" title="But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.">Matthew 4:4</a>.) Analogies to this are within the limits of every man’s experience, and, faint as they are, help us to learn something of what this spiritual sustenance was. The command of duty, the cheering power of hope, the stimulus of success, are forces that supply to weak and weary nerves and muscles, the vigour of a new life. Under them the soldier can forget his wounds, the martyr smile at the lion or the flame, the worn-out traveller still plod onward at the thought of home. We cannot analyse this power, but it exists. They have food to eat that those without know not of.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-35.htm">John 4:35</a></div><div class="verse">Say not ye, There are yet four months, and <i>then</i> cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.</div>(35) <span class= "bld">Say not ye, There are yet four months.</span>—The emphasis in this verse should be laid upon “ye.” It follows immediately out of the contrast between the natural and spiritual food. Every outer fact is the sign of an inner truth. They here, as the woman in <a href="/john/4-11.htm" title="The woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from where then have you that living water?">John 4:11</a>, as the teacher of Israel (<a href="/john/3-4.htm" title="Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?">John 3:4</a>), as the Jews (<a href="/john/2-20.htm" title="Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and will you raise it up in three days?">John 2:20</a>), speak in the language of the outer facts only. He speaks of the spiritual realities. Looking on the fields of springing corn, they would say that in four months there would be harvest. He sees signs of life springing up from seed sown in receptive hearts; and eyes lifted up and directed to the wide fields of the world’s nations would see that the fulness of time was come, and that the fields were even now white to harvest. The Samaritans coming to Him are as the firstfruits, the earnest of the abundant sheaves which shall follow.<p><span class= "bld">Four months.</span>—This gives us probably a note on time. There is no evidence that it was a proverbial saying, and the form of the sentence is against the supposition. The legal beginning of harvest was fixed (<a href="/leviticus/23-10.htm" title="Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, When you be come into the land which I give to you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then you shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest:">Leviticus 23:10</a>; <a href="/deuteronomy/16-9.htm" title="Seven weeks shall you number to you: begin to number the seven weeks from such time as you begin to put the sickle to the corn.">Deuteronomy 16:9</a>) for the 16th of Nisan (April). This would give us in that year, which was a Jewish leap-year, with a month added (Wieseler’s <span class= "ital">Synopsis,</span> Eng. Trans., p. 187), some time about the middle of the month Tebeth (January) as the date of this conversation. (Comp. <a href="/john/5-1.htm" title="After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.">John 5:1</a>.) For the idea of the harvest, comp. <a href="/context/matthew/9-36.htm" title="But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.">Matthew 9:36-38</a>, and the parable of the Sower, <a href="/matthew/13-3.htm" title="And he spoke many things to them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;">Matthew 13:3</a> <span class= "ital">et seq.</span><p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-36.htm">John 4:36</a></div><div class="verse">And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.</div>(36) <span class= "bld">And he that reapeth.</span>—The wages of the reaper is the joy—the greatest that the heart can know—of gathering others, as men gather corn into the garner, into eternal life. The sower is Christ Himself, whose words have been the seed in the woman’s heart, already bringing forth a harvest in those who are coming to Him. The reapers are the disciples. In this harvest day they would learn, from sympathy with the souls of others, the joy of the reaper, and in that joy it was ordained that sower and reaper should rejoice together.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-37.htm">John 4:37</a></div><div class="verse">And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth.</div>(37) <span class= "bld">Herein is that saying true</span>—i.e., in the deeper sense of the word true (comp. Note on <a href="/john/1-9.htm" title="That was the true Light, which lights every man that comes into the world.">John 1:9</a>)—has its realisation; is ideally true. The proverb itself was known both to the Greeks and to the Romans (sec examples in Schottgen and Lampe), but the reference is probably to the Old Testament Scriptures. Those who heard it would certainly think of such passages as <a href="/deuteronomy/6-11.htm" title="And houses full of all good things, which you filled not, and wells dig, which you digged not, vineyards and olive trees, which you planted not; when you shall have eaten and be full;">Deuteronomy 6:11</a>, or <a href="/context/isaiah/65-21.htm" title="And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.">Isaiah 65:21-22</a>. The saying expressed something of the bitterness of human disappointment, which in darker moments all men have felt. They have sown in hopes and plans and works, which have never sprung above the surface, or have been reaped in their results by other men; or they themselves have passed away before the harvest has come. This is as men see it, but this is not the ideal truth. The saying is realised in the relation between sower and reaper, which was true then, and holds true of every sower who really sows the good seed. He, too, has a daily work and a daily sustenance in the will of Him that sent him. In the inner consciousness of that work being done, and the hope of its completion, he has food no less real than that of him who reaps the harvest. That he stands alone is the result of his rising above his generation; that he is little understood, or rewarded, by those for whom he works, will be a disappointment to his friends, but, in his truest thoughts, not to himself. His satisfaction will be hard for men to understand. “Surely no one has brought him to eat!” “I have food to eat that ye know not of.” Men smile at this as sentiment or enthusiasm, but this food has been the strength of the best lives, and noblest deeds, of humanity.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-38.htm">John 4:38</a></div><div class="verse">I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.</div>(38) <span class= "bld">I sent you to reap . . .</span>—The pronouns are again emphatic. “I sent <span class= "ital">you</span> to reap;” and the statement is of wide meaning. He is ever <span class= "ital">the</span> Sower. All others are more or less fully reapers, though in the degree in which they really reap they will become likened unto Him, and will become sowers too. We all inherit from the past the greatest part of our mental and spiritual knowledge. The child of to-day knows more than the philosopher of early history.<p><span class= "bld">Other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.</span>—Or, <span class= "ital">others have laboured.</span> In the immediate application to the present case, the “others” is to be interpreted of Christ Himself, who had been sowing during their absence, and it may be of the woman who has sown this seed by her testimony to the Samaritans. Or the plural may be chosen as in contrast with the plural <span class= "ital">ye,</span> and as pointing to the general truth, while the immediate reference is to Christ only.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-39.htm">John 4:39</a></div><div class="verse">And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did.</div>(39) <span class= "bld">Many of the Samaritans of that city believed.</span>—The willingness to receive the truth on the part of the Samaritans, is contrasted with the rejection of it on the part of the Jews. They refused the witness of a great prophet; these accept the witness of a woman. Their minds were prepared by the general expectation of the Messiah; and this woman witnesses that Jesus had revealed to her the whole past of her life. There is here a sign they do not question.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-40.htm">John 4:40</a></div><div class="verse">So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days.</div>(40) <span class= "bld">When the Samaritans were come.</span>—The next step in their faith is to go to Him and ask Him to remain with them, that they too may learn from Him; and He, a Jew, accepts the hospitality of Samaria, and abides with them for two days.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-41.htm">John 4:41</a></div><div class="verse">And many more believed because of his own word;</div>(41) <span class= "bld">And many more believed.</span>—The veil is left upon those two days, as upon so many days in the life of Christ. We know how much was said at the well in a few minutes, and that many believed on Him in a few hours. What questions they must have asked! What truths He must have taught during this sojourn! How that central truth of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man must have burned in the hearts of this mixed and despised people! Salvation was of the Jews, and they were from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim. But Fatherhood is a truth for every heart of man, and He who thus linked heaven and earth was the Saviour of the world. We know not what words passed from them to Him, from Him to them; but we know that the result was that many more believed, and that those who before believed on testimony passed to the higher faith of personal conviction.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-42.htm">John 4:42</a></div><div class="verse">And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard <i>him</i> ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.</div>(42) <span class= "bld">We have heard him ourselves.</span>—The “Him” is not part of the original text, and the sentence is more forcible without it: <span class= "ital">We have ourselves heard.</span> Probably “the Christ” should also be regarded as no part of the original text, and the last clause should be, <span class= "ital">and know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.</span> The result of their hearing is that they know. There is here, as frequently in St. John, stress laid upon the development of faith. We shall find it again in the following verses, which mark it in the case of the courtier.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-43.htm">John 4:43</a></div><div class="verse">Now after two days he departed thence, and went into Galilee.</div>(43) <span class= "bld">Two days.</span>—Literally, <span class= "ital">the two days.</span> It is the time mentioned in <a href="/john/4-40.htm" title="So when the Samaritans were come to him, they sought him that he would tarry with them: and he stayed there two days.">John 4:40</a>, not a second period of two days.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-44.htm">John 4:44</a></div><div class="verse">For Jesus himself testified, that a prophet hath no honour in his own country.</div>(44) <span class= "bld">A prophet hath no honour.</span>—The statement that a prophet hath no honour in his own country is at first thought a strange explanation of the fact that He went into Galilee, and that the Galileans received Him; and the common geographical solutions, as that “His own country” means Judæa, or Nazareth, as distinct from Galilee, or the district of the so-called lower Galilee, are brought to, not from, the text. The narrative of the earlier Gospels places the commencement of the ministry in Galilee. John has in these opening chapters told of an earlier ministry in Judæa and Samaria. He now records the reception in Galilee to which this earlier ministry had been the real introduction. Jesus Himself said so. He knew the principle that a prophet’s own friends are the last to hear his message, and He came to His own country only when that message had been received by many in Judæa and Samaria, and when His own countrymen had seen and known His work at the Passover. Others had received Him at Jerusalem, and they therefore receive Him in Galilee. The honour is brought from without. It does not arise in His own country.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-45.htm">John 4:45</a></div><div class="verse">Then when he was come into Galilee, the Galilaeans received him, having seen all the things that he did at Jerusalem at the feast: for they also went unto the feast.</div>(45) <span class= "bld">All the things that he did.</span>—See the reference in <a href="/john/2-23.htm" title="Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did.">John 2:23</a> to the unrecorded work at Jerusalem.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-46.htm">John 4:46</a></div><div class="verse">So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum.</div>(46) <span class= "bld">So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee.</span>—He returns to the place where He had manifested His glory and knit to Himself in closer union the first band of disciples. This thought is present to the writer as the reason why He went there. It was the place “where He made the water wine.”<p><span class= "bld">And there was a certain nobleman.</span>—The margin shows the difference of opinion among-our translators as to what English word gives the true idea of the position of the person who is in the text called “nobleman.” The Greek word is an adjective formed from the word for “king,” and as a substantive occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It is frequent in Josephus, who uses it in our sense of courtier, or for a civil or military officer, but not for one of the royal family. The king, whose “king’s man” is here spoken of, was almost certainly Herod Antipas, who was left the kingdom in his father’s first will, and is called “king” by St. Matthew (<a href="/matthew/14-9.htm" title="And the king was sorry: nevertheless for the oath's sake, and them which sat with him at meat, he commanded it to be given her.">Matthew 14:9</a>) and by St. Mark (<a href="/mark/6-14.htm" title="And king Herod heard of him; (for his name was spread abroad:) and he said, That John the Baptist was risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works do show forth themselves in him.">Mark 6:14</a>). The person here named may therefore be a “royalist” or “Herodian” (comp. <a href="/matthew/22-16.htm" title="And they sent out to him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that you are true, and teach the way of God in truth, neither care you for any man: for you regard not the person of men.">Matthew 22:16</a>; <a href="/mark/3-6.htm" title="And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him.">Mark 3:6</a>), but in a domestic incident like this the reference would be to his social position rather than to his political opinions. Perhaps “king’s officer” represents the vagueness of the original better than any other English term. It is not improbable that the person was Chuza, and that his wife’s presence in the band of women who followed Christ (<a href="/luke/8-3.htm" title="And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered to him of their substance.">Luke 8:3</a>) is to be traced to the restoration of her child. For the position of Capernaum, see Note on <a href="/matthew/4-13.htm" title="And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelled in Capernaum, which is on the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim:">Matthew 4:13</a>.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-47.htm">John 4:47</a></div><div class="verse">When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judaea into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of death.</div>(47) The distance of Capernaum from Cana was from twenty to twenty-five miles. The report of Christ’s return to Galilee had spread, then, over this wide area.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-48.htm">John 4:48</a></div><div class="verse">Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.</div>(48) <span class= "bld">Signs and wonders.</span>—See Note on <a href="/john/2-11.htm" title="This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.">John 2:11</a>. The words are here addressed to Jews, for there is no reason to think that the nobleman himself was not one. They are spoken to him, but the <span class= "ital">ye</span> extends them to others standing near and to the class of persons whom he represents. It had been so with the Jews in Jerusalem (<a href="/john/2-18.htm" title="Then answered the Jews and said to him, What sign show you to us, seeing that you do these things?">John 2:18</a>; <a href="/john/2-23.htm" title="Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did.">John 2:23</a>), and it was so with the Jews in Galilee. (Comp. <a href="/1_corinthians/1-22.htm" title="For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:">1Corinthians 1:22</a>.) How different from this faith, which demanded a miracle, and therefore was not faith, but sight, was the acceptance by the Samaritans without a miracle, who believed for the woman’s word, and more fully when they heard the word of Christ Himself.<p><span class= "bld">Ye will not believe.</span>—The negative is in its strongest form, <span class= "ital">Ye will by no means believe.</span><p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-49.htm">John 4:49</a></div><div class="verse">The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die.</div>(49) <span class= "bld">Ere my child die.</span>—But human sorrow is the birth-pang of faith. The sense of utter powerlessness leads the soul to cast itself on the Strong One for strength. The faith is still weak, but it is there. It does not realise that Christ can speak the word and heal the child, but it does feel that His presence could save him, and pleads as a father for his son. “Come down, ere my child die.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-50.htm">John 4:50</a></div><div class="verse">Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way.</div>(50) <span class= "bld">Go thy way.</span>—His faith is to be strengthened, and is to pass beyond a trust in aid through bodily presence. Jesus will not go down, but he is himself to go with the assurance, “Thy son liveth.” Up to this point he had believed on the testimony of others, but he, too, now believes on account of the word of Christ Himself.<p><span class= "bld">Had spoken unto him.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">spake unto him.</span> The word he believed was that spoken then.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-51.htm">John 4:51</a></div><div class="verse">And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told <i>him</i>, saying, Thy son liveth.</div>(51) <span class= "bld">And as he was now going.</span>—Many a long mile lay between him and his child, and many an anxious thought must have come to his mind as he journeyed homeward. Now faith would be strong, and now almost give way; but he travels on with the words, “Thy son liveth,” which had come to him as a voice from heaven, sustaining and cheering him. Again he hears the same words, “Thy son liveth!” but they are spoken by the servants, who have come to meet him, and bring from Capernaum the glad news that he had himself heard at Cana.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-52.htm">John 4:52</a></div><div class="verse">Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.</div>(52) <span class= "bld">Then enquired he of them.</span>—But these two facts—the assurance at Cana, and the actual healing powers at Capernaum—were they in truth related to each other? He remembers the hour at which one was spoken; he inquires the hour at which the other was realised. He does not even now grasp the full meaning of the words, and thinks of the gradual abatement of the fever, and the slow convalescence, and asks when the child “began to amend.” They have seen the sudden change as of a new power passing into the body on the point of death. They have spoken of this as a new life, and they now think of the fever as having completely left him.<p><span class= "bld">Yesterday at the seventh hour.</span>—We have seen (<a href="/john/1-39.htm" title="He said to them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelled, and stayed with him that day: for it was about the tenth hour.">John 1:39</a>) that there is no sufficient reason for thinking that St. John uses the western method of counting the hours of the day. Still less is it likely that Galilean servants, who are here the speakers, should have done so. To believe, moreover, that it was seven o’clock in the morning or evening adds to, and does not remove, the difficulty of the length of time implied in “yesterday.” To say that the father remained some time with Jesus, and that “the believer doth not make haste,” is to pervert both the spirit and the words of the text. He clearly went at once (<a href="/john/4-50.htm" title="Jesus said to him, Go your way; your son lives. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken to him, and he went his way.">John 4:50</a>), and his anxiety naturally quickened his speed. The distance was not more than twenty-five English miles, and he had not travelled the whole of it, for the servants had gone to meet him. The supposed explanation cannot therefore be explained. But the words, if taken in their simple meaning, involve no such difficulty. These Jews, as all Jews, meant by the “seventh hour” the seventh from sunrise, what we should call one o’clock. After sunset the same evening they would have commenced a new day (comp. <span class= "ital">Excursus F.</span>)<span class= "ital">,</span> and this seventh hour would be to them as one o’clock the day before, or the seventh hour yesterday. We have thus an interval of five or six hours between the words spoken by our Lord and their confirmation by the servants.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-53.htm">John 4:53</a></div><div class="verse">So the father knew that <i>it was</i> at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house.</div>(53) <span class= "bld">So the father knew.</span>—He was not mistaken, then. The power he had felt when these words were spoken to him was real. The hours that had passed since, as he hastened to know all, had prepared him to read the sign. “Thy son liveth!” “The seventh hour yesterday!” There is more than one miracle here. A new life passes into his own spirit, and he, too, bound in the death-grasp of a formal religion, liveth! A Father’s love has yearned for him. Christ has come down ere the child died.<p><span class= "bld">Himself believed.</span>—This is a yet higher faith. He believed the report before he went to Cana. He believed personally when he pleaded, “Lord, come down.” He believed the word that Jesus spake when told to go his way, and every step of that road going away from the power to the sufferer was an act of faith; but still there is place for a fuller faith, and he and his household became believers. St. John traces here, as before, in the case of the Samaritans (<a href="/context/john/4-41.htm" title="And many more believed because of his own word;">John 4:41-42</a>), and of the disciples themselves (<a href="/john/2-11.htm" title="This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.">John 2:11</a>), the successive development of faith.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/4-54.htm">John 4:54</a></div><div class="verse">This <i>is</i> again the second miracle <i>that</i> Jesus did, when he was come out of Judaea into Galilee.</div>(54) <span class= "bld">This is again the second.</span>—The English version has inserted the article, which is not found in the Greek, and has added in italics <span class= "ital">is</span> and <span class= "ital">that.</span> Omitting these additions, and remembering that in St. John’s language every miracle has its deeper teaching, the verse will read, “This again, a second sign, did Jesus when he was come out of Judæa into Galilee.” His first presence in Galilee was marked by a sign (<a href="/context/john/2-1.htm" title="And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there:">John 2:1-11</a>), and this visit is also. There the individual disciples, who were to leave home and follow him, read the lesson the sign was meant to teach. Now for the first time the family is the unit in the Christian life, and the father, himself taught to read the sign, becomes the first teacher, and representative, of the first Christian household.<p>This miracle of healing naturally brings to the thoughts the healing of the centurion’s servant. See Notes on <a href="/matthew/8-5.htm" title="And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came to him a centurion, beseeching him,">Matthew 8:5</a> <span class= "ital">et seq.,</span> and <a href="/luke/7-2.htm" title="And a certain centurion's servant, who was dear to him, was sick, and ready to die.">Luke 7:2</a> <span class= "ital">et seq.</span> To some minds, from Irenæus downwards, the resemblance has seemed so striking that nothing short of identification could explain it. But there is no <span class= "ital">a priori</span> reason why two miracles should not be performed under circumstances in some respects analogous, and the knowledge of the healing in this case may well have led to the faith in that. If we bear in mind that the miracle is ever to be regarded as the parable in act, it is probable that the acts of Christ would be repeated. Repetition is a part of the method of every great teacher, and formed a large part in the Rabbinic systems Jesus Christ was, it is true, infinitely above .all human teachers, but His hearers were ordinary men, and His teaching and working must have adapted itself to the constitution of the human mind. A comparison of the present narratives will establish the following points of difference, which in their totality amount, it is believed, to little short of proof, that St. John has added the history of a sign which is not recorded in the earlier Gospels.<p>(1) It is here a nobleman who pleads for his son; there a centurion for his servant (<a href="/matthew/8-6.htm" title="And saying, Lord, my servant lies at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.">Matthew 8:6</a>; <a href="/luke/7-2.htm" title="And a certain centurion's servant, who was dear to him, was sick, and ready to die.">Luke 7:2</a>).<p>(2) Here the pleading is in person; there the elders of the Jews intercede (<a href="/luke/7-3.htm" title="And when he heard of Jesus, he sent to him the elders of the Jews, beseeching him that he would come and heal his servant.">Luke 7:3</a>).<p>(3) Here the nobleman is almost certainly a Jew; there the centurion is certainly a Gentile (<a href="/matthew/8-10.htm" title="When Jesus heard it, he marveled, and said to them that followed, Truly I say to you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.">Matthew 8:10</a> <span class= "ital">et seq.;</span> <a href="/luke/7-9.htm" title="When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turned him about, and said to the people that followed him, I say to you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.">Luke 7:9</a>).<p>(4) Here the words of miracle are spoken at Cana; there at Capernaum (<a href="/matthew/8-5.htm" title="And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came to him a centurion, beseeching him,">Matthew 8:5</a>; <a href="/luke/7-1.htm" title="Now when he had ended all his sayings in the audience of the people, he entered into Capernaum.">Luke 7:1</a>).<p>(5) Here the illness is a fever; there paralysis (<a href="/matthew/8-6.htm" title="And saying, Lord, my servant lies at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.">Matthew 8:6</a>).<p>(6) Here the father pleads that Jesus will go down with him; there the centurion deprecates His going, and asks Him to command with a word only (<a href="/matthew/8-7.htm" title="And Jesus said to him, I will come and heal him.">Matthew 8:7</a>; <a href="/luke/7-7.htm" title="Why neither thought I myself worthy to come to you: but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed.">Luke 7:7</a>).<p>(7) Here the Lord speaks the word only, and does not go down; there apparently He does both (<a href="/matthew/8-13.htm" title="And Jesus said to the centurion, Go your way; and as you have believed, so be it done to you. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.">Matthew 8:13</a>; <a href="/luke/7-6.htm" title="Then Jesus went with them. And when he was now not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying to him, Lord, trouble not yourself: for I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof:">Luke 7:6</a>).<p>(8) Here the Lord blames the half-faith which demands signs and wonders; there He marvels at the fulness of faith, and, it may be in reference to this very nobleman, says, “In no one have I found so great faith in Israel” (<a href="/matthew/8-10.htm" title="When Jesus heard it, he marveled, and said to them that followed, Truly I say to you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.">Matthew 8:10</a>).<p><div id="botbox"><div class="padbot"><div align="center">Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers<br /><br />Text Courtesy of <a href="//biblesupport.com" target="_top">BibleSupport.com</a>. 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