Early in Jesus’s ministry, John records in John 4:4 that Jesus “must needs go through Samaria” on His way from Judea to Galilee. The “need” that John refers to was not geographical.
Since the context suggests that He was probably already in the Jordan valley, Jesus could have easily avoided Samaria by going through the Bethshan gap into Galilee. But He had work to do in Samaria, so He traveled instead to “Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph” and near to Jacob’s Well.[1]
The events described in John 4 are interesting to me for three main reasons. First, when Jesus gave His commission to his Twelve apostles in Matthew 10, He specifically instructed them not to engage [page 2] in missionary work among the Samaritans. Yet, in this instance, He seems to have gone out of his way to travel through Samaria and to seek out the Samaritan woman.
Second, Jesus’s teachings in John 4 are an important example of one of the significant themes that runs throughout John’s gospel: that Jesus, who comes from above and sees things from a heavenly perspective must interact with people who are limited to a very earthly perspective. In his conversations with his mother, Mary, Nicodemus, and the Pharisees, we see him working to help them see as he sees; to gain an eternal perspective of who He is and what He came to earth to accomplish. Although much of chapter 4 deals with the Savior’s interaction with the Samaritan woman, His conversations with his own disciples and the Samaritan men of the city are also focused on helping them to raise their sights so that they can understand more clearly who He is and what his mission entails, without the limitations of religious and political assumptions, which underlie this story.
Third, the account of Jesus’s interaction with the Samaritan woman shows a good knowledge of Samaritan beliefs and practices and of Judeo-Samaritan relations. Let me take a few minutes to discuss some of these issues because they are critical to our understanding of the text of John 4. We must first be clear about who the Samaritans were. Sometimes in our discussions we have not been careful enough to distinguish between Samarians, the people who lived in the geo-political region of Samaria, and the Samaritans. Not every one who lived in Samaria was a Samaritan. This is important because in our present King James Version of the Old Testament, we only find the name Samaritan used once. It is found in 2 Kings 17:29. Here Samaritan is a translation of the Hebrew word hasusuosmedrosniîm. The context of the verse is a description of the scene after the deportation of the northern tribes and the introduction of [page 3] Assyrian colonists. The text tells how these colonists merged elements of their religious practices with those of the Israelite religion. The question here is how we should translate the word hasusuosmedrosniîm; should it be Samaritan or Samarian? I think that it is more accurate to translate it as Samarian because there is no evidence of Assyrian religious influence in the Samaritan religion and because we don’t find any concrete evidence for a separate and distinct Samaritan religion until a much later period of time, during the Hasmonean Period, 167–63 BC.
To be sure, prior to the split there was a long history of tension between the northern and southern Israelite tribes that can be traced to pre-Monarchical times. At times, such as during the time of Ezra, that tension became intense. Even so, we have evidence from Jeremiah 41 and 2 Chronicles 34 that people from Samaria continued to make contributions to the temple in Jerusalem and to participate in its sacrifices. In fact, Josephus records that they continued to come to the Jerusalem temple down into the Roman period.
But during the Hasmonean period two major events suggest that the split with Judaism became substantial. First, it is during this time that we see the first evidence of a distinct Samaritan scriptural canon. Although the formation of the Jewish canon was still in flux during this time, we can still note some points where the Samaritans were creating a canon that separated them from the Jewish counterpart. For example, the Dead Sea Scrolls confirm that the forms of spelling and the type of script used to write the Samaritan scriptures are consistent with a date during the Hasmonean Period. The script is a form of Hebrew script known as paleo-Hebrew, or old-Hebrew. During the Persian period, around the time of Ezra, the square Aramaic script was adopted and widely used. This is similar to the Hebrew script with which we are familiar today. In this slide, we can see the Aramaic script in the far left column and then variations of the paleo-Hebrew script in the remaining columns. The type of paleo-Hebrew used [page 4] in the Samaritan scriptures is the type found in use during the Hasmonean Period. Why did the Samaritans begin using the paleo-Hebrew script? It was probably motivated by the desire to make the point that they were the descendants of “true Israel.” It was a means of identifying themselves vis-r-vis their Jewish opponents.
In addition, the Samaritans also distinguished themselves by what they included in their scriptural canon. Unlike the Jews they restricted their canon to the five books of Moses—the Pentateuch. They thus rejected the prophetic tradition of the Hebrew Old Testament. Even within their Pentateuch there are some significant differences with the Hebrew version with which we are familiar today. Let me give one quick example. Deuteronomy 27:4–8 describes the command to the people of Israel that when they cross over the Jordan River they were to build an altar upon which they would offer sacrifices to the Lord their God. In the Hebrew Bible they were directed to build the altar on Mount Ebal. In the Samaritan Pentateuch, however, the site for the altar is Mount Gerizim. This different reading reflects on one of the central differences between the Samaritans and the Jews. For the Samaritans, Mount Gerizim, not Jerusalem, is the holy site, the revealed site for the temple, which they built during Greek period. This reading of Deuteronomy 27 is so important to Samaritan theology that it was incorporated as the final commandment in their version of Moses’s Ten Commandments. These readings suggest that the formation of the Samaritan canon was motivated, at least in part, to be used as an ideological weapon against their Jewish opponents.
The second event that suggests the rise of the Samaritan religion during the Hasmonean Period is their response to the Jewish Maccabean Revolt. This was a time of tremendous political and religious turmoil for both Samaria and Judea. Under the political control of the Greek [page 5] Seleucid, Antiochus Ephiphanes IV, both regions experienced intense religious oppression. Significantly, however, when the Hasmoneans rose up in rebellion against the Seleucids, the Samaritans did not join with them in the fight for freedom. Even though they would clearly have benefited by removing the Seleucids from power over them, they apparently did not believe they would experience any more religious freedom under the Hasmoneans. This would suggest that, by this time, both they and the Hasmoneans characterized the Samaritans as a religion that was distinct from Judaism.
This assessment was later confirmed when one of the Hasmonean leaders, John Hyrcanus (134–104 BC), treated the Samaritans as Gentiles. In a military campaign in which he attacked cities in Syria, he also attacked Samaria and Shechem, and he destroyed the temple on Mount Gerizim.
One scholar has suggested that Hyrcanus’s action against Mount Gerizim, in particular, may have been motivated by the fact that the Samaritans could trace their High Priestly lineage, to the legitimate Zadokite line. This lineage was in contrast to the Hasmoneans, who belonged to a priestly family, but who had usurped the high priestly duties by political appointment from the Seleucids in 152 BC. Therefore, the issue became more than simply a question of where the temple should be located; it also became an issue of who had a legitimate claim to the high priestly office.
By the time Jesus conversed with the Samaritans at Jacob’s Well, these events were firmly entrenched in the religious psyche of both the Samaritans and the Jews. By understanding them, we are now in a better position to appreciate how the Master Teacher was able to invite [page 6] Samaritans to raise their sights above their political and religious antipathies for the Jews and recognize in Jesus “the Christ, the Saviour of the world.”[2]
Shortly after arriving at Jacob’s Well the disciples left Jesus so that they could go and buy food in the city. While he was resting a Samaritan woman came to draw water from the well. As soon as Jesus asked her for a drink, she recognized Him as a Jew. Her response in verse 9 acknowledged the deep-seated feelings of hostility between the two groups. “How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews do not have friendly relations [sunchrosntai] with the Samaritans.” The woman’s statement shows that all she saw in Jesus was an enemy. In contrast to her limited vision, Jesus’s request showed that he crossed the boundaries between Jews and Samaritans. He saw in the woman something much more than a Samaritan. So He helped her elevate her sights. To do so, He used the very earthly, daily task of drawing water.
When the Samaritan woman came to the well, her mindset was focused on the grind of her daily chore. According to verse 15, this was a chore that she clearly wished she could forgo. But the Master Teacher used that chore to teach the woman about the things of eternity. While she was fixated on the physical water and the difficulty of obtaining it without a bucket, He reminded her in verse 14, of the living water that would be “a spring of [page 7] water bubbling up into eternal life.” Later, in John 7:37, Jesus specifically declared, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.” This was the “gift of God” that Jesus was offering not just to the Jews but also to a Samaritan woman. It was a greater gift than the well Jacob dug that had supplied water for millennia because the water Jesus offered would last for eternity. It was a gift that came freely from God without the laborious effort required for drawing water from a well that was a hundred feet deep! But to receive the gift, the Samaritan woman had to come to recognize who Jesus was; to recognize that He was much more than a Jew and that He was not an enemy of her people.
Only after Jesus had gained the woman’s attention with the hope of living water did He move to help her raise her sights. To do so, He had to accomplish two things. First, He had to bring her to a point where she felt a sense of sin and could therefore recognize her need for help. Second, He had to establish His authority as God’s representative on earth. He accomplished both in a masterful teaching moment. By instructing her to call her husband, He simultaneously raised a mirror of spiritual introspection and opened the door for her to see Him from a higher spiritual perspective. He revealed to her that even though they had just met, He knew who she was: more than the fact that she was a Samaritan, she was a woman who had had five husbands but who was now living with a man who was not her husband.
[page 8] This revelation clearly impacted the woman. Later, in verse 29, she told the men in her village that Jesus “told me all things that ever I did.” In light of the details recorded in John, this statement appears to be a hyperbole, but it illustrates how profound the revelation of her life was to the woman. She now saw this man at the well in a different light. She knew that Jesus was much more than a Jew and so declares in verse 19: “Lord (kurios), I perceive that you are a prophet.” This was a significant realization for her. The Samaritans, as we noted, did not accept the prophetic books of the Old Testament; but they did anticipate the coming of a prophet, an expectation that was based on Deuteronomy 18:15–18. This prophecy indicates that the Lord “will raise up a prophet like unto Moses. . . . I will put my words in [the prophet’s] mouth; and he shall speak . . . all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him” (Deuteronomy 18:18–19). Then, Moses declares in verses 20–22 that if the prophet is not sent from God, his prophecies will not come true, and therefore the people should not be afraid of him. Because Jesus’s revelations were true, the woman was obligated to acknowledge Jesus as a prophet and recognize that what He said came from God.
With this realization, however, the woman was clearly faced with an internal quandary. On the one hand, she recognized Jesus as a prophet; but, on the other, in verse 20, she was torn by the reality that “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Two items are important about this statement. First is her comment that “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain.” “This mountain” is a clear [page 9] reference to Mount Gerizim that provided the topographical background for their conversation. Worship on “this mountain” was and continues to be the theological difference that separates the Samaritans and the Jews. Second, the past tense of the verb (aorist), showing that her ancestors worshiped on Mount Gerizim, reflects the historical reality that their temple had been destroyed by John Hyrcanus more than a hundred years before. Although the Samaritans never rebuilt their temple, through the intervening centuries, they have always recognized the sanctity of Mount Gerizim and have continued to offer sacrifices on it.
Jesus’s response to the question of where to worship was again calculated to move the Samaritan woman’s perspective to an even higher level. In verse 21 he declares, “Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.” The physical temple on Mount Gerizim had been destroyed. The physical temple in Jerusalem would also be destroyed in the near future. The purpose of temples has always been to provide a way for individuals to ritually leave behind the things of the world and enter the presence of God. The Samaritan woman was so consumed by the Jewish/Samaritan debate over the correct location for the temple that she had not realized that Jesus was the ultimate way to enter the presence of the Father. He was the Word who enabled humans to come to know the Father while they were still in mortality. As Elder Holland taught, “It is the grand truth that in all that Jesus came to say and do, including and especially in His atoning suffering and sacrifice, He was showing us who and what God our [page 10] Eternal Father is like, how completely devoted He is to His children in every age and nation. In word and deed Jesus was trying to reveal and make personal to us the true nature of His Father, our Father in Heaven.”
At this point, the Samaritan woman did not know what she worshiped. As a Samaritan, she had rejected the continuous revelation of God through the Old Testament prophets; she apparently did not appreciate the true purpose of the temple; and she did not understand the implications of her declaration that Jesus was a prophet. Jesus had taught here that salvation was “of the Jews” because the prophet standing before her was the source of salvation and because He, as she had quickly recognized at the beginning of their interaction, was a Jew.
So Jesus taught her the elements of “true worship.” It is not always a function of location, nor is it a function of having a physical building in which to worship. Rather, Jesus taught that what is most important is that true worshipers “worship [the Father] in spirit and in truth.” In fact, that process is an absolute requirement. Thus, Elder McConkie taught that “our purpose is to worship the true and living God and to do it by the power of the Spirit and in the way he has ordained. The approved worship of the true God leads to salvation; devotions rendered to false gods and which are not founded on eternal truth carry no such assurance.” According to the Joseph Smith Translation of John 4:26, Jesus then taught that God would send His Spirit to those who engaged in “true worship.”
Again, the woman was confused. The only thing that the Samaritans anticipated from their worship was the coming of the Taheb. In verse 25 she declares, “I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.” Although she uses the [page 11] term messiah, we need to remember that the Samaritan hope was very different from their Jewish counterparts. The Samaritans certainly did not anticipate that the Messiah would be a Davidic king! Instead, their Taheb was a restorer who would reinstitute the age of divine favor. Having created the teaching moment, Jesus was then ready to reveal fully His identity to the Samaritan woman. He is the fulfillment of this Samaritan hope; just as Jesus taught the Nephites, He is the prophet “like unto [Moses].” But, in making that identification, he went further. He applied the divine title, “I AM” to Himself. Literally, in verse 26 He says, “I Am, the one who speaks to you.” Jesus was indeed the prophet like unto Moses, but He was also the God who directed Moses. In both of these roles, He had indeed come to tell her “all things.” No doubt the Samaritan woman understood exactly what Jesus was saying. John tells us in verse 28 that she “then left her waterpot.” She had come to the well with her waterpot in search of water, and she left with water, but not the kind she could carry in a pot. She had found the living water that Jesus had promised her.
Like Lehi in his vision of the tree of life, as soon as she realized what she had received, she yearned to share it with others. She returned to Sychar and invited the villagers to “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” The inclusion of the Greek particle mesti at the beginning of the question indicates that she did not expect a positive answer. This usage is probably why she invited them to come and see for themselves rather than rely on her witness.
Just as the Samaritan woman was leaving the well, Jesus’s disciples returned with the food they had bought. With the Samaritan woman before them, Jesus used the opportunity to [page 12] give His earthbound disciples a glimpse into His mission and into what God had prepared for the Samaritans. In verse 34 he says, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” That work included sowing seeds among the Samaritans, which the disciples would reap after Jesus had left them. The disciples’ reaction when they saw the Savior conversing with the Samaritan woman suggests that they were not immune from some of the antipathy for the Samaritans that was common among the Jews, but Jesus encouraged them to “Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields.” Perhaps He was inviting them to elevate the perception of the land of Samaria. Instead of seeing it as a place to be avoided, they should recognize it, as he says in verse 35, as fields that were “white already to harvest.”
With the Samaritan woman, Jesus had sown a seed that was about to bear fruit, but the disciples would also participate in a later harvest. Using the prophetic past tense, Jesus said in verse 38, “I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.” After Jesus’s resurrection, He modified the apostolic commission He gave in Matthew 10:5 that they were not to go “into any city of the Samaritans.” On the Mount of Olives, He would specifically command them that after they had received the Holy Ghost, they were to “be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” Acts records a partial fulfillment of this prophecy in the work of Philip, Peter, and John in Samaria. Jesus’s journey into Samaria was not just to teach the Samaritan woman but also to teach his disciples and help both sides overcome their prejudices. [page 13]
As Jesus finished teaching His disciples, we learn in verse 39 that “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.” The Samaritans were so taken with His teachings that they implored Him to stay with them. He agreed, and the result was that “many more believed because of his own word.” They each received a personal testimony that was independent of the Samaritan woman’s and therefore testified that they knew “this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.” They had learned that Jesus was not just a Jew, not just a prophet, and not just a messiah. He was the Savior of the Jews, of the Samaritans, and of the world.
Conclusion
A fourth-century Christian, Ephraem the Syrian, wonderfully summarized Jesus’s interactions with the Samaritan woman in the following way: “Our Lord came to the fountain of water as a hunter. . . . He cast a bait for the dove so that through it he might capture the entire flock. . . . She first saw him as someone thirsting; and then as a Jew; then as a prophet, and after that as God. As someone thirsting, she persuaded him; as a Jew, she recoiled from him, as a learned one, she interrogated him, as a prophet she was reprimanded, and as the Messiah she worshipped him.” Although Jesus had good success among the Samaritans this time, later Luke 9 records that He received a very different reaction. On that occasion, the Samaritans did not have one of their own to introduce the Messiah to them. Perhaps that is one reason they could not [page 14] accept that Jesus was committed to Jerusalem rather than Mount Gerizim. Both of these incidents remind modern readers that nationality is not what determines or precludes salvation; rather, salvation comes from how individuals respond to the Savior’s attempts to raise their sights from an earthly to a heavenly perspective and how they respond to His invitation to “Come, follow me.”
Notes
This address was originally published in a volume by Desert Book.
[1] John 4:5–6
[2] John 4:42