Unprejudiced Missions (4:1-18)

Typically, when someone comes to me for counsel, they are coming (1) because there is a problem and (2) because the problem has escalated to such a degree that they feel like they can’t handle it. They desire input, perspective, and counsel. In these moments, I want to understand the backstory. I want to know the details that led up to this problem. And, most often these details go back years, if not decades. Therefore, I attempt to put together a timeline in the first few counseling sessions.

Similarly, for us to best understand the dynamics of the conversation between Jesus and the woman at the well, putting together a quick timeline can be very helpful.

Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee.

Jesus did not want to be pitted against John the Baptist. They were on the same team. This “competition” may have resulted in premature conflict with the religious leaders. Seeing that it was not the Father’s will for this conflict to occur at this point, Jesus was led away.

And he had to pass through Samaria.

It was the Father’s divine will that Jesus go through Samaria. While the quickest route to Galilee was through Samaria, it was not necessary that they go through Samaria. In fact, it was not uncommon for devout religious Jews to go around Samaria. When John tells us that Jesus, “had to pass through Samaria” that focused on the need to obey the Father’s direction, not to save time and energy.

So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

Jacob’s well is found at the foot of Mt. Gerizim () and is about one-mile SE of Nablus. It is near the fork of a road which comes from Jerusalem and branches to Samaria and Tirzah. The well is only a few hundred yards away from Joseph’s tomb. Jesus arrives at the well at the 6th hour. This would have been about noon, which explains why he would have been thirsty at this point in the day.

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” ().

Now then, the significance of this interaction, in large part, is due to the historic tension and hatred between the Jews and Samaritans.

930 BC. Solomon died around 930 BC[1] and the United Kingdom of Israel is divided.

880 BC. About fifty years and 6 kings later, between 880 and 870[2] Omri, who was an officer in Israel’s northern kingdom, took power and established Samaria as the Northern Kingdom’s capital. It remained the capital until the fall of Israel in 722 BC.[3]

735 BC. The divided kingdom was anything but peaceful and harmonious. Israel even attacked Judah along with Syria in 735/734 BC. The Assyrian empire was expanding westward, and Syria and Israel wanted to form an alliance to fight Assyria. Judah refused, so Syria and Judah attacked them. Nineveh as well attacked them from the west.

722 BC. After the Assyrians captured Samaria in 722-721 BC, they deported all the Israelites of substance and settled the land with foreigners, who intermarried with the surviving Israelites and adhered to some form of their ancient religion ().[4]

And the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel. And they took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities. ( ESV).

These people did not fear the Lord, so the Lord sent lions among them and killed some of them. As a result, the king of Assyria sent a priest to the people to teach them about the “god of the land” (). The remaining Samaritans intermarried with these foreigners and embraced an idolatrous religion. Therefore, the Jews considered them to be “half breeds” and despised them in general.[5]

Samaritan perception of their origination. On the other hand, the Samaritans think they are from the line of Manasseh and Ephraim. indicates that Nehemiah did send an invitation to the remnant in those two tribes to join the worship in Jerusalem.

Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem to keep the Passover to the Lord, the God of Israel . . . . 10 So the couriers went from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, and as far as Zebulun, but they laughed them to scorn and mocked them. 11 However, some men of Asher, of Manasseh, and of Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem (, ).

444 BC. The Jews returned from Babylon and began to rebuild the wall and the temple. The most significant challenge to the rebuilding was the Samaritans who did everything they could to stop the building (; Cf. ). It appears that their failure to stop the rebuilding of the temple resulted in them building there own temple on Mount Gerizim and declared it to be the holy place – where to this day they celebrate Passover.[6]

Mount Gerizim. The Samaritans believe, based on their version of the Torah, that Gerizim was established by God (in ) as the place for worship.

That day Moses charged the people, saying, 12 “When you have crossed over the Jordan, these shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. 13 And these shall stand on Mount Ebal for the curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali. 14 And the Levites shall declare to all the men of Israel in a loud voice: ( ESV).

According to Josephus, some years later, Sanballat promised to build a temple on Mount Gerizim – if only Sanballat would keep his daughter for a wife.

Josephus. Whereupon Manasseh came to his father-in-law, Sanballat, and told him, that although he loved his daughter Nicaso, yet was he not willing to be deprived of his sacerdotal dignity on her account, which was the principal dignity in their nation, and always continued in the same family. And then Sanballat promised him not only to preserve to him the honor of his priesthood, but to procure for him the power and dignity of a high priest, and would make him governor of all the places he himself now ruled, if he would keep his daughter for his wife. He also told him further, that he would build him a temple like that at Jerusalem upon Mount Gerizzim, which is the highest of all the mountains that are in Samaria; and he promised that he would do this with the approbation of Darius the king.[7]

The Jews would have considered Mount Gerizim a special place, but believe God appointed Jerusalem as the place for worship. On several occasions in Deuteronomy, Moses tells the people that they would need to worship in “a place that he would choose.” That place was Jerusalem. However, the Samaritan Torah reads “the place that God did choose” and refer this back to Mount Gerizim.[8]

128 BC. Hostility between the Jews and the Samaritans increased after the Maccabean revolt. The Hasmonean ruler and high priest John Hyrcanus showed the most overt Jewish hostility to the Samaritans when he destroyed Shechem in 128 BC. [9] and the Samaritan temple on Mt Gerizim.[10]

6-9 AD. During a Passover, according to Josephus, Samaritans came into Jerusalem “just after midnight . . . and threw about dead men’s bodies.”[11]

Jesus talks to a Samaritan. The Jews and Samaritans didn’t like each other. This prejudice is seen a few chapters later in John’s Gospel when he writes of an interaction between Jesus and the religious leaders. Their annoyance, anger, and general hatred for Jesus is displayed when the “Jews answered him, ‘Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?’” (). As well, in looking at our passage for today, John writes, “the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans” ().

One of the apocryphal books, The Wisdom of Sirach or The Book of Ecclesiasticus, which was written approximately around 200 to 175 BC, states the following:

. There be two manner of nations which my heart abhorreth, and the third is no nation: They that sit upon the mountain of Samaria, and they that dwell among the Philistines, and that foolish people that dwell in Sichem.[12]

The Mishna, which is the first part of the Jewish Talmud and the written collection of Jewish oral tradition as well displays this unsavory opinion of the Samaritans.

Mishna, Niddah 4:1. Samaritan women are deemed menstruants from their cradle. And the Samaritans convey uncleanness to a couch beneath as to a cover above, because they have intercourse with menstruating women[13]

Jesus talks to a woman. It is this world into which Jesus boldly enters. He increases the cultural inappropriateness by talking to a woman.

Keener. According to Jewish sages, Jewish men were to avoid unnecessary conversation with women. . . in theory the strict opined that a wife could be divorced without her marriage settlement if she spoke with a man in the street. . . In time, however, sages also worried about sending the wrong message to onlookers, if one talked with even one’s sister or wife in public, someone who did not know that the woman was a relative might get the wrong impression. Any wife being in private with a man other than her husband was normally suspected of adultery. . . Even today in traditional Middle Eastern societies, “Social intercourse between unrelated men and women is almost equivalent to sexual intercourse.” If such a man and woman “are alone together for more than twenty minutes,” it is assumed that “they have had intercourse.[14]

Jesus talks to a questionable woman. The inappropriateness of this conversation is heightened even more as we realize that the woman had minimally a questionable marital arrangement. Jesus asked the woman to have her husband come and talk with him. “The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true” (). Carson does conclude, based on verses 16 and following that her presence at the well, seemingly alone, points to the likelihood that she carried a great deal of shame.

Carson. Apparently the woman came to the well alone. Women were more likely to come in groups to fetch water, and either earlier or later in the day when the heat of the sun was not so fierce. Possibly the woman’s public shame (4:16ff.) contributed to her isolation.[15]

We need to be cautious that we don’t draw conclusions that the text doesn’t direct. We don’t know why she had five husbands. It’s unlikely that she was a prostitute and men just continued marrying her. It’s possible that she had been divorced due to faults of her own, but it may also be possible that her husbands had passed away. There are a lot of possible scenarios. The fact that the men of the city listen to her later in the passage seems to indicate that she must have had somewhat of a positive reputation.

We can’t draw from the fact that she appears to be alone in the middle of the day at the well that she was a harlot and couldn’t come in the morning with the other woman. The passage simply doesn’t tell us that.

It is possible that she would have been viewed as a concubine or maybe a man’s second wife. We just can’t be certain. With that said, John does seem to be contrasting this woman with Nicodemus. The fact that he was respectable may imply that she wasn’t so. But this would be true by the very fact that she was a Samaritan woman and only increased by the number of her marriages.

Taking everything into consideration, it is not surprising that this Samaritan woman was a little taken back that Jesus, a Jewish man, would deal with her in such a way. Verse 9 says that “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.” The Greek word translated “dealing” can be translated “to use together.” This may mean that the woman was surprised that Jesus asked her for a drink because Jews and Samaritans would never have shared dishes. She was a Samaritan woman and an outcast, what would an honorable Jewish man be thinking by asking her for a drink?

Not only would a Jewish man have nothing to do with a Samaritan woman, a rabbi or religious leader would not typically interact with what may be perceived as an immoral woman. As you consider the differences between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, you might as well notice the stark differences between Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman.

Nicodemus was learned. The Samaritan woman unschooled.

Nicodemus was powerful. The Samaritan woman had little influence.

Nicodemus was respected. The Samaritan woman was despised (at least from a Jewish perspective).

Nicodemus was orthodox. The Samaritan woman capable of only folk religion.

Nicodemus was theologically trained. The Samaritan woman was theologically curious.

Nicodemus was a man. The Samaritan woman was a woman.

Nicodemus was a Jew. The Samaritan woman a Samaritan.

Nicodemus was a ruler. The Samaritan woman was an outcast.

Two secondary but significant details. (1) The disciples went into town to get food. “For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food” (). A well-established view of the day was that Samaritans were unclean and horrible. This interaction between the disciples and the Samaritan townspeople seems to minimally indicate the reality that Jesus had influenced his disciples already in how they viewed others who might typically be considered undesirable and avoided. (2) The woman immediately goes into town to tell everyone to come to Jesus. This woman’s immediate heralding of the good news is both in great contrast to Nicodemus and a wonderful example for all believers that followed her.

We Have an Unbiased Commission. Prior to Christ’s ascension into heaven, following his resurrection, he once again commissions the disciples. “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (). We are commissioned to share the Gospel and minister to everyone – from the trained, respected, theologically astute, well-positioned Nicodemus to the untrained, poor, uninfluential, despised, theologically shallow, Samaritan woman. By the way, everyone fits within those extremes.

Do you ever pick and choose to whom you will share the gospel? Do you ever pick and choose whom you will serve? Have you ever justified passing by someone because they weren’t respectable? Because others might think less of you? Because social norms would reflect poorly on you? Have you ever not shared the gospel because you assumed someone would reject it? Afterall, “that’s not the kind of person who would come to Jesus.”

Jesus overlooked the natural division between Himself and the woman. The disciples overcame the natural division with the Samaritans in the town. The woman overcame the natural division to Christ and came to accept Him as Lord and Savior and proclaimed him unashamedly to everyone in the town.

We Must be Sensitive to God’s Leading. Both Jesus and the woman were at that well providentially. The passage tells us that Jesus had to pass through Samaria. There is some justification for this statement geographically. Samaria was between Judah and Galilee. But, as has already been mentioned, many Jews went around Samaria so as to avoid interacting with these less desirables. Therefore, the fact that Jesus had to go through Samaria was not out of some geographic necessity but instead a spiritual need.

Jesus was aware of the Father’s leading and He followed. (1) Follow the direction of God in your life. (2) Allow for the likelihood that service to others will likely cross cultural preferences or dictates. (3) Consider the possibility that every encounter is providentially planned.

[1] Kitchen & Mitchell, 931 | Finegan, 931 | A. Negev, 928 | J. Bright, 922 | Bullinger, 880

[2] Kitchen & Mitchell, 884-873 | Finegan, 884-873 | A. Negev, 882-871 | J. Bright, 876-869 | Bullinger, 833-822

[3] D. W. Baker, “Omri,” ed. D. R. W. Wood et al., New Bible Dictionary (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 847. | Omri is also remembered for building activities. The most important of these was the new Israelite capital at *Samaria on a site purchased from Shemer, its previous owner (). The city had an excellent strategic position, and served as capital until the fall of Israel in 722 bc. Archaeological excavations at Megiddo and Hazor have also revealed buildings attributed to him.

[4] Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “Chronology, Old Testament,” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 457.

[5] Brian Maiers, “Samaritans,” John D. Barry et al., Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012).

“Following the account in , Josephus and many of the rabbis of the Second Temple period did not consider the Samaritans as ethnically Jewish, but of Cuthean descent. The Samaritans, however, viewed themselves as descendants of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, and trace their lineage to the time of Eli.”

[6] Yitzakh Magen, 'The Dating of the First Phase of the Samaritan Temple on Mt Gerizim in Light of Archaeological Evidence,' in Oded Lipschitz, Gary N. Knoppers, Rainer Albertz (eds.) Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century B.C.E., Eisenbrauns, 2007 pp.157ff.p.176 | the Samaritans built a temple there probably in the middle of 5th century BCE.

[7] Josephus and Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged, 306.

[8] Eyal Baruch, “Mount Gerizim and the Polemic Against the Samaritans,” (The Torah: A Historical and Contextual Approach, blog, September 18, 2016) Accessed November 20, 2018. https://thetorah.com/mount-gerizim-and-the-polemic-against-the-samaritans/

Even Deuteronomy’s law of centralization of worship, in which Jerusalem might be expected to appear, never mentions it. The Masoretic Text instead uses the expression “the place that God will choose (המקום אשר יבחר ה),” a phrase that occurs no fewer than 22 times. The Samaritans have a slightly different version of the Pentateuch, and the exact wording of this phrase in Deuteronomy is one of the key differences between these versions. The Samaritans defend their version of the text by noting that the expression “המקום אשר (י)בחר ה’” first appears in chapter 12, only a few verses after the commandment to conduct the ceremony of blessings and curses. Moreover, Chapter 12 opens with a commandment to destroy all traces of pagan worship “על ההרים הרמים,” a contrast to Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, where the covenantal ceremony is to take place. Thus, in the Samaritan view, the place is one that already has been chosen, namely, Mount Gerizim, which indeed appears a few verses earlier, in the instructions for the covenantal ceremony. For more on this, see Jonathan Ben-Dov’s TABS essay, “An Altar on Mt Ebal or Mt Gerizim: The Torah in the Sectarian Debate.”

[9] Brian Maiers, “Samaritans,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).

[10] Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “Samaritans,” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 1887.

[11] Josephus and Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged, 478.

“As Coponius, who we told you was sent along with Cyrenius, was exercising his office of procurator, and governing Judea, the following accidents happened. As the Jews were celebrating the feast of unleavened bread, which we call the Passover, it was customary for the priests to open the temple gates just after midnight. (30) When, therefore, those gates were first opened, some of the Samaritans came privately into Jerusalem, and threw about dead men’s bodies in the cloisters; on which account the Jews afterward excluded them out of the temple, which they had not used to do at such festivals; and on other accounts also they watched the temple more carefully than they had formerly done.”

[12] The Apocrypha: King James Version (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1995), .

[13] Jacob Neusner, The Mishnah: A New Translation, 1988, 1082.

[14] Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, 596–97.

[15] Carson, The Gospel According to John, 217.

Unprejudiced Missions (4:1-18)

Introduction

Tension Between Israel and Samaria

An Inappropriate Conversation

Nicodemus contrasted to the Samaritan Woman

Concluding Challenges