John 4

CHAPTER IV

Jesus in Samaria, 4:1–42.—When, therefore, the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and was baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples), he left Judea and departed again into Galilee. The evangelist’s interest in this brief preamble is to inform us how Jesus came to Samaria and thus how the great testimony culminating in v. 26, in the following paragraph, and in v. 42, came to be uttered.

“Therefore,” οὗν, connects with 3:22, and brings the result. The two imperfect tenses in 3:22 come to the end of their action in the aorists in 4:3. How Jesus “knew” about these Pharisees is not indicated. We have no call to insert miraculous knowledge; someone brought him the information. On the Pharisees here involved see 1:24. They would be the leaders who were in the Sanhedrin, plus their followers in the capital.

What they heard was not only what had become of Jesus when he left the capital, or merely what Jesus was doing since he left, but a more significant report, “that Jesus was making and was baptizing more disciples than John.” The Greek retains the original present tenses in the indirect discourse, for the messengers said, “Jesus is making and is baptizing,” etc. By stating that the report heard by the Pharisees included this comparison with the Baptist the evangelist implies that the Pharisees used it to cast reproach upon this entire movement. Perhaps they said that it was breaking up in competition, adding, somewhat in the manner of the Baptist’s disciples in 3:26, that the very man of whom the Baptist testified in such a grandiose way was disrupting the Baptist’s own work. On the term μαθηταί see 2:11.

John 4:2

2 For the benefit of his readers the evangelist adds in a parenthesis that Jesus was not baptizing in person but only through his disciples as his agents. This remark is, of course, not intended to mean that the disciples of the Baptist in 3:26, and now the Pharisees were wrong in their assumption of a competition between Jesus and the Baptist on the ground that Jesus himself really baptized nobody; for this ground would not hold. What one’s agents do is the same as one’s own act. In this final reference to this work of Jesus the evangelist merely wants his readers not to form the wrong impression that, like the Baptist, Jesus baptized with his own hands. Why he bade his disciples to act for him has been variously answered. It seems best to infer: In order that later on no one might claim that he had received a baptism superior to that of the Baptist.

The claim that a baptism by Jesus’ own hands would be one including the Spirit, whereas the Baptist’s baptism and that of Jesus’ disciples remained only “a water-baptism,” is wholly specious. See the explanations of 1:26.

John 4:3

3 So Jesus left Judea and went back to Galilee. This means that he ceased baptizing not that he transferred the baptizing to Galilee. To think that Jesus now just changed his mind, or that he finally felt that he had made a mistake by beginning to baptize, is to make God’s Son an ordinary mortal. The Baptist’s work was fast coming to a close (3:30). Jesus aided it as it was approaching its end. He stopped when the hostile Pharisees turned this aid against the Baptist’s work. God himself changes his actions because of men’s evil acts, and we shall see that Jesus does the same as occasion requires.

John 4:4

4 Now he had to pass through Samaria. Any kind of necessity may be expressed by δεῖ, here the imperfect ἔδει. One could, of course, go around Samaria and thus pass from Judea to Galilee, but the nearer and more natural way necessitated crossing Samaria. On the tense see R. 887, who also makes this verb personal, “he must,” 393, which is questionable. This open tense is closed by the following historical present ἔρχεται.

John 4:5

5 He comes, then, to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground which Jacob gave to Joseph, his son. Now Jacob’s spring was there. The historical present “he comes,” like those in the following narration, adds vividness. The preposition εἰς invaded the territory of ἐπί and πρός, R. 596, so that here it is used when Jesus comes only “to the city.” That this cannot be the old Shechem, now Nablus, a mile and a half from Jacob’s well, as some have thought, is plain, because the woman could not go that far for water, nor is the well visible from Nablus, nor would John introduce the name of the place by writing, “called Sychar,” which indicates an otherwise unknown place. In all probability Sychar is the present village Askar, from which the well is reached by a moderate walk, with Joseph’s tomb about a third of a mile from the well. John alone employs πλησίον as a preposition, R. 547, 646.

The remark about the burial of Joseph is made by the evangelist not so much to fix more closely the locality as to enrich the references to past history in the following narrative. Compare Gen. 13:18, etc.; 48:22; Josh. 24:32. The ground, bought by Jacob, tradition reports he gave to Joseph whose body, brought along from Egypt by the Israelites, was then buried there.

John 4:6

6 The word πηγή means “spring” and is to be distinguished from φρέαρ, “a shaft or well,” v. 11, 12. The word refers to the water at the bottom of the well or shaft. The author visited the place, one of the few really assured sites in the Holy Land, in 1925. A Russian orthodox church covers the well. Through a small wooden door, down neat stone steps one comes to the well in a little chapel; there is a hole in the vaulting above to let the light shine down. The well itself is a rock-faced shaft 105 feet deep, a rectangular stone is placed at a convenient height over the well, with a hole about two feet wide in the center of the stone.

A neat windlass lowers a kettle, by which the water is drawn up, and the visitor may drink from a chained cup. Candles on a tray were let down by the windlass and lit up the well down to the water, which seems, indeed, to well up like a spring. Formerly the well was partly filled with debris, it is now perfectly clean, and the water is most excellent. While one might prefer a restoration of the well to the condition that prevailed in Jesus’ time under the open sky with a few ancient jars as were then (and still are) used, the well is now at least clean and neatly kept. The village, now a few houses, supposed to be Sychar, was pointed out on the hillside. Standing outside of the chapel, it was easy to conceive the scene, with Jesus resting at the well, and “this mountain” (v. 20), Gerizim, rising high not far away.

Jesus, therefore, having been wearied from his journey, was sitting thus at the spring. Jesus is introduced to us at this point of his journey. The perfect participle “having been wearied,” i.e., and now in this condition, draws a vivid picture. So also does the durative imperfect “he was sitting,” which bids us linger with the sitting figure. The adverb “thus” cannot intend to repeat the participle “having been wearied,” for which repetition no reason appears, which also would require that οὕτως be placed before not after the verb. “Thus” = as he was, without any further preparation. Just as he came, so he sat down.

The entire sketch, also this adverb, shows that the writer was an eyewitness. Here, as elsewhere in John’s Gospel, the true human nature of Jesus is brought to our attention just as vividly and just as forcibly as in other places his true divine nature is emphasized. It is a mistake to think that John writes only of the latter. This man, tired, dusty, hot from his long walk as the sun rose higher and higher, and thirsty, this is God’s own Son, the Only-begotten, from whom in such humility his divine glory shone forth. The evangelist even names the hour: It was about the sixth hour, near noon according to Jewish reckoning; see the question at issue in John’s reference to the hours of the day, 1:39. By naming the hour the evangelist indicates how deeply his soul was impressed by what began here in Samaria at this notable hour.

John 4:7

7 The lone figure by the well is joined by another. A brief sentence tells all we need to know: There comes a women of Samaria to draw water, and ἐκΣαμαρίσς must be the same as Σαμαρεῑτις in v. 9, designating her as being from “Samaria,” the country, not from the city by this name (called Sebaste). How came this woman to draw water at this hour? While we are not told and cannot make a positive statement, a conjecture such as, having worked in the fields and passing near the well, she desired to refresh herself, is a mere guess. We must not forget that she brought a waterpot, which indicates that she came from her home to obtain water. John’s mention of the hour of the day seems to refer particularly to this woman’s coming at such an hour.

She also comes alone, no other women are with her, whereas oriental women like to go in companies to draw water for their homes. Piecing these observations together and joining them to what is revealed of this woman’s character, we may take it that she was a social outcast. The other women would not tolerate this woman who now lived in open adultery after a checkered career with five husbands. The more must we marvel at the condescension of Jesus who stoops to ask a favor of such a woman, and this with a love that longs to save even her miserable soul.

She would never have spoken to this Jewish stranger. Jesus says to her, Give me to drink. Here the Fountain asks for water, and he who bids all that thirst to come to him himself asks to have his thirst quenched. The two aorists in the request indicate two simple acts. There is no need to allegorize, “Give me spiritual refreshment through thy conversion.” Whatever was in Jesus’ heart, his words mean just what they say: he asks this woman for a drink.

John 4:8

8 The evangelist is even at pains to show how a kind of necessity moved Jesus to asks this woman for a drink. For his disciples had gone away into the city in order to buy food. No one was there to serve Jesus, he was alone. In later times the traditions of the Jews forbade the buying and the eating of Samaritan food; this rule evidently was not in force at this time. The supposition that only some of the disciples had gone for food, that all were not needed for this, that at least John had remained behind who then heard and afterward related the ensuing conversation, cannot be entertained, for then Jesus would have asked a drink not only for himself, nor would John have written “the disciples,” without a qualifying word.

John 4:9

9 The Samaritan woman says to him, How dost thou, being a Jew, ask of me to drink, being a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Thus was the simple request of Jesus denied; nor do we read in the entire narrative that his thirst was quenched. We may assume that Jesus made his request after the woman had drawn the water not before. The aorist ἀντλῇσαιὕδωρ in v. 7, however, does not imply this, stating only the single act of drawing water. The situation itself makes it probable that she drew up the water, that then the strange conversation followed, and that finally, when the woman hastened away, in her excitement she forgot to take the filled vessel along.

The woman probably recognized the Jew in Jesus by his speech, no other mark being apparent, such as peculiar Jewish dress. The woman neither shows “a smart feminine caprice of national feeling,” nor are her words “intended to tantalize.” They are quite simple and self explanatory. She puts them in the form of a question simply because she is surprised. The request is altogether unexpected, and the reason why it is unexpected lies in the relation between Samaritan and Jew. She does not say that the Samaritan is against the Jew, which, of course, would also be true; but that the Jew is against the Samaritan—this because Jesus, the Jew, asks a favor of her, the Samaritan.

With his Gentile readers in mind, the evangelist inserts the remark that the Jews “have no dealings” with the Samaritans, οὑσυνχρῶνται, no ordinary social intercourse. Some codices omit this clause, the verb of which is, indeed, unusual in the New Testament. Yet it states a fact, and, aside from textual authority, this explanatory remark is exactly like others interspersed in John’s Gospel. After the return from the captivity in Babylon the Jews rightly denied any participation in the rebuilding of the Temple and in the public worship to the Samaritans, who were a mixture of former Israelites and of Gentiles, 2 Kings 17:24–41, and also had a mixed religion. Even after renouncing idolatry they acknowledged only the five books of Moses as the Word of God, Ezra 4:1, etc. Thus a bitter enmity existed between the Samaritans and the Jews, which continues to the present day.

The handful of Samaritans that exists today at Nablus, the old Shechem, about 175 persons, neither eat, drink, nor intermarry with the Jews, nor have anything to do with them except in the way of trade. The author met their high priest Isaac Ben Omrom and visited their little synagogue in 1925. They have a dearth of girls and are thus dying out. Since others refuse brides to the Samaritans, their own girls are betrothed shortly after birth; but they are gradually dying out. Suspicion of each other divides them, so that it required three men to unlock their synagogue with three separate keys to allow our party to enter and to inspect their scrolls of the Pentateuch, to which they ascribe a fantastic antiquity, one of which is said to be 3579 years old, written by a great-grandson of Aaron, a second of which is said to come from the era of the Maccabees, and a third is said to be 1000 years old.

John 4:10

10 Jesus answered and said to her (on the combination of the two verbs see 1:48), If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that says to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The absolute mastery of the reply is at once apparent. In the most effective manner Jesus uses the very refusal of this woman to make her the offer of the drink she so greatly needs. This offer contains a kindly rebuke for her ungracious refusal to extend so small a favor, coupled with the assurance of a far greater gift if she would ask of him. Modestly Jesus speaks of himself in the third person. His object is to reach this woman’s soul. Tired and thirsty as he is, his wants may wait if only he is able to supply hers.

“If thou knewest”—sad, deadly ignorance! Yet this is the voice of heavenly pity. So he spoke with tears concerning Jerusalem: “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thy eyes,” Luke 19:41, etc. The two cases, however, are not parallel, for Jerusalem rejected the knowledge so long and so lovingly offered to her, while this woman was now for the first time receiving the offer of this knowledge. “The gift of God,” τὴνδωρεὰντοῦΘεοῦ = “living water.” The genitive reveals the greatness and the blessedness of the gift: it flows from God. Yet Jesus connects it with himself as the agent and the channel through which this gift is bestowed, “and who it is that says to thee, Give me to drink.” This can be no ordinary person, such as the woman had known before, not even some holy priest or teacher in Samaria or in Jerusalem. For he who is so significantly designated, “he would have given thee living water,” i.e., this very gift of God.

Jesus does not directly say who he is; he only indicates that he may be the one by the reference to his request for a drink. The woman could conclude, as she also did, that Jesus was a great prophet, a man sent by God to be a human mediator in the bestowal of this gift of God. But the words of Jesus, purposely left indefinite at this stage of the conversation, may also imply—and actually did imply—that Jesus himself is the author and giver of this gift of living water, i.e., that he himself is God. The light is veiled; the woman is led gradually to see it.

The conditional sentence is of the mixed type. The protasis εἰἤδεις, “if thou knewest,” is present unreality, While the apodosis σὺἂνἤτησαςκαὶἔδωκενἄν, “thou wouldst have asked and he would have given,” is past unreality. “If thou knewest”—but thou dost not know! “Thou wouldst have asked”—thou didst not ask. “He would have given”—but, alas, he could not give. And yet Jesus continues the offer. “Living water,” ὕδωρζῶν, is an allegorical expression, a large number of which occur in the Scriptures. The illustration (here “water”) and the reality (here “life” in the word “living”) are combined, but always in such a way that the expression is self-interpretative. See Trench, Parables, 9, where this type of Biblical allegory is well elucidated. Unless we understand the little secret of this much-used form of figure, we shall go astray, as many have gone when interpreting “living water,” saying that it means “grace and truth,” “faith,” gratia renovationis, “the Word,” “the Spirit of the new life,” or “the Holy Ghost,” whereas “living water” means no more than “life,” spiritual life, the life regarding which Jesus told Nicodemus that it comes by the new birth.

The figure of water, which connotes drinking, intends to show that this life is a vital necessity for us and yet that it may be received so easily. But even as Jesus, physically thirsty and in need of water, remained so although Jacob’s well had plenty of water, as long as no one drew and gave him of that water: so this woman, dead in sin and in need of life, would remain so although Jesus, the very fountain of life, sat there before her, as long as she would not desire, ask, and accept this life when Jesus, unlike herself with regard to the common water, unasked offered this heavenly lifewater to her.

John 4:11

11 The woman says to him: Sir, thou both hast not a drawing vessel, and the well is deep. Whence, then, hast thou the living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and himself drank of it and his sons and his cattle? Involuntarily the respectful address κύριε, “lord,” “sir,” comes to the woman’s lips. Those who think that her words have an ironical tinge are no doubt mistaken. This woman’s question is like that asked by Nicodemus in 3:4.

Told that he must be born anew, by his question about again entering his mother’s womb, he really says to Jesus, “I know you cannot mean that.” This woman, told that she should have and ask for living water, by her reference to Jesus’ lack of a vessel, the depth of the well, and the appended question, really means to say, “I know you cannot mean this water.” The woman is sensible, her words are true. Neither Nicodemus nor this woman are so dense that they do not perceive that Jesus is speaking of something that is above the physical. And Jesus is not so bungling in his language that neither Nicodemus nor this woman are unable to see that he is speaking of something that is higher than the natural. Both state that they understand this, he with his “how” question, she with her “whence” question. Both questions are like a premise with an evident conclusion: “Thou canst not mean the natural; the merely physical; ergo, thou must mean something higher.” And both are right—that is what Jesus means. But here: What kind of water can this be that Jesus means? and whence can he obtain this strange water?

In the woman’s question the emphasis is not only on “whence” but equally on the final participle τὸὕδωρτὺζῶν (R. 777), for this reason it is added with a second Greek article, “Whence … the water that is living?” In οὕτε (οὑ + τέ, the negative plus the copulative conjunction, R. 1189), followed by καί, we simply have τέ … καί, “both … and,” with the first member negated, R. 1179. Also ἄντλημα, “a drawing vessel,” corresponds to ἀντλῆσαι, “to draw,” in v. 7.

John 4:12

12 At once the quick mind of this woman leaps to a second conclusion, and again a correct one, although the mere suggestion fills her with surprise and even incredulity. If Jesus means other water than this in Jacob’s well, better water than this, why, that is really saying that he is greater than Jacob who dug this well and left it for his descendants, yea, was himself satisfied with the water of this well. The surprise and the incredulity come out in the interrogative particle μή, which in the woman’s thought involves a negative answer, “Certainly thou canst not mean to say that thou art greater than Jacob?” Hence also she dwells on what Jacob did, calling him “our father” who gave us the well and who with his sons and his cattle never sought other, better water (ἔπιεν, the aorist to express the undeniable fact).

Through Joseph the Samaritans claimed descent from Jacob. Hence John’s note in v. 5 on the tomb of Joseph near by and the woman’s proud “our father Jacob.” The point has been disputed, but compare 2 Kings 17:24 with 2 Chron. 34:6 and 9—in Josiah’s time not a few Israelites remained in devastated Samaria, so that the Samaritans became a mixed race, Israelitish and heathen elements being mingled, so that they were able in a way at least to point to Jacob as “our father.” Josephus Ant. 11, 8, 7, reports that the Jewish element was increased by renegade Jews, who, on violating the laws and traditions of their own land, fled to Samaria. As the woman’s eyes rested on the tired, thirsty, dusty traveller, it seemed incredible to her that he should be greater than the ancient patriarch.

The reasoning of this woman is typical and therefore very interesting. Her conclusions are altogether sound and yet they remain false. The good feature about them is that she, like Nicodemus, puts them into an interrogative form, thus holding her mind open and even asking for more instruction. This effect is produced entirely by Jesus. Both the woman’s conclusions and her questioning are her reactions to Jesus’ own words. Both also are intended by Jesus. The woman did not laugh at Jesus and call his words absurd, did not turn away and walk off with her water-pot. She thought, considered, drew conclusions, asked in surprise. Step by step Jesus enlightened her. Her conclusions were still false, because she still knew too little. Her spiritual darkness rapidly disappeared as Jesus spoke.

John 4:13

13 Jesus answered and said to her (compare on 1:48), Everyone that drinks of this water shall thirst again; but whoever shall drink of the water that I myself shall give him shall in no way thirst forever; on the contrary, the water that I myself shall give him, shall become in him a spring of water welling up unto life eternal. This reply of Jesus answers both questions in the mind of the woman and answers them squarely, adequately, first regarding the kind of water he has in mind, secondly regarding the person he is. This water is spiritual not material; heavenly not earthly; permanent not transient. And thus it helps to reveal who this ἐγώ, this great Giver of such water, really is.

The proposition is self-evident, “Everyone that drinks of this water shall thirst again.” No material water exists that allays thirst forever. While Jesus’ word refers only to the material water in Jacob’s well, the inference lies close at hand that nothing material is able to quench the thirst of the soul permanently, and this is implied by the contrast which deals with the spiritual water that Jesus gives. Some, indeed, succeed in stilling their thirst but they do it in a lamentable way. In the parable of the Prodigal a citizen of that far country had gathered himself a herd of swine—significant wealth!—and was satisfied. In the parable of the Rich Fool a man was satisfied with his grain fields. These men satisfied their thirst by stifling it.

Germany’s greatest poet Goethe, a favorite of fortune, confesses that he was seldom happy. Augustine is right, the soul, created for God, will not rest until it rests in God.

John 4:14

14 The corresponding opposite is just as true and self-evident, “But whosoever shall drink of the water that I myself shall give him shall in no way thirst forever.” Jesus accepts the challenge of every man, no matter who he may be and what he may have to offer. And the test shall be only this: the true and permanent quenching of the thirst of the heart. But not in theory, not in argument; on the contrary, in actuality, in actual experience, “whosoever shall drink”—actually “shall drink,” “shall in no way thirst forever”—actually never thirst. The indefinite relative clause: ὃςἂνπίῃ is like a condition of expectancy and is thus followed (regularly) by the future indicative: οὑμὴδιψήσει. The implication is that some will so drink and will then never thirst again. The aorist subjunctive πίη expresses one act of drinking, which is never repeated. Note οὑμὴ as the strongest negation with the future indicative (also with the subjunctive).

Jesus retains the figure throughout. As the water is life, so the drinking is faith, i.e., its inception. The interpretation that the drinking is the continued use of the Word and the Sacraments goes beyond the words of Jesus when he says that one act of drinking removes the thirst forever. To bring in prayer and intercourse with God’s children is irrelevant. No prayer of ours and no association with Christians have life in them to bestow on us. Christ alone has and bestows that life.

The thought must here be ruled out, that, once we have life, we must feed, nourish, replenish it by Word and Sacrament. While this is true, Jesus here speaks only of the bestowal of life, which, the moment we obtain it, becomes a permanent possession. He does bring the dead to life day after day. Once made alive, we live on. Once born anew (Nicodemus), we need not be born again. Twice, for emphasis, Jesus says, “which I myself shall give him.” The pronoun ἐγώ is strongly emphatic, which we attempt to convey by translating, “I myself” He, and he alone, gives this wonderful water.

In the first clause the relative οὗ is attracted from the accusative to the case of its antecedent ὕδατος. The use of ἐκ is partitive, R. 599, with a verb that requires the partitive idea, R. 519: drink “of,” i.e., “some of” the water.

The wonder of this water’s quenching thirst εἰςτὸναἰῶνα, “for the eon,” the Greek idiom “forever,” is explained in a simple fashion, but the wonder is thereby only increased, “on the contrary, the water that I myself shall give him, shall become in him a spring of water,” etc. This repetition, “that I myself shall give him,” involuntarily raises the question, “And who art thou to give such water?” It is the question Jesus wants to raise, the question that must be rightly answered, or we shall after all thirst forever. Whoever heard of a gift of a drink which, on being drunk, forms a living spring within the person, so that he never needs to drink again! It is wholly obvious that Jesus is not speaking of physical but of spiritual realities. All the terms he has used are lucid: “living,” “gift of God,” “water that I shall give,” “drink,” “never thirst.” Even natural life, once started, lives on; more so spiritual life, which is to have no termination whatever. The fact that it may be lost by unbelief is not mentioned here, where the first fundamentals alone are in place.

Jesus uses πηγή, “a spring”; φρέαρ, a shaft or cistern that merely holds water and may also be empty and without water, would be the wrong word, see v. 12. Of this “spring” Jesus says, “a spring of water welling up unto life eternal.” We must leave the words in their natural order and combination and not make “unto life eternal” a modifier of “shall become” or even of “spring” or of “water”; it modifies “welling up,” ἁλλομένου, a middle participle, whose voice puzzles R. 812 but it surely means “bubbling up of itself.” But “unto life eternal” does not refer to time—continuing that long or that far. Nor should we bring in the idea of a little stream, which starts from the spring, flows on, and finally empties into life eternal. Jesus uses no such figurative expansion when he says “welling up of itself unto life eternal.” This wonderful spring here differs from the figure employed in 7:37, etc. Here it denotes life, in the other connection the drink denotes the Holy Spirit. The spring or life remains within the person; the gift of the Spirit does more, it also flows out from the person.

Thus “welling up of itself unto life eternal” = keeping the person spiritually alive for the eternal life of heaven. Thus also in the final concept “life eternal” all that Jesus says about this “living” water is fully clarified.

John 4:15

15 The woman says to him, Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst nor come all the way hither to draw. John writes πρὸςαὑτόν, whereas after the verbs of saying he has had only the dative because of the reciprocal idea in πρός. The woman is responding to what she felt was an offer and invitation on Jesus’ part, she is reciprocating by accepting. She thus shows that she understands Jesus far better than those commentators, who regard the future tense δώσω in the two relative clauses in v. 14 as not to be fulfilled until Jesus gets ready to baptize with the Spirit. This woman rightly understands that Jesus means “I will give” with reference to a giving at any time where he finds acceptance. As far as the Spirit is concerned, Jesus has not mentioned him in the conversation with this woman as he did in that with Nicodemus.

Yet no sinner receives life, no sinner obtains faith except through the Spirit. The Spirit was bestowed through Jesus now. This woman and many in her village came to faith and confessed their Savior, v. 42, and no one can do either except by the Holy Spirit, 1 Cor. 12:3.

The entire conversation on Jesus’ part is misunderstood when it is not observed that up to this point Jesus is using the gospel and that from now on he employs the law. This means that Jesus knew that the woman could not yet believe and he did not expect her to believe so soon. The law must first crush the heart in contrition, then faith can enter in, and not till then. So both law and gospel must be preached, and Jesus preaches both; the two appear here most plainly marked. Either may be offered first, or both may be intertwined, though each always remains distinct, likewise the proper effects of each. Here Jesus uses the gospel first.

It is a mistake to imagine that in doing this he failed and then tried something else. Not one word of the gospel was lost upon this woman; its effect presently comes with a rush when the law begins to take hold upon her heart and to show her her sins and her tremendous need of the gospel.

The misconceptions indicated prevent a right understanding also of the woman’s replies to Jesus, both up to this point and in the remainder of the conversation. The comment is wrong that Jesus has been offering her “theoretical considerations,” which the woman “evaded by trifling replies.” Jesus gave her pure gospel, to which the woman replied with surprise, indeed, but respectfully, seriously, with real effort to understand. That, too, was all that Jesus wanted and expected. She was not yet competent to grasp and to appropriate. When the woman now actually asks Jesus for “this water,” this request of hers is the response to Jesus’ offer. When after all she still clings to the thought of some wonderful natural water, which stops natural thirst permanently and obviates coming all the way (διέρχωμαι) from her home to this well for a supply, she only shows what is inevitable in all who are strangers to the life of God, namely her inability to rise from the natural to the spiritual.

Jesus does not rebuke her. Nicodemus he had to rebuke (3:10) when he began to cling to unbelief; this woman with her response of readiness is in advance of the learned “teacher of Israel.”

John 4:16

16 In the case of this woman Jesus has gone as far as he could with the gospel. He has laid the foundation and has laid it well. He now suddenly turns to the law. Jesus says to her, Go call thy husband and come hither. The imperative ὕπαγε is used with a second imperative without adding καί, much as we say: “go call,” etc. This thrust of Jesus’ is direct and goes home.

Jesus bids this woman to do what he knows she cannot do. Such biddings are like the Ten Commandments; like the command to the lawyer, “This do and thou shalt live!” Luke 10:28; and like that to the rich young ruler, “Sell all!” Luke 18:22. Biddings and commands like these are intended to reveal to the person concerned this very inability and the sin and guilt connected therewith. The divine law demands perfect love and by that very demand shows us, who lack this love, that we are full of sin. The lawyer, ordered to do the commands he recites, by that order is to discover that he cannot do them and must seek a different way to heaven. The rich young ruler, bidden to sell all and to give it away, finds that here lay his guilt in an outwardly moral life—he loved his possessions with an unholy love.

This woman, who cannot go and call and bring her husband to Jesus, by that very fact is to see just what kind of a woman she is, what a wretched, sordid, immoral life she had led.

Yet some have thought that Jesus actually regarded this woman as one that was properly married and that he desired the presence of her husband. The fact that in the next breath Jesus reveals the woman’s whole past life is explained by supposing that suddenly between v. 16 and v. 17 God revealed these facts to Jesus. Thus in v. 16 Jesus speaks in ignorance and in v. 17, 18 with knowledge. But 1:42 and 48, etc., plus 2:24, 25, declare that Jesus himself saw, himself knew what was in men. He is not made dependent on special revelations for this knowledge as were the prophets. To say that, unless Jesus thought the woman had a husband and could call him, he would be uttering “fiction” in his command; and that when the woman was thus bidden to go, she would have taken this chance to disappear and never to return, is to misjudge both the woman and Jesus.

The fear that precipitates this judgment is the fact that certain critics charge that John’s Gospel makes Jesus walk like a God on earth equipped with omniscience. But to get rid of one exaggeration we must not employ another. The Gospels and the entire Bible make Jesus God incarnate, possessing also in his human nature the divine attributes but using them only at proper times and in properly executing his office. What is Matt. 25, etc., but omniscience? yet in his human nature the Son of man does not know the time of the end, Matt. 24:36; Acts 1:7. The ancient allegorizing of the five husbands of this woman and of the man she now lived with, and the attempt to revive these fancies, needs no refutation.

John 4:17

17 The woman answered and said unto him, the doubling of the verbs marking the great importance of her reply, I have no husband. Jesus’ bidding her to call her husband is really a call to confess her sins, to confess them voluntarily. For in saying “go call” Jesus, indeed, gives her the opportunity to pretend that she has a husband and that she now goes to call him, thus avoiding confession, and thus also getting away from Jesus altogether. When the bidding of Jesus to this woman is contemplated from this viewpoint, the perfect mastery of it comes to view. The woman makes no move to go—she is not trying to get away. She does not lie by pretending that she has a husband, since Jesus mentions “husband.” She stands there before this strange Jew and confesses her shame, “I have no husband.” Those few words cost the woman something.

Cold comment says that she is half lying and does not understand what it takes for a woman to reveal, even partly, her disgrace. Why fault the woman for confessing only so much? Her quick mind surely tells her that Jesus may probe farther, but this does not seal her lips, does not make her evade, does not rouse her temper, does not make her say, “What business are my private matters to thee?” No, she confesses. The fact that she does this before this stranger is the effect of what he has been saying to her. The gospel aids the law, as the gospel is also aided by the law. It helps the sinner by making him ready to confess.

To Jesus, whose lips are filled with the gospel, the sinner finds he can confess.

Jesus says to her: Well didst thou say, A husband I have not. For five husbands thou didst have and whom thou now hast is not thy husband. This, a true thing, thou hast said. Jesus accepts, Jesus commends, Jesus completes her confession. We now see why by doubling the verbs of saying when giving the woman’s reply John marks it as being of great importance. The commendation lies in καλῶς and in ὀληθές. “A husband” I have not, places the object forward with emphasis, bringing out the full contrast that the man whom she now has is not her husband; on ἔχειντινά to express illegal relations compare 1 Cor. 5:1.

Instead of wringing the rest of the confession from the woman, Jesus makes it for her. It is a touch of his gentleness with the sinner. So the father of the prodigal stops him in the middle of his confession—the same gentleness in a different way. How the woman came to have that many husbands we are not told and need not be told. These five were at least legal husbands, for only so can the words be understood. The lax divorce laws may help to explain, Matt. 5:31; 19:7; compare Deut. 24:1 and 3, which the Jews greatly extended, and very likely the Samaritans also.

Those five were bad enough, but now she is living with a man who is not even in loose legality her husband.

It is wrong to imagine the woman as brazen and shameless in her confession. The sin had touched her conscience more than once, but she had hushed the disturbing inner voice. Now Jesus was making it speak again. The notion that Jesus at this moment received a revelation from God regarding this woman’s life has already been answered. To read irony into Jesus’ words when he says, “Well didst thou say,” and, “This, as a true thing, hast thou said,” makes Jesus receive a poor sinner’s confession with irony—a thing impossible for Jesus. We must not overlook the fact that by her silence or non-denial the woman acquiesces in the confession that Jesus makes for her. Plainly Jesus is succeeding and succeeding rapidly.

John 4:19

19 The woman says to him, I see thou art a prophet. By that statement she admits that Jesus has spoken the truth about her life. Thus she really completes her confession. Nor does she qualify, excuse, or minimize. But involuntarily she also makes a confession regarding Jesus. She admits that only in a supernatural way could he know her past life; compare v. 29. The fact that she calls him only “a prophet” is natural at this stage. It never, however, entered her head that in some ordinary way this strange Jew had discovered the things he said. This was done by men of a later age, who eliminate from this Gospel every divine trait in Jesus.

What now follows has again been misunderstood. In fact, the previous wrong conceptions culminate at this point and create confusion. Thus it is said that a gap occurs at this point, and that John skipped what lies between. Again, that the woman with quick wit here turns the conversation away from these delicate and painful personal matters to a question that Jews and Samaritans argued; that she makes a tricky dialectical evasion. But then Jesus would never have answered as he did, carefully and to the point, the very question the woman raises. He would have rebuked her and have driven in more deeply the hook of the law she would thus be evading.

Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where they must worship. The woman really asks Jesus, who are right, her ancestors or the Jews (emphatic ὑμεῖς). This she does in connection with her unqualified admission of sin and guilt. The matter is of the gravest personal concern to her for this reason and for this alone. She admits that she needs cleansing. Where is she to obtain it?

Where her people say, “in this mountain,” Gerizim, looming up not far from the well; or where the Jews say, in the Temple at Jerusalem? Will not Jesus send her to the latter place, to bring her sin offering and to obtain the absolution? Zerubbabel had refused the Samaritans permission to join in building the Temple at Jerusalem, and Nehemiah had driven out a son of Joiada who had married a daughter of Sanballat (a Moabite of Horonaim and a constant opponent of Nehemiah), Neh. 13:28. This man with others instituted the worship on Gerizim in Samaria, built a temple there, and established the high priesthood. This temple was destroyed 129 B. C. and was not rebuilt, yet the worship continued and still does at the Passover when seven lambs are offered for the congregation, at Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Tabernacles.

John 4:21

21 Jesus answers at length. Believe me, woman, that the hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem you shall worship the Father. She had just called Jesus a prophet. “Believe me, woman,” links into that confession, for a prophet’s words surely require belief. This call to believe him also ushers in another astounding statement, that at first might seem incredible, namely that a time (ὥρα in the wider sense) is not far away when the Samaritans shall worship neither in Gerizim nor in Jerusalem. This prophecy, in the sense of foretelling the future, is thus another evidence of divine omniscience used for Jesus’ saving purpose. The fact that this Jewish prophet should declare that the Temple worship in Jerusalem was to be temporary, was even soon to cease, must have astonished this Samaritan woman greatly; that he should say as much regarding Gerizim naturally surprised her less. “You shall worship” must refer to the Samaritans and should not be generalized to refer to anybody or to men in general.

The point in Jesus’ words is that the specific place of the worship is a secondary question, whereas the true worship itself is the essential. Only for the time being the place still has importance, then it will disappear. And it did. Yet strangely enough, Gerizim is still sacred to the handful of Samaritans in existence today, who still worship there; while all these centuries the site of the Temple in Jerusalem has been in pagan and in Mohammedan possession, and the Jews have been completely debarred from worshipping there. The Mohammedan “Dome of the Rock” has long occupied the site of the old Jewish Temple. Again, the Samaritans soon dwindled to a tiny number, the Jews multiplied and spread over the world.

Such are the ways of God.

A sweet gospel touch lies in the expression, “you shall worship the Father.” It opens the door also to the Samaritans so that they may become the children of this Father by faith in the Son. The word “Father” here means so much more, also to this woman, than the word “God” could mean. Jesus keeps the verb προσκυνεῖν, literally “to touch with kisses,” but used regarding the oriental prostration in worship and adoration of God.

John 4:22

22 Yet while both Gerizim and Jerusalem shall pass away as places for worship, they are not on an equal basis. You are worshipping what you do not know, we are worshipping what we do know; because the salvation is from the Jews; ἐκ to indicate origin or derivation. The personal pronouns “you” and “we” intensify the contrast that lies in “do not know” and “do know.” With προσκυνεῖν we may have the dative of the personal object of the worship or the accusative of the impersonal as in the present instance. Jesus says, “what you do not know,” and, “what we do know,” for no revelation was given to Gerizim, all revelation was limited to the Jews and to Jerusalem. The facts always count, the facts alone, and not what men think or think they know. R. 713 makes the neuter ὅ refer to God, a grammatical impossibility.

And this difference between Gerizim and Jerusalem is not a mere theological dispute, it is a vital soul issue; for God’s revelation contains ἡσωτηρία, compare on the term 3:17. Though in the Greek abstract nouns may have the article as a matter of course, here “the salvation” denotes the specific and only salvation contemplated in God’s promises and to be realized in his incarnate Son. This salvation is in no way promised to the Samaritans, so that it would emanate from their midst, but to the Jews alone. The Messiah could not be a Samaritan, he had to be a Jew. While the Pentateuch might have made the Samaritans “know” this, they, by rejecting all the other books of the Old Testament containing so much more of the Messianic revelation and by thus running into a blind opposition to the Jews, lost this most precious knowledge. What Jesus thus tells this woman answers the question about the place, and in the most effective way, namely by explaining and by holding up to view what is essential.

John 4:23

23 Yet, significantly, Jesus neither says nor implies, “Thou must go to Jerusalem,” He does not even say, “The salvation is of Jerusalem.” Yet we should misread his words if we should take him to mean, “Gerizim and Jerusalem make no difference—just so you worship God aright.” For since “the salvation is of the Jews” not “of the Samaritans,” Gerizim is plainly ruled out. The fact that the alternative, however, for this woman is not “Jerusalem” is now made plain by further elucidation. Yea, the hour is coming and now is, when the genuine worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father also seeks such as worship him. Here ἀλλά is not contradictory (“but”); it is copulative and climacteric (“yea”), R. 1186. It reaches across the parenthetic thought in v. 22 to the chief thought in v. 21. This appears also in the repetition of “the hour is coming.” Both times this present tense “is coming” states that the approach is still in progress and not yet complete.

And yet Jesus can add, “and now is,” without contradicting himself. His redemptive work is not done but is only definitely undertaken (“the hour is coming”); but he himself is here, the Redeemer and Savior (“and now is”). Thus all that the Temple and the ceremonial cultus at Jerusalem had served so long was passing away, was in a sense already gone—would forever be done with on Easter morning. We must note that Jesus treated the Temple and its cultus accordingly. He brings no sacrifices like an ordinary Jew, we do not hear that he joins in the prayer ritual. He uses the Temple, the festivals, the worshippers congregating there, for his own high purpose.

As the Son he uses “my Father’s house” for the last use it should serve. The rent veil in the Temple was “the sign” that both the Father and the Son were done with the Temple.

Thus Jesus does not compel this woman to go to Jerusalem. Instead he explains to her the true worship which abides when the Jewish ritualism presently disappears altogether because it is no longer needed. The “genuine” worshippers, ἀληθινοί, are those who alone really deserve the name in distinction from all who observe only the Jewish ritual practices. They worship “the Father” as his genuine children in a way that corresponds to their character. Here again Jesus uses the significant designation “the Father,” which connotes, first of all, that Jesus is this Father’s Son, sent to work out the promised salvation, and, secondly, connotes that all genuine worshippers are the children of this Father by faith in his Son, by accepting the salvation wrought and brought by this Son.

They shall worship the Father “in spirit and truth.” One preposition joins the two nouns and thus makes of the two one idea. But not in the superficial sense that genuine worshippers shall worship in a genuine way; for they would not be such if they used a different way. Jesus here describes what the genuine way is. It centers in the worshipper’s own “spirit” and spirit nature (Rom. 1:9), moved, of course, by God’s Spirit (Rom. 8:14, 16, 26). We should say, all true worship is one of the soul. But this is not enough, for many put their very souls into their worship and yet are only false, self-deceived worshippers.

Hence the addition: in spirit “and truth.” The fact that this means more than “truly,” i.e., sincerely, with subjective truth, should be obvious at a glance. The essential subjective feature of genuine worship is fully covered by “in spirit.” To this the objective counterpart must be added, which evidently is ἀλήθεια, “truth,” in the sense of reality. So many labor over this term. They fear that if “truth” is here regarded as God’s revealed truth, the reality embodied in the Word, the single phrase would become two: “in spirit” and “in truth”; i.e., that then the preposition ought to be repeated. So “truth” is made to mean: “in genuine contact with God”; or “so that the worship tallies with its object, corresponds with the essence and the attributes of God, and does not contradict them.” Fortunately, Jesus is speaking to a plain woman, and “truth” to her means truth. Moreover, if a genuine contact is to be made with the Father, if the genuine object of the worship is to be reached, does this not mean that these two: the worshipper’s own “spirit” and God’s own revealed “truth” joined together (καί) must form the sphere (ἐν) in which this worship takes place?

All that forsakes this sphere is spurious worship. Omit the spirit, and though you have the truth, the worship becomes formalism, mere ritual observance. Omit the truth, and though the whole soul is thrown into the worship, it becomes an abomination. Thus “spirit and truth” form a unit, two halves that belong together in every act of worship.

This was the case in the Old Testament Judaism, where by God’s own institution ceremonies had to be observed. From Moses onward prophets and psalmists insisted, though the people often failed to heed, that the worship must be “in spirit and truth.” Jesus does not here condemn this old worship on account of its connection with ceremonies. What he does is to foretell that these ceremonies are on the verge of ceasing altogether. Likewise our present worship. We assemble in churches, and the service follows a certain outward order, now a hymn, now a prayer, now the sermon, etc., though we ourselves now arrange all this. This Jesus does not here condemn.

What he does is to state that not in any outward forms but “in spirit and truth” the real worship is rendered. For the woman this means that she need not wait, need not go to the Temple, need not offer a sacrifice, but can right here and now perform the very highest act of worship, namely accept the Father’s pardon for her sins and return to him her spirit’s gratitude.

To assure the woman fully Jesus adds, “for the Father also seeks such as worship him.” “For” explains that “of such a kind” are the worshippers that God desires. He seeks them, not as though they have already become such by efforts of their own, but as longing to make them such by his Word and his Spirit. He was now doing this with this sinful woman. The seeking is the outcome of his love. The position of καί connects it with the subject: “the Father also,” not with the verb: “also seeks.” The participle is made attributive by the article: “such as worship,” i.e., such worshippers; and προσκυνεῖν here has first a dative then an accusative personal object.

John 4:24

24 Why God seeks only such worshippers is answered by pointing to his nature: For God is spirit; and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth. The predicate “spirit” is placed forward for emphasis. While one might translate “A spirit is God,” this makes the predicate sound too much like a classification of God who is “spirit” from all eternity and uncreated, while all other, namely created spirits, have a beginning. “Spirit” does not here classify; it only states God’s nature. Jesus makes no new revelation concerning God; he only recalls to the woman what she has long known regarding God. And he does this only to show her what accordingly all genuine worship of God must be, namely worship “in spirit and truth.” This deduction is not new. For δεῖ, “must,” is not meant regarding a new precept, a new commandment, or worship. This “must” expresses far more, namely a necessity that is due to God’s own nature and that has always held and always will hold true.

While the fact that God is spirit is not stated in so many words in the Old Testament, all that the Old Testament reveals regarding God is to this effect. Neither Jew nor Samaritan would controvert the statement for one moment. The prohibitions to make images of God, the comparisons of God with idols (for instance Isa. 40:13–26), Solomon’s reminder that he whom “the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain” does not dwell in a house, and many other statements show how fully God’s nature was understood. Even the naive anthropomorphic and anthropopathic utterances are made and can be made with such naivete only on the absolute certainty of God’s infinite spirit nature. To urge these human expressions against this certainty is to hurl a pebble at a mountain, thinking thereby to knock it over. Accordingly, also the Old Testament is full of genuine worship, of its descriptions, and of injunctions so to worship and so alone.

Consider the Psalms, the prayers, Daniel for instance, the many warnings that sacrifices, gifts, lip-prayers, observing festival days, etc., without a broken, contrite, believing heart are in vain. Thus the genuine worship was known well enough. The new feature which Jesus presents is that from now on this worship is enough, i.e., that the ceremonies, restrictions of time and of place, are even now to fall away. In this sense the worship will, indeed, be new.

John 4:25

25 The impression Jesus makes upon the woman is that she automatically thinks of the Messiah. We are reminded of Nathanael in 1:49, save that this woman does not go that far. Yet Messiah-ward her thoughts turn like the flower to the sun. The woman says to him, I know that Messiah is coming (who is called Christ); when that one shall come, he will announce to us all things. It is no doubt wrong to think that by this response the woman seeks to end the conversation. Then Jesus would not have replied as he did.

What ideas the Samaritans held concerning the Messiah has been investigated at great pains but with small results. Their name for him was Taheb, probably meaning “the Restorer.” He was to be both a great prophet and a wonderful king, although the strong political feature of the Jews seems to be absent from the Samaritan conception. In many respects the Samaritan ideas of the Messiah coincide with those of the Jews. The woman uses the Jewish name “Messiah” not the Samaritan “Taheb.” Was it because she was speaking to a Jew? That the Samaritans used also the Jewish title has not yet been established. We know why John preserves the title the woman actually used, himself in a parenthesis translating it for his Gentile readers, as in 1:41: It is because Jesus testifies to this woman that he is the Messiah.

The thought that perhaps Jesus is the Messiah has not struck the woman, although she is not far from it. Perhaps she expected Jesus to state how all that he had said about God, salvation, and true worship was related to the hope of the Messiah. When she says that Messiah (without the article, as if it were a proper name) “shall announce to us all things,” she voices one of the great expectations concerning the Messiah but she does more; for this thought comes to her because of the great things she has just heard from Jesus’ lips. We see how Jesus’ person and his words had affected this very ordinary woman who was not even a Jewess. The learned, self-righteous, exceedingly prominent Pharisee Nicodemus in the capital and this unlearned, sin-laden, ordinary unnamed woman in the country district of despised Samaria are companions. Opposites in all respects, yet both are drawn mightily by Jesus. The woman gained the goal far more quickly than did the man.

John 4:26

26 Jesus says to her, I am he, (I) who is speaking to thee. As Jesus helped the woman with her confession of sin in v. 17, 18, so he now helps her with her confession of faith (compare v. 29). To this obscure woman Jesus reveals point-blank what he had revealed to no one else. One surprise has followed another for this woman, but the climax is now reached. Nor has Jesus misjudged the woman. She does not, indeed, sink down in worship at his feet but she is ready to believe. Ἐγώεἰμι is the good Greek idiom for, “I am he,” the English requiring that the place of the predicate be filled.

The substantivized participle ὁλαλῶνσοι, “the man speaking to thee,” is in apposition to ἐγώ, R. 778 and is not the equivalent of a relative clause, “I that speak unto thee” (our versions). Jesus adds the apposition because of what the woman has just said that the Messiah would do, namely announce all things. This, Jesus intimates to the woman, is just what he is doing for her right now—announcing to her the very things she needs. The person and the words are vitally joined together. They always are. And as we treat the one, so we treat the other.

Here then John has given us another great attestation of Jesus.

John 4:27

27 The record might close at this point just as that of Nicodemus does at 3:21; but Jesus both attests himself still further on this occasion (27–38) and also receives most notable attestation from the Samaritans (39–42). So the account continues. And upon this came his disciples. And they were marvelling that he was speaking with a woman; yet no one said, What seekest thou? or, Why speakest thou with her? The disciples returned from buying food (v. 8) and were not a little astonished to see their Master engaged in talking (ἐλάλει, durative, imperfect) with (μετά, with the idea of association) a woman. Jewish custom forbade that a rabbi should speak in public with a woman and most especially on matters of the law.

But the reverence of the disciples for Jesus is so great that they only keep wondering (ἐθαύμαζον also imperfect and thus durative), and no one brings that wonder to an end by actually inquiring. On μέντοι see R. 1188. The first question that John thinks of is specific, τίζητεῖς; namely, “What desirest thou of her?” which also was close to the truth, for Jesus had asked the woman for a drink and thus had started the conversation. Or, John suggests, the disciples might have asked in general why he was speaking with the woman. This, too, would have hit the truth, for it would have brought to light Jesus’ saving motive.

John 4:28

28 Accordingly the woman left her waterpot and went away into the city and says to the people, Come, see a man who told me all things that I (ever) did. Can it be that this is the Christ? The connective οὗν indicates that the woman quickly left at the approach of the disciples. She would have been bold, indeed, to face all these additional strangers. And yet God in his providence had so timed her arrival at the well that her conversation with Jesus could reach the supreme point before the arrival of the disciples. Quick-witted as she showed herself in her answers to Jesus, she now strangely forgets to take her filled waterpot along and in spite of her great reverence for Jesus forgets too all about his original request for a drink. These are exquisite psychological touches in John’s narrative, indicating how deeply the words of Jesus had gripped her heart, making her forget all else for the moment.

This historical present λέγει beside the two matter-of-fact aorists lends a vivid touch to the narrative. She hurries back and without hesitation stops and addresses the people (τοῖςἀνθρώποις), men and women whom she meets and who begin to congregate about her. The interjectional adverb δεῦτε, always with the plural, “hither,” in the sense of “come hither,” is sometimes joined to an imperative as here, or to a subjunctive, or is used independently. The woman is wise—these people are to come and to see for themselves, which recalls 1:39 and 46. She characterizes Jesus as “a man who told me all things that I (ever) did” with supernatural insight into her past life. “All things” is not an exaggeration when we note that these things cover her entire past life since her first marriage. With the aorist εἶπε she states the fact.

No doubt, she had to repeat just what Jesus “did tell” her in his exact words. And the people at once saw that this was astounding because coming from a Jewish stranger; the facts about the woman these people, her neighbors, knew only too well.

As wise as the woman is in calling on the people to come and to see for themselves, so wise, too, is she in indicating what they will find. She puts this into a question but with μήτι not with οὑ. The English has no such delicate distinctions, hence we must circumscribe, which is always bunglesome, “Can this perhaps be?” “Οὑ would have challenged the opposition of the neighbors by taking sides on the question whether Jesus was the Messiah. The woman does not mean to imply flatly, that Jesus is not the Messiah by using μήτι, but she raises the question and throws a cloud of uncertainty and curiosity over it with a woman’s keen instinct. In a word, μή is just the negative to use when one does not wish to be too positive. Μή leaves the question open for further remark or entreaty. Οὑ closes the door abruptly.” R. 1167. More briefly: οὑ heading a question = I think so, and you, too, must say so; μή = I do not think so, and you will agree; and then modified: I can hardly think so—yet it might be (so here μήτι)

John 4:30

30 The wrought-up condition of the woman and her astounding report had their effect. They went out of the city and were coming to him. The imperfect ἤρχοντο pictures them on the way and holds the outcome in abeyance. This is due to the fact that something transpires while they are on their way and must be told before their arrival is stated in v. 40, which then closes the open “were coming.”

John 4:31

31 So we learn: In the meanwhile the disciples were requesting him, saying, Rabbi, eat! Strange, indeed—Jesus asks for a drink and is refused (7–9); now he is asked to eat and he himself refuses. The verb ἠρώτων denotes a most respectful request and is thus the proper word; and its imperfect tense implies repeated urging on the part of the disciples and also that Jesus did not comply. The aorist φάγε, “eat,” is not “be eating,” which would require the present but, “eat and finish.” On “Rabbi” see 1:38. The request is full of respect and without familiarity. The disciples never addressed Jesus as “Brother,” though Jesus on notable occasions called them “my brethren,” Matt. 28:10; John 20:17; see also Rom. 8:29; Heb. 2:11.

John 4:32

32 But Jesus said to them, I have meat to eat that you do not know. Here we catch a remark able glimpse of how Jesus put his very soul into his work. Instead of doing it mechanically, in a business-like sort of way, with professional ease, he did it with all his heart. It so occupied him that all else for the time being was excluded. The exaltation of it prevented him from at once descending to lesser and lower things. It filled him with such joy and satisfaction that it acted like food and drink to his body, weariness, thirst, and hunger being forgotten. Not having been present when Jesus saved the woman’s soul, the disciples could not know the βρῶσις Jesus had enjoyed.

John 4:33

33 The disciples, therefore, were saying to each other, Surely, no one brought him (aught) to eat? The imperfect ἔλεγον indicates that the disciples said this repeatedly; they could think of no other solution. The aorists ἤνεγκεν and φαγεῖν speak of actual bringing and eating. The μή in μήτις (compare μήτι in v. 29) indicates that for the disciples the only answer must be “no.” Some have chided the disciples for their lack of spirituality and deeper understanding. They would be more severe than Jesus himself who did no chiding, who admitted that the disciples did not know what food he had had, who quietly went on to explain. The disciples had left Jesus thirsty and hungry and now found him refreshed and declining to eat.

Someone had been there in their absence and had just left. How could they help but ask whether this person had perhaps brought Jesus something to eat? Yet they do not ask him, they question quietly among themselves. They are respectfully reticent as in v. 28 not bold to pry and to quiz.

John 4:34

34 Jesus says to them, My food is that I do the will of him that did send me and that I finish his work. Both βρῶσις in v. 32 and βρῶμα here are derivations from βιβρώσκω, the former denoting more the act of eating combined with the food, like the German das Essen, the latter the food only, Speise. The plural τροφάς in v. 8 = different kinds of food. The disciples had bought and brought different eatables, but one βρῶμα was all that Jesus’ heart desired. Jesus himself explains the figure, “that I do the will of him that did send me and that I finish his work.” The double ἵνα clause is subfinal (R. 992, etc.), exactly like a ὅτι clause, here used as a predicate nominative: “my meat is that,” etc. John uses this ἵνα extensively.

Here, for the first time, Jesus speaks of his great Sender whom he will mention again and again, always using the substantivized aorist participle, which names this Sender according to the one past act of sending, ὁπέμψαςμε. As such he has a will, θέλημα, namely regarding a specific work, even called “his work,” αὑτοῦτὸἔργον, the possessive being emphatically forward. The sending or mission of Jesus is “to do” this will, “to finish” this work, and the aorists state actual doing and finishing. Doubling the statement thus makes it decidedly strong. Compare 17:4, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do,” where the same verb is used. Also 19:28 and 30, “Jesus, knowing that all things are now finished,” etc … he said, “It is finished,” τετέλεσται The double clause is thus a description of Jesus’ entire Messianic work.

This “will” of his great Sender is his good and gracious will regarding the sinful world, the will of his comprehending and purposeful love, ἀγάπη; this “work” is our redemption from sin and all that belongs to it. The will and the work were done, finished completely, when Jesus died on the cross.

So completely are the mind and the heart, the will and the life of Jesus taken up with this will and this work of his Sender that they actually are his “food.” This metaphor, however, conveys not only the thought that Jesus is devoted to this task with his whole soul but that doing this task, accomplishing it, is a necessity for him, something he must have, as we must have food. Not only was there no other work possible for him here, but if this work would not have been given him to do, his very being here would not have been possible, i.e., the Son would not be here incarnate in human flesh (1:14). What Jesus says lies far above the thought that human talent and genius devote themselves to some special task with signal energy. It also lies above a Christian’s devotion to the work of his spiritual calling. God, indeed, gives us spiritual life and powers in order to serve him; but we and our service of God—at best imperfect—are not bound together so essentially as Jesus and his work; for we could separate ourselves from our work, leave it undone, do a contrary work, but Jesus never. Thus only in a clearly modified sense could we appropriate these words of Jesus and say that our meat, too, is to do our Father’s will and his work.

John 4:35

35 A part of this work Jesus had just been doing, and another part of it was soon to be done by him, namely the work of a prophet (Luke 4:17–21), dispensing “living water” to famishing souls. So Jesus continues. Say you not, Yet it is four months, and the harvest comes? Behold, I say to you, Lift up your eyes and view the fields, that they are white already for harvest. Jesus changes the metaphor of food to one closely allied, that of the harvest. Between Jacob’s well and Sychar the fields had been planted in wheat or in barley.

In Palestine the harvest comes in the middle of Nisan, our April. So Jesus was at the well in our month of December. The grain had been sown in November and now covered the fields with a thrifty growth of green. Jesus does not mean that his disciples are talking about the coming harvest, saying how long it will be until harvest time. He asks an implied question, to which he takes for granted (οὑχ expects an affirmative answer) that the disciples on their part (ὑμεῖς) will say, “Yes, about four months yet until harvest” (a τετράμηνος, sc. χρόνος). Jesus says, that is what you would say.

But I say to you, the harvest is already here, the grain ready to be reaped. Note the contrast: ὑμεῖςλέγετε, “you are saying,” and: λέγωὑμῖν, “I am saying to you.” The contrast is thus not between the persons: you—I; for we have no ἐγώ to balance ὑμεῖς. It is between the two statements, which is indicated by the emphatic pronouns: you say, ὑμεῖς—I say to you, ὑμῖν. One statement you make, the other is made to you. And the two statements seem contradictory: “yet four months,” and “already.” These temporal modifiers are in the emphatic positions, the first at the head of its statement, the second at the end. This point of contrast demands that ἤδη be drawn to what precedes and not to what follows, as the R.

V. margin proposes, “Already he that reapeth,” etc.

Now both statements are true, that the harvest is still four months off, and that the fields are right now white for harvest, ready to be cut. It is all clear the moment the disciples do what Jesus bids them do, “Lift up your eyes and view the fields.” There on the path through the young grain the Samaritans were coming, impelled by the report from the woman. We now see why John has the picturesque imperfect ἤρχοντο in v. 30—there they were, still coming. They were the grain Jesus saw, white for harvest, ready to be gathered into the granary of the kingdom. Thus the contrast of the two kinds of “food” (v. 31 and 33) is carried over into the two kinds of “harvest.” The disciples and we with them are ever inclined to see only the material and must have our attention drawn especially (“behold!”) to the spiritual. It often seems less real to us than the material, yet if anything it is more so.

At least it is infinitely more important and vital. We go into a large city and see great buildings, a vast amount of commerce, etc., but we often fail to see the millions of poor sinners for whom Christ died, the “much people in this city” who may be gathered into Christ’s kingdom. Acts 18:10. We see a man’s wealth, social position, learning, power, etc., but we often overlook the immortal soul he has to be saved. On the other hand, we see a poor wretch, criminal, outcast, loathsome, but again we do not see that he, too, is a soul bought by Christ’s blood and desired by him for Paradise (Luke 23:43). To the eyes of Christ all this is different.

Our meat may be only the earthly, his meat is the spiritual; our view may be only concerning grain, his is concerning souls to be gathered into his garner.

John 4:36

36 From the harvest the thought of Jesus extends to the reapers and backward also to the sowers and then turns (v. 38) to the disciples personally. See the comprehensive grasp it thus reveals and the grip it puts on the souls of the disciples. He that reaps receives wages and gathers fruit unto life eternal, in order that he that sows and he that reaps may rejoice together. This is not a general proposition applicable to both material and spiritual harvesting. Jesus speaks only of the latter. The “and” is explicative, it explains that the wages received are the fruit gathered unto life eternal (καρπός, fruit of trees or of fields, here the latter).

The wages of the spiritual reaper are the souls gathered for life eternal—here not necessarily only heaven but eternal life also as a present possession reaching unto heaven. On “life” and on “life eternal” compare 1:4 and 3:15. How these souls can be called “wages” appears in what follows.

God’s purpose (ἵνα) in thus rewarding the reaper is that the reaper and the sower “may rejoice together.” Here it becomes plain why the gathered fruit is called wages: it is because of the χαίρειν, the rejoicing. This appears partially now already: our true reward we feel and know are the souls saved through us, the holy joy we have in their salvation. It will appear perfectly in heaven, where the vanity of all other rewards fully appears, and where the joy is perfect and supreme. But this rejoicing is intended for both the sower and the reaper. Here we see that in spite of the present tenses of the participles and the verb the statement is not general with reference to the material and the spiritual but general only with reference to the latter. Materially a man may sow a field of wheat and never live to have the joy of reaping it; his laughing heir has that joy.

Spiritually this cannot happen. The harvest never escapes the sower. It belongs to him as well as to the reaper.

John 4:37

37 For herein the saying is genuine, One is the sower, another is the reaper. Here ὁλόγος = τὸλεγόμενον, a saying commonly used. But the sense is not that in this exceptional case (ἐντούτῳ, “herein”) this common saying fits. For Jesus is not speaking of an exception but of an invariable rule in the kingdom. Nor would this common saying fit, for its common sense is that many a man is cheated out of his reward: he does the hard sowing, and another steps in for the glad reaping. That, too, is why Jesus does not say, this saying is here ἀληθής, i.e., states a true fact.

This would be ambiguous. In its ordinary sense it states a fact only in the sorry experience with earthly affairs; in its ordinary sense it states no fact at all in the blessed experience of the kingdom. Jesus says, here this saying is ἀληθινός, i.e., it has genuine reality. For God never meant that any man, even in material things, should ever be cheated out of his proper reward. So even now 1 Cor. 9:7–10 is the ruling thought of men. The fact that in spite of this so many are cheated that men even formed this saying about one sowing and another reaping, one losing what another then gains, is due to the perverse effects of sin.

But in the kingdom the genuine divine order prevails fully and surely. Here, Jesus declares, the very saying which men use to express a bad reality in their common affairs of life becomes a “genuine” saying for the blessed reality in the purposeful divine arrangement of the kingdom, where the sower and the reaper are never in opposition but always joined in unity of reward and of joy. The ordinary sense of the saying is superseded by a divine sense.

John 4:38

38 But who is meant by ὁσπείρων and by ὁθερίζων, “the sower” and “the reaper”? The terms are entirely general. Jesus, indeed, has pointed to the people on the way from Sychar, but then he uses these general terms, which imply that he is thinking far beyond these Samaritans, namely of all the sowing and of all the reaping unto life eternal. More important than ever is, therefore, the question, of whom Jesus is thus speaking. He himself furnishes the answer. I myself did commission you to reap that whereon you yourselves have not labored.

Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor. The general statements are here made definite and concrete. The general statements are here also made strongly personal. But neither of these is done by a special reference to the coming Samaritans. Jesus speaks of the entire mission and work of his disciples. Here the tenses cause dispute, the aorist ἀπέστειλα, “I did commission,” and the following perfects.

The “critical” solution that John wrote these tenses from the standpoint of his old age when he penned his Gospel without noticing the incongruity that the disciples had not yet been commissioned when Jesus spoke here at Jacob’s well, destroys all faith in John’s veracity and imputes to him an error that not even a tyro would make. Others regard these tenses as prophetic past tenses, i.e., tenses which state future acts as if they were already lying in the past. But Jesus is here not uttering prophecy. But had he already commissioned these disciples, and had they already entered into other men’s labor? The answer is found in 4:2. Also in 1:42 with its implication.

Jesus uses only the general term, “I did commission,” not “I did commission you to the world” (17:18; Matt. 18:19), which might seem strange here. The purpose in attaching the disciples so closely to the person of Jesus must from the first have been made clear to them by Jesus, and on this fact rest the later more formal commissionings.

The disciples were sent to reap. But they never could reap if others had not labored before them, κεκοπιάκατε, grown weary with arduous exertion, i.e., in doing the preparatory sowing. This plural ἄλλοι cannot be a mere plural of category and thus refer to Jesus alone. In almost the same sentence Jesus cannot possibly use ἐγώ, the strong pronoun “I” with reference to self and in the same breath the plural ἄλλοι, “others,” in the same sense. The old interpretation is correct, these “others” are Jesus and those back of him, the Baptist, the prophets, Moses, etc. But it is going too far to include the priests, teachers, moralists, etc., of pagan nations among the sowers after whom the disciples could reap.

By placing his own work alongside of that of God’s other agents Jesus by no means cheapens it or makes it less fundamental than it is. He is the Sower of sowers without whose sowing all other sowers would be naught, whose sowing alone made that of others what it was. Yet others also sowed, and Jesus is never averse to giving credit where it belongs, Jesus thought even of the labor (κόπος, strain, effort) preparatory to his own labor. The Baptist prepared the way for him, and in a certain manner every prophet and minister of the law does the same. Jesus is adding his own work to theirs. And the apostles are as reapers entering into all this labor of others, are simply appropriating and using it, having done nothing of it themselves.

In a supreme sense Jesus is the Sower, for there is no reaping except after his sowing; in fact, before Jesus came, those who reaped did so on the strength of the sowing he was to do. Jesus did some reaping. He had gathered the disciples and other believers and would gather in these Samaritans. But Jesus chiefly did the sowing; he did not leave a field that was reaped bare to his disciples but a field thoroughly seeded, fast maturing unto harvest. When we compare the 500 brethren, who gathered in Galilee to meet Jesus by appointment after his resurrection, with the 3, 000, the 5, 000, and the ever-increasing multitude of believers in the next few years, we see, indeed, that Jesus was the Sower, the disciples the reapers. Yet, looking at the work of those who preceded and who followed Jesus, we see that one set of men always enters into the labors of another set.

The apostles reaped but they also sowed, from which their pupils again reaped, and so on down the ages. So we today have entered into other men’s labors. Recount their long line, their blessed names, their great exertions! But let the reaper ever be humble and remember the Sower and the sowers and not attribute the success to himself. On the other hand, if called to sow, complain not; this hard work is just as necessary, just as blessed as the reaping. Both sower and reaper shall rejoice together.

When the sheaves are brought in at last, when the reapers raise the great song of praise, the sowers who began the work that proved so successful shall lead the procession, and so even they shall enter into other men’s labor, even that of the reapers who harvested what these sowers sowed. But among them all we shall see not one who does not altogether enter into the labor of Christ.

John 4:39

39 John might at once have gone on from v. 31 to v. 39, but he records Jesus’ great testimony concerning his work as an episode. Now from that city many of the Samaritans believed on him for the sake of the word of the woman, testifying, He told me all things that I did. The aorist ἐπίστευσαν, “they believed,” may be ingressive: “they began to believe,” but even so it states the fact. This occurred at once after the woman had testified, and while the Samaritans walked out to meet Jesus, for it precedes ὡςοὗνἦλθον, “when, accordingly, they came to Jesus,” in v. 40. The decisive part of her testimony is carefully mentioned, “He told me,” etc. How slowly did Nicodemus come to faith, how rapidly these Samaritans! Both cases have been frequently repeated.

John 4:40

40 When, accordingly, the Samaritans came to him they kept requesting him to remain with them; and he remained there two days. The resumptive οὗν, “accordingly,” connects with v. 30, as also the aorist ἦλθον marks the end of the imperfect ἤρχοντο in v. 30: they “were coming”—finally they “did arrive.” The imperfect ἠρώτων indicates repeated urging and this ended with Jesus’ staying at Sychar for two days, the accusative δύοἡμέρας denoting the extent of time. The citizens of Jerusalem never asked Jesus to stay; afterward he passed through Jericho, and not a soul asked him to stay. Matt. 10:5 in no way conflicts with John 4 and Jesus’ stay in Samaria, since that order to the disciples was temporary, and Jesus also stopped at Sychar only in passing and did not go from one place in Samaria to another. Matt. 28:19, etc., and Acts 1:8 cancel the temporary order of Matt. 10:5.

John 4:41

41 Those were two blessed days for Sychar. And many more believed for the sake of his word, and they were saying to the woman, No longer because of thy speaking are we believing; for we ourselves have heard and know that this is in truth the Savior of the world. The aorist ἐπίστευσαν is the same as in v. 39. Coming after the statement that Jesus “did remain” for two days, it summarizes the entire effect of his stay: many more “came to faith” (ingressive), or simply: “did believe” (historical). These came to faith “because of his word,” spoken to them during these two days. We read of no signs that Jesus wrought at Sychar, only of this pointed reference to “his word,” though it was sign enough in the woman’s case (v. 17, 18).

John 4:42

42 The καί at the head of v. 41 and the τέ in v. 42 are not coordinate; the former merely introduces the sentence, and the latter joins something “in intimate relation with the preceding” (the regular function of τέ), R. 1179. The imperfect ἔλεγον describes how these believers told the woman repeatedly that now they believed on account of what they themselves had heard. This, of course, only substantiated and corroborated the woman’s word. Two kinds of faith are here distinguished: one, based on the true testimony of others; the other, based on one’s own personal experience and firsthand acquaintance with the Word. The former is that of many beginners, especially also of children taught by parents and by others. It is true faith and has saving power but stands below the other and is more easy to destroy.

This kind of faith should grow into the second kind, which believes without human mediators, by direct contact with Christ and his Word, and is thus far stronger than the other type of faith. In v. 39 the woman’s testimony is called her λόγος by John, for the contents of her speaking are meant; so also the λόγος of Jesus, v. 41. The Samaritans speak of the woman’s λαλιά, the mere fact of her speaking and not keeping silence, i.e., that she told it and did not hide it. And they say, “we are believing,” using the present tense with reference to their continuing faith.

This faith they thus joyfully confess, πιστεύομεν, “we believe”; and this with no empty credulity but for solid reasons, “for we ourselves have heard and know.” This is genuine confession, from the heart, ex animo, not merely formal, by the lips. It springs from a corresponding faith. “We ourselves have heard” means: we, just as the woman, directly from Jesus in person. Jesus stands before us today in person in his Word, and we can hear him directly and personally in that Word as if we had sat among the listeners at Sychar. We can do this every day; they had him only two days. They had to hold what he said in their memories; we can examine the inspired written Word as it is fixed for all time. And thus these believers confess, “we know.” Their faith is explicit, not ignorance, the great mark of unbelief, but sound, genuine knowledge, the knowledge that one attains by himself drinking the living water, eating the bread of life, actually being reborn of the Spirit.

Argument, science, philosophical reasoning cannot affect such faith; the true believer simply smiles and says, “I know.” Only contact with Jesus can work this knowledge of faith, Acts 4:13, 14. All false faith merely imitates this knowledge of true faith, it thinks it knows and yet does not know, 9:24, compare with 9:31–33.

The assertion is advanced that here the evangelist puts his own words into the mouth of the Samaritans when he makes them say that Jesus is “the Savior of the world.” This charge casts reflection on John’s veracity and the truth of all that he has written. The entire narrative depicts people who are not bigoted, not hypocritical, nor proud. Faith found a steady entrance into their hearts. The very fact that they were Samaritans not Jews, that Jesus lodged with them and taught them, that he did not bind them to Jerusalem and the Temple, all implies that he taught the universality of God’s grace and salvation. In other words, by accepting Jesus as the Messiah these Samaritans had to accept him as “in truth the Savior of the world.” If Jesus accepted the Samaritans, whom the Jews ranked as heathen, whom could he reject? The fact is that John records this entire episode for one reason only, because Jesus attested himself and his work (v. 26; 35, etc.) so clearly and received an equal attestation from these Samaritans (v. 42).

Jesus in Galilee, 4:43–54.—The fact that Jesus left Sychar after “the two days” already mentioned in v. 40 is again brought to our attention—so long only in spite of his success did he linger here. Then he proceeded without further stop to Galilee, for which 4:3 shows that he started. If Jesus had prolonged his stay and his work in Samaria he would have turned all the Jews against him; and his real work was to be done with Israel.

John 4:44

44 For Jesus himself did testify that a prophet has no honor in his own country. The statement is simple enough, it is a kind of proverbial saying which Jesus corroborates from his own experience; hence, “he did testify.” People show regard to a man who comes from afar more readily than to one who is merely a native like themselves. But this remark has puzzled the commentators to such an extent that one of them calls “the history of the exegesis of this passage a sad chapter.”

The first question is: Did Jesus say this in connection with his second return to Galilee, or is it a word spoken by Jesus at another time and only brought in here by the evangelist? We know that Jesus used this saying later on in Nazareth when his own townspeople turned against him, Matt. 13:57; Mark 6:4; Luke 4:24. Yet it may well be possible that in Nazareth Jesus only repeated the saying he first uttered on his second return to Galilee. The fact that John uses only indirect discourse without mentioning just when, where, and to whom Jesus first spoke this word, is sufficiently explained by the connection: John uses this word only in reporting the return of Jesus to his homeland Galilee. He thus supplements the synoptists by incidentally informing us that Jesus made this utterance before he came to Nazareth and that he applied it not only to his home town but also to his homeland.

As regards “his own country,” πατρίς, his fatherland, we need not hesitate long. This cannot mean the town Nazareth, nor Capernaum, for in the entire narrative of Jesus’ return only countries are mentioned: Judea in 4:3; Samaria in 4:4; and Galilee in 4:3 and in v. 43 and 45. The mention of Sychar is only incidental. This homeland is either Judea, where Jesus was born, or Galilee, where he had spent his life from childhood to manhood. The fact that Judea is out of the question should be apparent from the use Jesus made of this identical saying in Nazareth, where it simply cannot mean Judea. Nor can we assume that once when using this saying Jesus had in mind Judea, and the next time he had in mind Nazareth and Galilee. In comparison with the few days of his babyhood spent in Judea the almost thirty years spent in Galilee are decisive when Jesus now speaks of his homeland.

But the chief difficulty is in the connective γάρ, “for,” followed in v. 45 by οὗν, “accordingly.” If a prophet is not esteemed in his homeland, how can that be a reason or serve as an explanation for Jesus’ present return to his homeland? Would it not rather serve as a reason or an explanation why he should leave his homeland? This point is urged by those who would regard Judea as his homeland, and they add that Jesus thus far had had little success in Jerusalem and in Judea. This is the reason, they say, why Jesus, after vainly trying out Judea, now transfers his work to Galilee, where he expects greater success. Others turn the point around. Jesus is returning to Galilee just because a prophet is not esteemed in his homeland, meaning Galilee.

Some say, that he now determines to win this esteem in spite of this handicap, at the cost of whatever hard effort. Some say, that Jesus intends to return to Galilee, where he will not be esteemed, because here he can in a manner retire and live quietly. But these suppositions leave out the greater facts and thus show that they labor only in some way to solve the strange “for” and “accordingly.”

The facts are that after the assumption of his office Jesus had returned to Galilee only for a brief time and had wrought only the miracle at Cana. Beyond that nothing had been done in Galilee. Jesus proceeded to Jerusalem (2:12) and there began his public work. He spent from April until December (v. 35) in Judea with the result that now he was famous also in Galilee, for v. 45 reports that the Galileans received him gladly because they were impressed by the miracles they had seen him work while they, too, attended the previous Passover in Jerusalem. So now Jesus does not need to win his way in Galilee with hard effort. Also, he now comes, not for retirement, but to proceed energetically with his ministry in Galilee.

Also, he has not failed in Judea but has created a mighty impression, reaching back even into and throughout Galilee. “For” explains that Jesus now starts his real work in Galilee; and “accordingly” corroborates this “for.” Since a prophet is not esteemed in his own land, Jesus now, after winning his esteem in another land, comes back to his own land and finds that esteem awaiting him. As far as a prophet’s having “honor” is concerned, it is wrong to press the expression and to point to 5:41; 7:18; 8:50. Every prophet seeks and needs esteem (τιμή), in order that his message may reach open ears and, if possible, open hearts. The honor and the glory mentioned in the other passages are of an entirely different type, namely such as men love; and Jesus spurned all mere human glorification but never the esteem which brought men to listen to him.

In a simple way John thus again supplements the synoptists. They skip the eight to nine months of Jesus’ work in Judea, taking us at once from the baptism and the temptation of Jesus into his Galilean work (Matt. 4:12; Mark 1:14; Luke 4:14). John reports that all these important months, spent in Judea, intervened. Yet John’s plan is not to write a chronicle of all that Jesus did during those months in Judea just as he does not write a full account of the following Galilean ministry. His plan takes in only the great attestations of Jesus, and thus he selects his material. The other Gospel writers followed other plans.

John 4:45

45 When, accordingly, he came into Galilee, the Galileans received him, having seen all the things he did in Jerusalem at the feast; for they also went to the feast. Among the many who had believed in Jesus in Jerusalem (2:23) were these pilgrims to the feast from Galilee. John, however, again adds that they were impressed chiefly by the miracles of Jesus; the particle is causal, “since they had seen,” etc., R. 1128. We must, therefore, remember also 2:24, 25 with its bearing on Jesus’ return to these people. Add to this Jesus’ complaint in 4:48; and again in 6:26. This shows how we must understand, “the Galileans received him,” i.e., only as their countryman now made famous by his miraculous deeds.

John 4:46

46 He came, therefore, again unto Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. He took up the work where he had left it. The second miracle in Galilee was wrought at the same place where the first had been done. The first had prepared the ground, the second builds on that. And there was a certain royal official, whose son was sick at Capernaum. The report of Jesus’ arrival spread rapidly also to the larger city of Capernaum.

The term βασιλικός denotes one who in some way is connected with the king, here Herod Agrippa, who, although being only a tetrarch, ruling only the fourth part of the country, was commonly given the title of king by the Jews. Just what functions this official performed either in the king’s court or in his household we have no means of knowing; the title βασιλικός is not used to designate a military officer. Identifications such as Chuza, Luke 8:3, or Manaen, Acts 13:1, are rather useless. Because the son was sick “in Capernaum,” we see that the official’s home was there, hence also ἀπῆλθε in v. 47; he hastened from Capernaum to Cana.

John 4:47

47 He, having heard that Jesus was come out of Judea into Galilee, went away unto him and requested him to come down and to heal his son; for he was about to die. All that v. 46 contains is summarized in οὗτος: this important official who is so distressed about his son’s life. He heard the news: Jesus is come! The Greek retains the present tense ἥκει, “is come,” whereas we after “having heard” change it to “was come,” or to “had come.” Although he is a royal official with servants at his command, he goes in person to beg help of Jesus. Yet only his desperate need drives him, his own free heart’s desire does not draw him. If it were not for his sick son, he would not have troubled much about Jesus.

God’s providence often uses our need thus to drive us to find even more than just what we think we need. The aorist ἀπῆλθε merely states the fact that the man “went away” to Cana, while the imperfect ἠρώτα, “he was requesting,” holds us in suspense as to the success of his request. It pictures the man to us as torn between fear and hope. This suspense continues until the decisive word which heals the son is spoken.

The man’s request is stated by the ἵνα clause, which in the Koine is a substitute for the infinitive. The request is made urgent by the additional, “for he is on the point to die,” ἤμελλε followed by the infinitive. The case is nothing less than desperate. The father fully acknowledges that all human help has been exhausted, that only a miracle can save his child’s life. Modern “healers” are careful not to touch such cases; when they do they fail. The fact that this royal official runs to Jesus with this case shows his faith—Jesus can save his child from imminent death, Jesus alone.

The fact that he himself comes with his request shows the humility of his faith. Yet he thinks and clings to the thought (v. 49) that Jesus must come to his son’s bedside to heal him and that, if the coming is not hastened, death may win the race and may make any help from Jesus impossible. This reveals the imperfection and the limitation of the father’s faith.

John 4:48

48 Jesus, accordingly, said to him, Unless you see signs and wonders you will in no way believe. “Accordingly” refers to more than the mere fact of the request; it takes in all that Jesus sees involved in this request. And this extends far beyond the man who here makes his request. He is only one of the “many” we have met in 2:23 (compare 4:45), who believed only because of the signs they saw, whose faith stopped with the signs and did not advance to Jesus’ word as such, with whose faith Jesus, therefore, could not be satisfied. Jesus thus, indeed, speaks to this official (πρὸςαὑτόν) but he uses the plural, “unless you see,” etc., and not, “unless thou seest,” etc. This also softens the rebuke. The implication, too, is that this official (since Jesus includes him in the class indicated) is a Jew. Nor is it impossible to believe that the man was among the pilgrims who at the last Passover had been in Jerusalem and had seen Jesus work one or more miracles, little thinking that in a few months he would run to Jesus for miraculous aid for himself.

We should not emphasize the verb, “unless you see, actually with your own eyes see, signs and wonders,” for the object “signs and wonders” has the emphasis. The point of Jesus’ complaint is not the fact that he is asked to come down to Capernaum and to do the miracle where the man could see it done, but the fact that the kind of faith represented by this man can be kept alive only by means of miracles. The man never thought of Jesus as healing at a distance. Asking Jesus “to come down” is only incidental to the real request, which is to heal his child. So also when Jesus speaks of “seeing” miracles, this is not in opposition to hearing of them, for the effect would be quite the same. The complaint of Jesus is that so many would cease to believe in any manner, or would never believe even as they did unless he furnished them miracles on which to rest this faith of theirs.

They would not advance from the miracles to faith in Jesus’ person and his Word. Thus Jesus here does, indeed, refuse to hurry to Capernaum and to work the miracle under this condition. By this refusal, however, Jesus calls for and seeks to waken a better faith in the heart of this royal official. In the refusal lies a covert promise to help if only the man will rise to a truer and a better faith. Compare 11:40.

The complaint is that these people have to see “signs and wonders” (the terms are explained in 2:11). The second term is explicative of the first: “signs” in so far as they are “wonders” or portents and arouse excited astonishment. These people do not read the “signs” and see their true significance, that Jesus is the Messiah and Son of God, and that these “signs” seal him as such; they only want to marvel at the wonder of them. Thus they avoid the true purpose of the signs. The strong denial in οὑμή with the futuristic aorist subjunctive πιστεύσητε, R. 938, etc., for which also the future indicative could here be used, is to the same effect, “you will not believe at all,” or “in no way,” i.e., not even in the faulty way in which you now believe. Jesus does not deny the poor faith which this official had but declares that this is not enough.

His thus calling for a better faith, one that is real, must, however, not lead us to the hasty generalization that Jesus wrought signs only in answer to real faith and never where faith is absent. A study of the miracles reveals that they were used in both ways. Jesus often calls for faith and seals faith by a miracle, and then again he simply works the miracle in order that faith may follow. Thus miracles, indeed, always aim at producing faith, but as signs, not as mere wonders, once in the one way, and again in the other.

John 4:49

49 The man is not rebuffed by the rebuke in Jesus’ words. He does not turn away in sad disappointment. He does just what the Canaanitish woman does, Matt. 15:25—he just throws himself upon the mercy of Jesus. The royal official says to him, Sir, come down ere my little child die! We should not stress the fact that the man again begs Jesus “to come down” and implies that unless Jesus arrives in time even Jesus can do nothing. For in v. 48 Jesus makes no attempt to correct these limitations of the man’s faith.

Jesus takes only one step at a time, the true pedagogical way. He first attempts to turn this man’s faith in a higher direction, namely upon Jesus’ own person and his heart. And Jesus succeeds. With pleading reverence the man lays all his distress upon Jesus’ heart. If we could have seen the expression on Jesus’ face and could have heard his tone of voice, we could better understand his meaning and the man’s response. “Unless you see signs and wonders,” etc., really means, “Oh, that you would think less about the wonders and more about me!” This brings the address Κύριε, which looks up to Jesus; the renewed pleading, in the strong aorist κατάβηθι, “come down!” and the tender appeal in τὸπαιδίονμου, “my little child.” On πρίν with the infinitive after a positive verb see R. 977, 1091. So much Jesus’ word has produced, the first tiny advance to real faith in Jesus.

John 4:50

50 And Jesus says to him, Be going on thy way; thy son lives. The man believed the word which Jesus said to him and went his way. The plea that casts itself upon Jesus’ heart is heard and in a way that is utterly surprising, far beyond the man’s expectation. The two statements of Jesus are not, however, in opposition, as if the first intends to dash down, in order that the second may then raise up the more. The first does not intend to say, “No; leave me, I will not go down!” but, “Be assured and go home—thy son lives!” In other words: “It is not at all necessary for me to go to Capernaum to save thy child’s life, not necessary that I should thus prolong thy suspense and anxiety—right here and now I grant thy prayer and give thee thy little son’s life.” Thus Jesus now corrects the man’s poor notion about hurrying to the child’s side and he does it with one stroke. The power to heal lies in the person of Jesus—where else could it lie?

It is a matter of his will and his word, not one of inches or miles. Jesus gives the man only his word and even that in the tersest form, “Thy son lives”—not a syllable more. On him who speaks this little word, and on the little word this person speaks, the man is thus bidden to rest his faith. On paper, and as we read it from the printed page, it does seem little—too little; yet as there spoken by Jesus it was mighty, it bore all the power of Jesus’ will, a divine pledge, an unconditional assurance, an absolute promise. As such it struck upon the man’s heart full of faith-kindling power.

The mild present imperative πορεύου = “just be going on thy way.” Then follows the intensive present tense ζῇ, the direct opposite of the man’s fear about his child’s dying, thy son “goes on living indefinitely.” With this one pregnant word Jesus changes death into life: the death about to close in, into life that goes happily on. It is unwarranted to intimate or to assert that in some way, if by no other than by clairvoyance or telepathy, Jesus merely knew that the child’s fever was breaking just at this time, and that thus in a perfectly natural way the child would after all escape death. These attempts of rationalism to “explain away” the actuality of Jesus’ miracles and to leave only the appearance of miracles, turn Jesus into a charlatan, from whom every sincere and honest man should turn away. The fact that Jesus wrought this miracle, as he did every other deed of his, in conformity with his calling and office and in harmony with his Father’s will, needs no saying. But to add that in each case Jesus had and had to have a decision or an intimation from his Father to do the deed is devoid of Scripture support. To think that every miracle came only as an answer to a prayer from Jesus reduces him to the level of the ordinary prophets and is contradicted by all the cases where Jesus reveals that he acts by his own will and power.

So here, “Thy son lives” = I grant thee his life. Compare Luke 7:11, “I say unto thee, Arise!” On John 11:41, 42 see, below. It is fancy to bring in the angels here or elsewhere in connection with the miracles on the strength of 1:50; where angels are employed they are mentioned.

The man believed the word of Jesus, the dative ᾧ being attracted to the case of its antecedent (some read ὅν). The aorist states the fact. The man had only this “word,” but now resting on that, asking no more, he came away with a better, truer trust than the one that first made him come. His faith was becoming more like that of the Samaritans in v. 41. This faith was kindled in the man’s heart by Jesus and by his mighty word, “he lives.” “He believed” without visible or tangible evidence. Yet the man had the very highest and best evidence—Jesus’ word, 20:29b.

In due time the corroborative evidence of sight follows the decisive assurance of the Word. The inadequate faith in so many of whom Jesus complained is such because it clings only to the lower evidence and will not move to the true ground on which saving faith alone can and does rest. The imperfect ἐπορεύετο pictures the man as he was on his way and matches the present imperative πορεύου. It also intimates that we shall presently learn what the man found. We see him going back hugging to his heart Jesus’ word “he lives,” by that overcoming all doubts and misgivings that very likely kept assailing his mind.

John 4:51

51 He did not have to wait until he actually reached home. Now already while going down his servants met him, saying to him that his boy lives. He, accordingly, inquired of them the hour in which he became better. They, accordingly, told him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. The anxiety of the family for the boy’s life is indicated by this sending of servants to report to the father the sudden change and the recovery at the earliest possible moment. John puts the glad news into indirect discourse, so that we cannot be entirely sure that the servants almost exactly repeated the word of Jesus, especially the significant verb ζῇ, “lives.” It may well be that they used just that word and in the sense of Jesus: all danger of death is gone.

The father’s inquiry in regard to the hour of the change sounded only natural to the servants, but the answer to that inquiry was freighted with the greatest significance to the father. Why B.-D. 328 should call the aorist ἐπύθετο “incorrect” and demand the imperfect instead, is strange, since either could be used, the aorist merely stating the fact that the father so inquired. The expression κομψότερονἔχειν is idiomatic. The Greek likes the adverb with this verb; we use a different verb with an adjective. “One must be willing for the Greek to have his standpoint,” R. 546. We say “better,” the Greek prefers the comparative of κόμψος, “handsome.” The aorist ἔσχε = “got better,” R. 834; “better than before the word of Christ was spoken,” R. 665. The servants use neither the endearing term παιδίον, which fits the father’s lips, nor the weighty υἱός, which fits the lips of Jesus, but simply παῖς, “thy boy,” which fits the general family relation.

The father learns that the fever left the boy “yesterday at the seventh hour.” Instead of the accusative ὥραν we should expect the dative to designate a point of time, or the genitive to indicate time within; but B.-D. 161 finds this accusative in the classics, and R. 470 tries to explain it: “Either the action was regarded as going over the hour, or the hour was looked at as an adverbial accusative like τὸλοιπόν,” of which, if we need an explanation at all, the latter is decidedly preferable. Note the aorists, ἔσχε in the question, ἀφῆκεν in the answer. We meet the latter in Mark 1:31, in a parallel case, when Jesus healed Simon’s wife’s mother: ἀφῆκενὁπυρετός, “the fever left her,” and so completely that she was instantly entirely recovered and rose from her bed and “ministered unto them.” These, then, are not ingressive aorists, so that we should translate, “began to amend” (our versions), and the fever “began to leave.” The recovery did not merely start at the seventh hour. If that had been all, the boy might have suffered a relapse, and it would have been foolish to dispatch servants to the father. An anxious wait of hours, of a day or two, would have followed with fear lest the fever set in again. The boy was completely restored, so completely that the servants were at once hurried off to the father.

From the word “the fever” we are unable to determine the exact nature of the disease, since some fevers are themselves diseases, while others are only symptoms of diseases.

John 4:53

53 The father, accordingly, knew that it was at the hour in which Jesus said to him, Thy son lives; and he himself believed and his whole house. Thus the miracle was revealed, one that was even greater and more astonishing than the man had hoped for. He “himself” believed with a new measure of faith (compare 2:11). His entire household (οἰκία) joined him in that faith. The mention of the entire household may well indicate that in the days to come this family, certainly an important one, being connected as it was with the king’s court, took a prominent part among the members of the church. This leads some to think that the official may have been Chuza, but even then we have nothing but surmise.

Here we again meet the perplexing question of the “hours” in John; see 1:39. If the seventh hour is one o’clock (according to Jewish reckoning), the man could easily have reached home that evening, the distance being less than six hours’ travel. If the servants started not long after one o’clock, he and they would surely have met at least late that same afternoon. Yet when they meet they say, “Yesterday at the seventh hour.” Invention steps in and in some way manufactures a delay long enough to extend to the next day. The man travelled leisurely, his mind being perfectly at ease; the servants did not start until the next morning—both suppositions are wholly unnatural, for both would hurry. Even when father and servants are thought to have met hours after sundown and thus, since sundown begins a new Jewish day, on the day after the miracle, we have too much time with both the father and the servants hurrying toward each other.

A goodly delay has to be worked in the account also on this supposition if John counts the hours in the Jewish way. According to the Roman reckoning the miracle was wrought at seven in the evening. Then, indeed, father and servants could meet only on the next day, and all would be clear without inventing delays. But did John use this Roman reckoning? Nobody knows. Our quandary remains.

John 4:54

54 This again as a second sign Jesus wrought after having come from Judea into Galilee. “This” is the subject, to which is added predicatively, hence without the article, “as a second sign”; and “again” modifies the verb, “again he wrought.” The whole is made clear by the participial addition, “after having come,” etc. The first time Jesus came back to Galilee he turned the water into wine (v. 46); now, having returned a second time, he again signals his return by a miracle, a second one to place beside the first. During the eight or nine months spent in Judea many other miracles had been wrought, 2:23; 4:45. Because John does not tell us about other miracles that Jesus wrought here in Galilee after his second return, the conclusion is by no means warranted that Jesus remained in retirement for a considerable time. He proceeds with his public work in Galilee as all the synoptists report.

Matthew 8:5–13 and Luke 7:1–10 relate a miracle which in one point, and only in one (healing at a distance), is similar to this one. In all other points, outward as well as inward, a radical difference prevails. Nevertheless, critics identify the two, but thereby they show to what lengths they are ready to go to find their hypotheses in the sacred record.

R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, fourth edition.

B.-D. Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neugearbeitete Auflage besorgt von Albert Debrunner.