John 4:6

Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus on the well; and it was about the sixth hour.

Even at this early day the Pharisees were watching the activities of the Lord with jealous eyes. His growing popularity gave them much uneasiness. And there was a disquieting factor also for Jesus in the situation. The testimony of John and His own teaching had their effect in bringing an ever-increasing multitude to His baptism, which He, however, did not administer in person, but through His disciples. While there was not the slightest intimation of unpleasantness on the part of John the Baptist, there was still the danger of invidious comparisons, and Jesus apparently had no intention of interfering with the ministry of John at this time or ever. But the Pharisees, as Jesus found out, had heard the news that He was making more converts than John. These self-righteous hypocrites were declared opponents of the truth and therefore also of John, the teacher of truth. Should they therefore hear that the baptizing of Jesus was having such extraordinary success, they might be constrained to assume that Jesus was acting in opposition to John. This result Jesus wanted to avoid, and therefore, with a fine tact, which deserves wide imitation, He left Judea and set out for Galilee. He was not so sensitive about contamination from contact with Samaritans as many Jews were, who, for that reason, usually took the road on the other side of the Jordan when traveling to Galilee. Jesus took the shortest route, and thus was obliged to travel through Samaria, the country between Judea and Galilee. Samaria took its name from the city Samaria, or Shomron, 1 Kings 16:24. When Shalmaneser, in 722 B. C., carried Israel away into Assyria, a small number of the inhabitants remained in the country. To these were added heathen from Mesopotamia, and the result was a mixed population, in whose midst Jehovah was still nominally adored, but who also worshiped the gods of the heathen. When the Jews returned from their captivity, the Samaritans made an attempt to join them, and when this effort proved unsuccessful, they built a temple on Mount Gerizim. Their religion, in which they accepted only the Pentateuch as the inspired Word of God, was a strange mixture of Judaism and paganism. The territory of Samaria at the time of Christ was included in the tetrarchy of Archelaus and was under the procurator Pontius Pilate. On the north and east was the country of Herod Antipas, Galilee and Perea.

On His journey north with His disciples, Jesus came to the little city of Sychar, which was located almost in the center of Samaria. Near this town there was a piece of land which the patriarch Jacob had given to his son Joseph in addition to his share of the country, Genesis 48:22. It was on this piece of land that Joseph was buried. And here was also a well or cistern which Jacob had dug after his return from Mesopotamia. The well, which is now known as Jacob's Well, is within ten minutes' walk of the present village of Askar. It is about a hundred feet deep and is protected by a wall and a coping. Jesus, being a true man, had become very tired literally, tired out by the long journey of the morning; for it was now high noon. So He sat down at the well, either on the low wall which served as a railing, or on one of the steps leading to the water's edge.