John 4:6

‘Jesus, therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well. It was about the sixth hour.'

The demands of Jesus' ministry had caught up with Him, and on their journey through the heat of the sun Jesus grew weary. We are reminded here that He Who was the Word, the Creator of the world, was also truly human and suffered from the weakness of the body like the rest of us do. The true humanity of Jesus is stressed here. He was ‘very tired'.

When they came across the welcome sight of Jacob's Well (well = pege, a fount of running water, thus fed by a spring) He sat down to rest, while the disciples went into the nearby town for food. Whether all the disciples who were with Him went we are not told, and it may well be that one or two remained with Jesus.

‘Sat thus --'. ‘Thus' could refer back to His weariness. He sank down exhausted. It could alternatively mean ‘just where He happened to be'. Unless He had specifically commanded all to the disciples to go (there may only have been three or four) it must seem probable that at least one remained behind with him, possibly John. But if so he does not appear in the story.

The writer remembers it was about the sixth hour. If this was by Jewish reckoning it would be around twelve noon (reckoning from sunrise), if by Roman reckoning around six-o-clock in the evening (reckoning from noon). In John 20:19 the writer clearly uses Roman reckoning which was from midnight to noon and then noon to midnight, and not Jewish reckoning which was from sunset to sunrise and then from sunrise to sunset, and that is probably so here. It is in fact more likely that a woman would come at in the evening rather than during the heat of the day.