John 4 - Introduction

CHAPTER IV.

JESUS AT THE WELL.

After the Savior's Passover and the conversation with Nicodemus, he tarried in the land of Judea, probably until the late fall of the year (chapter 4:35). He had not yet called his apostles nor ordained his baptism, but he co-operated with John in administering his baptism, through his disciples (chapter 3:22).. question concerning this baptismal rite was raised with John's disciples by the Jews, evidently to provoke jealousy of Christ, which led these disciples to come to John with. complaint. This gave him another opportunity to give. noble testimony to Christ. The jealousy of the Pharisees and the arrest of John, caused the Lord in the fall to return to Galilee. On the route occurred the memorable conversation with the woman of Sychar.

The Jews, whose discussion had thus deeply moved the followers of John, may well have been of the prominent Pharisees, and our Lord soon became aware that they were watching his proceedings with an unfriendly eye. Their hostility to John was. still deeper hostility against him, for the very reason that his teaching was already more successful. Perhaps in consequence of this determined rejection of the earliest steps of his teaching--perhaps also out of regard for the wounded feelings of John's followers--but most of all because at this very time the news reached him that John had been seized by Herod Antipas and thrown into prison--Jesus left Judea and again departed into Galilee. Being already in the north of Judea, he chose the route which led through Samaria. The fanaticism of Jewish hatred, the fastidiousness of Jewish Pharisaism, which led his countrymen when traveling alone to avoid that route, could have no existence for him, and were things rather to be discouraged than approved.-- Farrar.

The historic setting of the visit to Sychar is so entirely harmonized with the facts, that the account must have been penned by an eye-witness. "We are confronted with the historic antagonism of the Jews and Samaritans, which still survives in Nablus, the modern Shechem, where the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Samaritan synagogue are still shown to the stranger; here we see the genuine humanity of Jesus, as he sat 'wearied with his journey,' though not weary of his work of saving souls, his elevation above rabbinical prejudices which forbade conversing with any woman out of doors, his superhuman knowledge and dignity, and his surpassing wisdom of parabolic teaching; here the life-like sketch of. sinful, yet quick-witted woman, full of curiosity and interest in the religious question of the day, and running to tell her neighbors her great discovery of the prophet who had touched her conscience, excited her thirst for the water of life, and led her from Jacob's well to the fountain of salvation, and from the dispute about the place of worship to the highest conception of God as an omnipotent Spirit to be worshiped in spirit and truth. Truly, no poet could have invented such. story.