John 4:5

A town in Samaria named Sychar. Samaria was the area of Palestine where the tribe of Ephraim and half the tribe of Manasseh [the other half was across the Jordan] had lived. When the Ten Tribes were taken to Babylon, the king of Assyria sent foreigners in to occupy the land, and they intermarried with those Jews who were left there. When the Two Tribes came back from Babylon, they would not associate with the Samaritans, rejecting them as "half-breeds." The Samaritans used only the first five books of the Bible, and had their own forms of worship and their own temple on Mount Gerizim. Sychar is the "Schechem" of the Old Testament. It is forty miles north of Jerusalem, between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal (Joshua 8:30-35). Sychar means "town of the grave," the grave of Joseph being only about one hundred yards away. Not far from the field. See Genesis 33:18-20; Genesis 48:22; Joshua 24:32.