John 4:11-12

“ The woman says to him: Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; from whence, then, hast thou that living water? 12. Art thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and who drank of it himself, as well as his sons and his cattle? ”

The Samaritan woman takes the expression living water in its literal sense. She means: “Thou canst neither (οὔτε) draw from the well the living water which thou offerest to me for thou hast no vessel to draw with nor (καί), because of its depth, canst thou reach by any other means the spring which feeds it.” Unable to suppose that He is speaking spiritually, she cannot understand that He offers her what He has Himself asked from her (Westcott). The term κύριε, Sir, expresses, however, profound respect. She calls Jacob our father, because the Samaritans claimed descent from Ephraim and Manasseh (Joseph. Antiqq. 9.14, 3). Θρέμματα : servants and cattle, everything requiring to be supported. It is the complete picture of patriarchal nomad life which appears here.