John 4:19-20

“ The woman says to him: Sir, I see that thou art a prophet. 20. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain;and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. ”

Some see in this question of the woman only an attempt to turn aside the disturbance of her conscience, “a woman's ruse” (de Wette) with the design of escaping from a painful subject. “She diverts attention from her own life by proposing a point of controversy” (Astie). But would Jesus reply, as He does, to a question proposed in such a spirit? Besser and Luthardt go to the opposite extreme: This question is, in their view, the indication of a tortured conscience, which, sighing for pardon, desires to know the true sanctuary to which it can go to make expiation for its faults. This is still more forced. Reuss, with an irony which assails the evangelist himself, says: “If she asks the question thus, it is only for the purpose of bringing out the declaration of the Lord which we are about to read.” Westcott says rightly: “Here is the very natural inquiry of a soul which finds itself face to face with an interpreter of the divine will.” This woman has recognized in Jesus a prophet; she has at the same time found in Him largeness of heart.

The two answers, John 4:17; John 4:19, have proved that, notwithstanding her faults, she is not altogether wanting in right character. It follows even from John 4:25 that religious thoughts are not strange to her, that she is looking for the Messiah and that she waits to receive from Him the explanation of the questions which embarrass her. The fact of a Jewish prophet, present before her eyes, inspires her with doubts as to the religious claim of her nation. Is it not an altogether simple thing, that, in her present situation, after her conscience has been so profoundly moved, her thoughts should turn to the great religious question which separates the two peoples, and that she should ask the solution of it? It is an anticipation of the more complete teaching which she expects from the Messiah. By the term: our fathers, she perhaps understands the Israelites of the time of Joshua, who, according to the reading of the Samaritan Pentateuch (Deu 27:4), raised their altar on Mount Gerizim, and not on Ebal; in any case, she understands by this expression all the Samaritan ancestors who had worshiped on Gerizim, from the period when a temple was built there in Nehemiah's time.

This temple had been destroyed by John Hyrcanus one hundred and twenty- nine years before Christ. But even after this event, the place had remained a sacred spot Deuteronomy 11:29, as it still is at the present day. It is there that the Samaritans even now celebrate the feast of the Passover every year. Jerusalem not being named anywhere in the law, the preference of the Samaritans for Gerizim found plausible reasons in the patriarchal history. The superiority of the Jewish sanctuary could be justified only from the standpoint of the later books of the Old Testament. But we know that the Samaritans admitted only the Pentateuch and the Mosaic institution. When she said: on this mountain, she pointed to it with the finger. For Jacob's well is situated directly at the foot of Gerizim. She confines herself to setting forth the antithesis, thinking indeed that Jesus will understand the question which follows from it.

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

XIX.

The evident sincerity and earnestness of the woman in what follows may lead us to believe, that, in the words which are given in John 4:20, she did not intend merely to turn the conversation from an unpleasant subject. Whether she was yet awakened to desire instruction in righteousness from Jesus or not, she no doubt put the question with an honest purpose. The explanation given by Godet here is the more natural one, as compared with those of the writers who go to either extreme of interpretation which he mentions. In the reply of Jesus, the following points may be noticed:

1. The development of the thought here is, as it is in the interview with Nicodemus, determined by the state of mind of the person with whom Jesus was speaking, and by the circumstances of the conversation. At the same time, the conversation moves toward a final result which involves an important testimony, and in connection with this fact the story finds its place among these narratives which are selected by the author for purposes of proof, and as giving actual proofs which were brought before the minds of the disciples. The great truth of the spirituality of religion is brought out here, as it is in what was said to Nicodemus. But here it is suggested in connection with the matter of worship, instead of the entrance into the kingdom of God, because this was the question which occupied the mind of the one with whom Jesus was now speaking. If, however, God is a Spirit and true worship must therefore be spiritual, it naturally follows, for the mind that moves far enough to comprehend the truth, that the life in union with God must be entered by a new birth of the Spirit. But there is something further here: namely, a distinct declaration of the Messiahship of Jesus. This had not been stated in terms to Nicodemus, or in the scenes at the first Passover, or at the wedding-feast at Cana. In the matter of testimony it was an addition to all that preceded the word from Jesus Himself saying: I am the Christ. He had said what might imply as much in His words to Nicodemus. He had suggested the thought by His reference to rebuilding the temple, and had given evidence of Messianic power in the first miracle. But now He declares it in a sentence which can have but one meaning. On His return, therefore, from Jerusalem towards Galilee after the first Passover, the last element in the testimony is presented to the disciples through this chance conversation, as it seemed, in a Samaritan town which may lead them to be confirmed in their belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

The reason why this declaration was made to this Samaritan woman, and not publicly in Jerusalem, is explained, on the one hand, by the fact already alluded to that the “hour” of Jesus was the directing-power of His life in relation to the entire matter of His manifestation of Himself, and, on the other, by the retirement and remoteness from the central life at Jerusalem of this town in Samaria. But for the inner life of the disciples it mattered little where the testimony was presented to their minds, while in the due order of impression its place was necessarily and properly after the testimonies mentioned in the earlier Chapter s. The declaration now given at the end would naturally throw its influence back, as they thought of it, upon all which had been heard or seen before, and would become a guiding and illuminating power in their reflections on what had occurred, and also on what they might find occurring in the future. We may see clearly, therefore, how the writer follows, in the insertion of this chapter, as truly as before, an intelligent plan.