Father Noel Alexandre's Literal Commentary on John 4:5-42

 

LITERAL COMMENTARY

Jn 4:5 He came therefore to a city of Samaria called Sichar — or Sichem — near the plot of land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph when dying, as is recorded in Genesis 48:22: "I give to you one portion beyond your brothers, which I took from the hand of the Amorite with my sword and my bow." The city of Sichem, moreover, the Jews mockingly called Sichar — meaning "city of the drunkard" — because through evil schism they were, as it were, intoxicated and out of their minds. Hence the Ephraimites or Samaritans are called "drunkards of Ephraim" by Isaiah.

Jn 4:6 Now there was there — namely on that plot of land — Jacob's spring or well, which tradition held had been dug by the patriarch Jacob, or at least used by Jacob and his family. Jesus therefore, wearied from the journey he had made on foot, sat thus beside the spring — that is, next to it, not in a chair or comfortable place, but on the ground, in the manner and posture of a tired man. The hour was about the sixth. The Evangelist explains the cause of his weariness and thirst: because Jesus had traveled a great distance and it was now midday.

Jn 4:7–8 A woman of Samaria came to draw water with a water jar, as was the custom. Jesus said to her: "Give me to drink," from the jar she had already filled. For his disciples had gone into the city to buy food. He asked a woman for water, the disciples being absent, who would otherwise have rendered him this service. A new author gratuitously asserts that Jews were not accustomed to purchase necessities from Samaritans for a price. But the Pirke Avot, from which he derives this, is much later than Christ. And even if the Hebrew traditions had contained such a rule, the necessity of travelers passing through Samaria would have been excepted. Moreover, the Lord and his disciples were not bound to observe these traditions.

Jn 4:9 The Samaritan woman therefore said to him: "How is it that you, being a Jew, ask drink of me, who am a Samaritan woman?" She had recognized him as a Jew from his dress and speech, for the dialect of the Ephraimites distinguished them from other Israelites, just as Galileans were distinguished from Judeans — still more a Samaritan from a Jew. The woman was astonished that a Jew should ask drink of her. "For," it says, "Jews do not associate with Samaritans" — that is, in a friendly and familiar manner. The tradition of the legal scholars interpreted this in such a way that one might indeed buy necessities and converse civilly with them, as with Gentiles, but not eat or drink with them, lest one be defiled. Hatred born especially from religion had made a schism within Judaism. The Samaritans had mixed Gentile rites with Mosaic ones, had built a temple on Mount Gerizim where they offered sacrifices through their own priests, not of the Levitical line; they had delayed the rebuilding of Jerusalem's city and temple through their slanders against the Jews before the Persian king. Hence arose the bitterest hatred between both peoples, and hence arose the gravest insult among the Jews — the name "Samaritan" — which they applied even to Christ Jesus: "Do we not say rightly that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?"

Jn 4:10 Jesus answered and said to her: "If you knew the gift of God, if you knew the Messiah promised and given to men by God, and who it is that says to you, 'Give me to drink' — namely the Son of God, the Savior of the world — you perhaps would have asked of him first, and he would have given you living water:" water that is ever-flowing and perpetually springing up, water leaping up to eternal life, water which is the type of divine grace to be poured out through the Holy Spirit upon believers. See John 7:38: "He who believes in me, as the Scripture says, rivers of living water shall flow from his belly." Now he said this of the Spirit which those who believed in him were to receive. Compare also Isaiah 12:3: "You shall draw waters with joy from the fountains of the Savior."

Jn 4:11–12 The woman said to him, thinking he spoke of ordinary, common water: "Sir, you have nothing with which to draw, and the well is deep. Where then do you get living water? How then could you supply me with ever-flowing water? Or can you draw up richer and more wholesome water from elsewhere, or find a spring hidden underground? Surely you are not greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and left it for his posterity to use — as if there were none better in these parts — and who himself drank from it, and his sons, and his cattle?"

Jn 4:13–14 Jesus answered and said to her: "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again — for it quenches thirst only for a brief time — but whoever drinks of that living water which I shall give him will never thirst; he will be subject to no wants whatever. Rather, the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water leaping up to eternal life. He will not need to seek it from outside himself; it will be within him through the indwelling Holy Spirit. It will become, I say, in him a spring of water leaping all the way up to God and to eternal life." There is an emphasis in the word "leaping," for waters spring up as high as their source. Now the source of grace is God, who is eternal life; it leaps therefore up to eternal life and leads those in whom it dwells to the enjoyment of God and to eternal life.

Jn 4:15 The woman said to him: "Sir, give me this water, so that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw." She was longing not to be in want, and her weakness shrank from labor. She was constantly forced to come to that spring, burdened with the weight that her need required to be relieved, and when what she had drawn was used up, she had to return again — and this daily labor was hers because her want was replenished, not extinguished. Delighted therefore by such a gift, she asks him to give her the living water.

Jn 4:16–18 Jesus said to her: "Go, call your husband, so that you may receive so great a benefit from me with his knowledge and share it with him, and come here together with him — for the husband is the head of the wife, without whom it is not fitting for her to receive a benefit from anyone." The woman answered and said: "I have no husband." She wished to deceive Christ by the ambiguity in order to receive the benefit immediately. Jesus said to her: "You have spoken well, that you have no husband — for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have, to whom you are attached, is not your lawful husband; this you have spoken truly." And Christ gradually disposes her both to a confession of her unchaste life and to repentance, and to understanding who and how great he was who deigned to speak with her. For this was almost the only way to help her — if she would now admire him not as a mere man but as something superior, namely one to whom hidden things were revealed in an unheard-of manner. He usefully confirms, moreover, her answer in which she said she had no husband, even though she had been corrupted by so many. For it is not intercourse arising from pleasure but consent according to the Law, and union arising from chaste love, that makes marriages blameless.

Jn 4:19–20 The woman said to him: "Sir, I perceive that you are a Prophet, who knows hidden things." Then turning the Lord's attention elsewhere, she asks him about a question concerning divine worship — a matter of controversy between the Samaritans and Jews: "Our fathers Abraham worshipped on this mountain, Mount Gerizim; you Jews say that Jerusalem is the place — or the Temple — where it is proper to worship, by God's command, with sacrifices offered there and other public rites, so that it is not lawful to offer to God outside this place." Not far away Abraham had built an altar shortly before the sacrifice of Isaac; then Jacob also; and on Mount Gerizim the blessings had been pronounced. There, in the time of Alexander the Great, a temple had been built; and although Hyrcanus had destroyed it, the sacred rites there had nevertheless not ceased. God, indeed, had commanded in the Law that sacrifices be offered to him in a certain place which he would designate — Deuteronomy 12:13–14: "Take heed that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see, but in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of your tribes"; and verse 26: "But the things which you have sanctified and vowed to the Lord, you shall take and come to the place which the Lord shall choose, and you shall offer your offerings, the flesh and the blood upon the altar of the Lord your God."

Jn 4:21 Jesus said to her: "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming — the time is near — when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father." For these places were to be laid waste, and the worship of God would no longer be confined to this or that place, but spread to every place, since a pure offering would be made to his name in every place. He does not say "we will worship" but "you will worship" the Father, so as to exclude himself from the number of worshippers — insofar as he is the Word who is God, in which capacity he is rather worshipped together with the Father.

Jn 4:22 "You worship what you do not know" — thinking the true God is Lord of only one region or defined by a particular place — "and worshipping not according to the prescription of his Law, but according to rites invented by men. We worship what we know" — we know who God is, where and in what manner he is to be honored, having obtained this knowledge through Moses and the Prophets. Nor should it seem surprising that God gave a greater knowledge of himself to the Jews than to the Samaritans or other Gentiles. "For salvation is from the Jews" — Christ the Savior came from the Jews, to whom he was specially promised by God: "The Law shall go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." Christ Jesus counts himself among the Jews — indeed, also among worshippers, according to the form of a servant in which he prayed to and worshipped the Father.

Jn 4:23 "But the hour is coming, and now is — it is already at hand — when the true worshippers, worthy of the name, will worship the Father in spirit and in truth:" not only in external rites and typical sacrifices, but in the sacrifice that fulfills the ceremonies of the old Law, and especially in spiritual worship. The true worshippers will worship the Father of all, not in superstitious worship mixed with falsehood and errors — as you Samaritans worship — not in typical worship as the Jews do — but in true and spiritual worship. Thus "spirit" is set in opposition to the sacrifices and legal ceremonies of the Jews, which belong to the law of carnal commandment, the rejection of which is declared on account of its weakness and uselessness — that they are shadows of things to come, but the body is Christ. And "truth" is set in opposition to the false dogmas and errors of the Samaritans. "For the Father too seeks such people to worship him" — that is, he desires and loves such worshippers.

Jn 4:24 "God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." God is the purest Spirit, separate from all combination with body and matter; and therefore, so that his worship may be fitting to its object, he must be worshipped by his followers in spiritual worship, with a pure, whole, and uncorrupted mind. In the Old Testament, God instituted typical worship so that through the Tabernacle, Temple, Altar, Sacrifices, victims, Priests, and ceremonies — as in types — men might perceive Christ and be instructed in him until the time of correction, that is, of the New Law, and be led to spiritual worship. But with the New Law beginning to be promulgated through our Lord Jesus Christ, spiritual and interior worship was renewed by him, so that men, aided by his grace, might worship God in spirit and in truth throughout the whole world. But the righteous who in the time of the Old Law were already worshipping and adoring God in spirit and truth were not under the Law but under Grace, and were heirs of the New Testament through Christ the mediator, by faith in whom they were justified.

Jn 4:25–26 The woman said to him: "I know that the Messiah is coming, who is called Christ; when he comes, he will tell us all things." The words placed in parenthesis are not the woman's but the Evangelist's, explaining the meaning of the name "Messiah." Both Jews and Samaritans knew that the Messiah was coming. And the Samaritans received the books of Moses, in which the promise and prophecy of the Messiah is read. The woman had heard from common report that his coming was imminent, and believed he would make known all things necessary for salvation and pertaining to the worship of God. Jesus said to her: "I am he, who speaks with you" — I am the Messiah promised by God, who have come into the world to reveal all things necessary for right worship. To the Jews who frequently asked him, "How long will you hold our souls in suspense? Tell us if you are the Christ" — he did not declare openly that he was the Christ as he did to this woman. For she was more faithful than they; they asked not for the sake of learning but of finding fault, for had they wished to learn, the teaching of his words, scriptures, and miracles would have been sufficient for them. The Samaritan woman asked with a sincere and simple mind. She heard, she believed, and drew others to belief.

Jn 4:27 And immediately his disciples came, and they marveled that he was speaking with a woman — alone, a stranger, unknown, a Samaritan — contrary to his custom; nor could they guess that this Samaritan woman was eager and avid to learn heavenly things, about which alone Jesus was accustomed to speak. Yet no one said, "What do you seek?" or "Why are you speaking with her?" Their reverence toward the Lord and Master forbade them to be curious.

Jn 4:28–30 The woman therefore left her water jar behind, so that she could run more quickly and lightly to tell her own people what happy and favorable thing had befallen her, and went into the city and said to the men — her fellow citizens: "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done — the whole course of my life, which he could not have known humanly. Surely this is the Christ?" The holy Fathers attribute it to her prudence that, while she believed he was the Christ, she affirmed it as a question rather than as a declaration. She did not wish to appear as the author of her own opinion, so that they might be led to faith by themselves — having been too little impressed by the assertion of an uneducated and disreputable woman on such a great matter. She understood beyond doubt that if only they would hear Jesus, they would feel the same about him as she did. To anyone of duller mind who could not recognize who and how great he was, she points out that her life had been revealed to them by Christ, so that by this means she might attract them to come to him. They therefore went out of the city and came to him.

Jn 4:31–34 Meanwhile the disciples urged him, saying: "Rabbi, eat" — from the food they had brought. For they knew he was wearied from the journey and needed food to restore his strength. But he said to them: "I have food to eat of which you do not know" — food of another kind, by which the spiritual hunger, or the desire of my soul, is satisfied by my conversation and the salvation of men. For the Hebrews used to call "food" that by which a desire is satisfied — as in Psalm 19: "Your testimonies are more desirable than gold and precious stones, and sweeter than honey and the honeycomb." The disciples therefore said to one another: "Has someone brought him food to eat? Has someone ministered food to him in our absence and without our knowledge?" Jesus said to them: "My food is to do the will of him who sent me — my Father — and to accomplish his work committed to me, namely the salvation of men, both through the preaching on which I am engaged and through the Passion by which it will be consummated."

Jn 4:35 "Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, and the harvest will come' — there remains a four-month interval before the harvest? Behold, I say to you: Lift up your eyes — not of the body only, but of the soul — not only to bodily fields but to spiritual ones — to the nearby city of the Samaritans, to cities and towns, not of the Jews only but of all nations — and see the regions, for they are already white for harvest." With God preparing, anticipating, and aiding the spiritual harvest, men are now ready to receive my Gospel. Now therefore one must labor at their conversion and instruction, just as fields are reaped when they turn golden. And he who reaps receives his reward from the lord of the harvest. Therefore devote yourselves to preaching and teaching as good farmers, for after the harvest you will receive your reward, and you will secure eternal happiness both for yourselves and for those whom you convert to God. "And he gathers fruit to eternal life, so that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together."

The sowers are the Patriarchs, the Prophets, John the Baptist, who sowed the seeds of the Gospel; Christ himself, who sowed good seed in his field, and through the supply of the Spirit gives the increase. The reapers are the Apostles and apostolic men. But the sowers and reapers of the spiritual harvest will rejoice together in eternal life. "For in this is that saying true" — most true is that common proverb — "that one sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap what you have not labored for; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors." The field was broken up by the Prophets, who stirred men to the worship of God and to the reform of morals not only in Judea but also throughout the various dispersions among the Gentiles by voice and writing — which is the seed of the Gospel harvest. But you have entered into the field labored by them, to complete what they began.

Jn 4:39–42 Now many of the Samaritans of that city believed in him because of the word of the woman bearing witness: "He told me everything I have ever done." They believed on account of the woman's testimony that her deeds had been revealed to her by Jesus. For they rightly judged that knowing hidden things was something divine, and that he who, knowing those things, claimed to be the promised Christ, was the true God. For it is not likely that the Samaritan woman had kept silent about this to her fellow citizens. When the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay there — or lodge with them — and he stayed there, that is in the city, for two days, during which he taught them. And far more believed in him because of his own word — Jesus's own word. And they said to the woman: "It is no longer because of your speech — your word alone, nor chiefly — that we believe this is the Messiah; for we ourselves have heard from his own mouth and know with firm conviction that this is truly the Savior of the world" — not of Israel alone but of all nations. By this they confess that all men are subject to sin, and therefore in need of a Redeemer and Mediator — as the Apostle later wrote: "All have sinned... being justified freely by his grace." By saying they understood him to be the Savior of the world, they meant the author of salvation not for those who are lost only briefly but permanently. In this, moreover, they are more admirable for having believed without miracles. What and how much Christ said to the Samaritans the Evangelist does not record, but he demonstrates the fruit of his discourses in that city.