Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 4:18
For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.
18. five husbands ] To be understood quite literally. They were either dead or divorced, and she was now living with a man without being married to him.
in that saidst thou truly ] Better, this (one thing) thou hast said truly. Christ exposes the falsehood which lurks in the literal truth of her statement.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Hast had five husbands – Who have either died; or who, on account of your improper conduct, have divorced you; or whom you have left improperly, without legal divorce. Either of these might have be. en the case.
Is not thy husband – You are not lawfully married to him. Either she might have left a former husband without divorce, and thus her marriage with this man was unlawful, or she was living with him without the form of marriage, in open guilt.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 18. Thou hast had five husbands] It is not clear that this woman was a prostitute: she might have been legally married to those five, and might have been divorced through some misbehaviour of her own, not amounting to adultery; for the adulteress was to be put to death, both by the Jewish and Samaritan law, not divorced: or she might have been cast off through some caprice of her husband; for, in the time of our Lord, divorces were very common among the Jews, so that a man put away his wife for any fault. See Clarke on Mt 5:31. Some are so very fond of exaggerating that nothing can pass through their hands without an increase: hence Heracleon says she had six husbands, and Jerome modestly gives her twenty-two! Viginti duos habuisti maritos, et ille a quo sepelieris non est tuus. “Thou hast had twenty-two husbands and he by whom thou shalt be buried is not thine.” Epist. xi.
He whom thou now hast is not thy husband] , . Bishop Pearce would translate this clause in the following manner: There is no husband whom thou now hast-or, less literally, Thou hast no husband now: probably the meaning is, Thou art contracted to another, but not yet brought home: therefore he is not yet thy husband. See Rosenmuller. Bishop Pearce contends that our Lord did not speak these words to her by way of reproof:
1. Because it is not likely that a woman so far advanced in years as to have had five husbands should have now been found living in adultery with a sixth person.
2. Because it is not likely that our Lord would not, in some part of his discourse, have reproved her for her fornication, especially if guilty of it under such gross circumstances.
3. Nor is it likely that a woman of so bad a life should have had so much influence with the people of her city that they should, on her testimony, Joh 4:39-42, believe Jesus to be the Messiah.
4. Nor is it at all likely that when a discovery of her guilt was made to her, by one whom she acknowledged to be a prophet, Joh 4:19, the first thing which came into her thoughts should be the important question in religion, about the place appointed by God for his worship, so warmly contested between the Jews and Samaritans.
5. Nor is it at all probable that a person of such a bad life, without any mentioned sign of repentance, should have been the first (perhaps the only private person) to whom Jesus is recorded as declaring himself to be the Christ, as he does to her, Joh 4:26.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
He tells her, that she had had five husbands; whether successively, the former being dead, and she marrying another, or five from whom she had been divorced for adultery, is not agreed; the best modern interpreters judge, that she had had five men to whom she had been in marriage, but so behaved herself toward them, that either for her adultery, or some other froward behaviour towards them, they had given her a bill of divorce; and though she now used and lived with one as her husband, yet in this she said truly, because, her former husbands yet living, he was not her husband. This seemeth more properly the sense, than that after five legal husbands death, she lived in whoredom with a sixth person. By this discovery, our Saviour both bringeth her to the sense of her sin, and also to an acknowledgment of him as the Messiah.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
For thou hast had five husbands,…. Which she either had had lawfully, and had buried one after another; and which was no crime, and might be: the Sadducees propose a case to Christ, in which a woman is said to have had seven husbands successively, in a lawful manner, Mt 22:25. Or rather, she had had so many, and had been divorced from everyone of them, for adultery; for no other cause it should seem did the Samaritans divorce; seeing that they only received the law of Moses, and rejected, at least, many of the traditions of the elders; and since they are particularly said y
“not to be expert in the law of marriages and divorces:”
and the rather this may seem to be the case, as Dr. Lightfoot observes; since these husbands are mentioned, as well as he with whom she lived in an adulterous manner; and which suggests, that she had not lived honestly with them:
and he whom thou now hast, is not thy husband; that is, not thy lawful husband, as the Persic version reads, and Nonnus paraphrases; being not married to him at all, though they cohabited as man and wife, when there was no such relation between them:
in that saidst thou truly; or that which is truth: thus Christ the omniscient God, who knew her full well, and the whole of her past infamous conversation, and her present lewd and wicked way of living, exposes all unto her.
y T. Bab. Kiddushin, fol 76. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
1) “For thou hast had five husbands;- (pente gar andras esches) “For you have had five husbands,” in a legal, marital way.
2)“And he whom thou now hast is not thy husband:” (kai nun on echeis ouk estin sou aner) “And now, the one with whom you are cohabiting is not your husband,” in a legal, moral, or ethical sense, in your flagrant manner of a live in way at this time.
3) “In that saidest thou truly.” (touto alethes eirekas) “This that you have said is truly your situation.”
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(18) In that saidst thou truly.The stroke goes deeper. It lays bare the secrets of all those years over which she thought the veil of the past had for ever been drawn. The bright days of joy and dark days of sin; the hearts promises made and broken; the sad days of death, which five times over had robbed her of a husband; or, worse than death, the sin which had severed the sacred bonds; the shame of the present shameless lifeall these are at least hidden from a stranger. But His words pierce to the inmost thoughts, and prove Him to know all the acts of her life (Joh. 4:29). Thou hast well said, A husband I have not. The holy name may not be given to the paramour thou now hast; with the loss of purity is linked the loss of truthfulness; the very truth thou utterest is meant to convey to Me an untruth, but to One who knows all, the words are really true;in that saidst thou truly.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
18. Five not thy husband The Evangelist does not state the emotions of the woman now. But her own language, (Joh 4:29,) “he told me all things that ever I did,” shows that at Jesus’s words her whole life’s history of guilt rises up so vividly to her view, that she verily believes that it was he who told her the whole! So it is said that men in the instant of drowning have seen at a glance, as in a picture, the whole of their lives, coexisting, as it were, before the mind at once.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Joh 4:18. He whom thou now hast, is not thy husband: This can imply no less than that she wasnot married to the man she now lived with; for Christ seems to have allowed the other five to have been husbands, though her separation fromsome of the former, and her marriage with the rest, had probably been unlawful.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
18 For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.
Ver. 18. He whom thou now hast, &c. ] Here he comes home to her conscience; so must all that will do good on it, striving not so much to please as to profit. Bees are killed with honey but quickened with vinegar. The eagle, though she love her young ones dearly, yet she pricketh and beateth them out of the nest: so must preachers drive men out of the nest of pleasure. John Speiser, preacher at Augsburg in Germany, did his work so well at first, that the common strumpets left the brothel houses (then tolerated) and betook themselves to a better course, A.D. 1523. Yet afterwards he revolted to the Papists and miserably perished. (Sculler. Annal. 118.)
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
18. ] There was literal truth, but no more, in the woman’s answer: and the Lord, by His divine knowledge, detects the hidden falsehood of it. Notice it is , not : this one word was true: further shewn by the emphatic position of in our Lord’s answer.
. ] These five were certainly lawful husbands; they are distinguished from the sixth, who was not; probably the woman had been separated from some by divorce (the law of which was but loose among the Samaritans), from some by death, or perhaps by other reasons more or less discreditable to her character, which had now become degraded into that of an openly licentious woman. The conviction of sin here lies beneath the surface: it is not pressed, nor at the moment does it seem to have worked deeply, for she goes on with the conversation with apparent indifference to it; but our Lord’s words in Joh 4:25-26 would tend to infix it more deeply, and we find at Joh 4:29 , that it had been working during her journey back to the city.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
in. Omit.
truly = true. See note on Joh 8:33 and App-175.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
18.] There was literal truth, but no more, in the womans answer: and the Lord, by His divine knowledge, detects the hidden falsehood of it. Notice it is , not : this one word was true: further shewn by the emphatic position of in our Lords answer.
. ] These five were certainly lawful husbands; they are distinguished from the sixth, who was not;-probably the woman had been separated from some by divorce (the law of which was but loose among the Samaritans),-from some by death,-or perhaps by other reasons more or less discreditable to her character, which had now become degraded into that of an openly licentious woman. The conviction of sin here lies beneath the surface: it is not pressed, nor at the moment does it seem to have worked deeply, for she goes on with the conversation with apparent indifference to it; but our Lords words in Joh 4:25-26 would tend to infix it more deeply, and we find at Joh 4:29, that it had been working during her journey back to the city.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Joh 4:18. , five) Five marriage connexions embraced almost the whole life of the woman; and by the mention of them He clearly recalled to the recollection of the woman her whole life.-) He means husbands, as is evident from the subsequent antithesis. Whether they all died, or whether the woman lost some of them by other ways also, her own conscience, stirred up by the Lord, was suggesting.- , is not) This sixth marriage was not a lawful one, or else not consummated; either desertion, or some other impediment, arising from one or other of the two parties, had occurred to prevent it. The woman is not at all said to have renounced the man, at Joh 4:28.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 4:18
Joh 4:18
for thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: this hast thou said truly.-This with his former speech and demeanor impressed her that he possessed more than human knowledge. He shows his knowledge of her past and present life and lays bare her present sinful state.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
is not: Gen 20:3, Gen 34:2, Gen 34:7, Gen 34:8, Gen 34:31, Num 5:29, Rth 4:10, Jer 3:20, Eze 16:32, Mar 10:12, Rom 7:3, 1Co 7:10, 1Co 7:11, Heb 13:4
Reciprocal: Eze 16:35 – O harlot Joh 4:16 – Go Joh 4:29 – General Rom 11:20 – Well
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
8
In this verse Jesus gave the reason for verifying the woman’s statement in the preceding verse. This has been a stumbling block for many who have been in confusion over the Biblical position on the marriage relation. The only marriage “ceremony” that God ever gave for the institution is the fleshly union of one male with one female. That law is stated in Gen 2:24, and verified by Jesus in Mat 19:5; Mar 10:6-9, and by Paul in Eph 5:31. But the objector says this woman was thus joined to the sixth man, yet Jesus said he was not her husband. That is because the laws of man came in and required certain ceremonial regulations before a union would be recognized as legal. While the Lord did not originate this ruling, yet He recognized it, and requires his creatures to obey it.
The confusion is caused largely by the term “husband,” which is a legal one and not a natural one, and has been used by the translators to distinguish between a man who has complied with the legal regulations for marriage, and one who merely has relations with a woman without having done so. The terms “husband” and “man” are from the one Greek word ANER, and mean the same as far as the language is concerned. “Husband” is the wrong word to emphasize in this passage, for the word “man” would be as correct a translation as the other. So that, it would be just as correct for the verse to be translated, “Thou hast had five men; and he whom thou now hast is not thy man.” All of these persons were men, but the one the woman was living with was not hers, because they had not complied with the laws of the land that would give her legal possession of this man. So if the reader will place the emphasis on the words “had” and “hast,” which is where it belongs, showing ownership, he will be saved the confusion so prevalent over this subject. (See also my comments on Mat 19:5-6.)
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.
[Thou hast had five husbands, etc.] christ stops her fleering mouth with the dung of her own unchaste conversation, charging her with that infamous sort of life she had hitherto lived: q.d. “Thou, for thy impudent adulteries, hast suffered divorce from five husbands already; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband, but an adulterer.”
The Cuthites do not understand the law about betrothings and divorcings. They had their customs of affiancing and divorcing; and perhaps by how much the less accurate they were about their divorces, (I mean with respect to the Jewish rules,) the nearer they might come to the first institution of Moses, who allowed no divorces but in the case of adultery. That this woman was dismissed from her husbands for these infamous faults of hers, seems evident, partly, from the extraordinary number of husbands, partly, that our Saviour mentions her husbands, as well as him that then lived adulterously with her: as if he would intimate, that she lived dishonestly under her husbands, as well as with this man.
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
Joh 4:18. For thou hast had five husbands. The five were no doubt lawful husbands, from whom she had been separated either by death or by divorce.
And he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: this thou hast said truly. In contrast with the lawful marriages is set the present unlawful union with one who was no husband. Her life was sinful: in what degree we cannot learn from this brief statement. An age in which divorce was freely allowed cannot be judged by the same rules as one of stricter principles. Whatever may have led her to an evil life, it is plain that her heart was not yet hardened.