Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 4:27
And upon this came his disciples, and marveled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her?
27. talked with the woman ] Rather, was talking with a woman, contrary to the precepts of the Rabbis. ‘Let no one talk with a woman in the street, no not with his own wife.’ The woman’s being a Samaritan would increase their astonishment.
What seekest thou? ] Probably both questions are addressed (hypothetically) to Christ; not one to the woman, and the other to Him.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Upon this – At this time.
Marvelled – Wondered. They wondered because the Jews had no contact with the Samaritans, and they were surprised that Jesus was engaged with her in conversation.
Yet no man said – No one of the disciples. They had such respect and reverence for him that they did not dare to ask him the reason of his conduct, or even to appear to reprove him. We should be confident that Jesus is right, even if we cannot fully understand all that he does.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Joh 4:27-42
And upon this
Sowing and reaping
I.
WITH A SOLITARY PUPIL.
1. Face-to-face work (Joh 4:27, Joh 1:42-43; Joh 1:47; Joh 21:16; Act 3:4; Act 9:5).
2. The converts message (Joh 4:29; Mat 9:31; Mar 5:20; Mar 7:36; Joh 1:41; Joh 1:45; Joh 9:25).
3. The dawning conviction (Joh 4:29; Mat 14:33; Mat 27:54; Mark Joh 6:69; Joh 20:28; Act 9:20).
II. WITH A GROUP OF DISCIPLES.
1. Correcting misapprehensions (Joh 4:34; Mat 5:17; Mat 5:22; Mat 5:29; Mar 12:27; Luk 13:2-3; Joh 9:3; Gal 6:7).
2. Indicating labour (Joh 4:35; Ecc 9:10; Mat 10:6; Mat 20:4; Mat 28:19; Mar 16:15; 1Co 1:17).
3. Extending inducements (Joh 4:36; Dan 12:3; Mat 10:22, Mar 9:41; Rev 2:7; Rev 2:10).
III. WITH A CITYS POPULATION.
1. Commended in the city (Joh 4:39; Act 8:5; Act 8:40; Act 9:27; Act 11:19; Act 14:6-7 Rom 1:15).
2. Honoured by the city (Joh 4:40; Joh 3:5; Mat 8:34; Mat 21:10; Mar 1:33; Mar 6:56; Act 14:13).
3. Accepted by a city (Joh 4:42; Mat 9:35; Act 2:43; Act 8:8; Act 13:44; Act 18:10; Rev 21:23). (Sunday School Times.)
Sowing and reaping
I. CONFIDENCE IN CHRIST (Joh 4:27-30).
1. On the part of the apostles, who kept silence at the strange communion. They witnessed the power of Christ to awaken new life within the soul. Further on they knew better, but as yet they were caste-bound Jews. In view of their ancient prejudices, their silence is much to their credit. The Master may be always trusted to do right. Let us not question.
2. On the part of the woman. Not simply that she felt that her water-pot would be safe, but in her Saviour. The ground of this trust was Christs knowledge of the secret life (Dan 2:28-30; Dan 2:47). History is full of such proofs of Christs Divinity. He who looks within the Gospel sees his own heart mirrored. Truly this is the book of God.
II. THE SOULS TRUE NATURE (Joh 4:31-34).
1. Man shall not live by bread alone (Mat 3:4).
2. Noble souls are fed by the simple consciousness of doing good. The patriot, mother, wife, student, missionary have forgotten hunger.
3. The best way to lift a soul above temptation is to fill it with a worthy aspiration. An empty soul is a standing invitation to the roving spirits of evil. The music of Orpheus is a surer guard than the wax of Ulysses in the ears.
4. The noblest purpose that can occupy a soul is to do Gods will and finish His work.
III. THE COPARTNERSHIP OF THE HARVEST. (Joh 4:35-38).
1. There is always an interval between seed-time and harvest.
(1) In nature. With some plants the time is less, with some more. Life, events, great thoughts, deeds, characters, are growths. A great man is the product of centuries. The present is born of the past. Impatience to reap ere the seed has matured has wrought many a barren harvest. No amount of fretting or driving will force a harvest.
(2) In the spiritual world. Here the harvest is always ripe. The foregoing ages have prepared for their successors.
2. There is a fellowship in toil and fruitage between the dead and the living. The influence of the dead is continuous. Their works do follow them.
3. No man liveth to himself. One supplements anothers toil. Joseph needed a Moses; Moses a Joshua; Joshua a Samuel; Samuel on the one hand a David, and on the other Elijah and the prophets. All these were perfected in Christ. How this should sweep away bigotry and encourage charity!
4. Our responsibility to the past and the future.
(1) The past has claims upon us. If we would reap the good seed our fathers sowed we must nurture the crop that has sprung therefrom. Creeds, etc., are not to be dealt with ruthlessly.
(2) The future has claims upon us. Posterity never did anything for me, says the sneerer. But it can do much by giving you a noble purpose Supposing your predecessors had thus argued! In sowing, let us think that we are sowing for ever, and not for present use alone.
5. The community of sower and reaper in wages.
(1) The dark side. If the sowing be evil, so will be the wages. What a harvest of woe Israel reaped, and Babylon, Egypt, and Rome, and France.
(2) The bright side–in both worlds.
IV. TESTIMONY AND EXPERIENCE (verses 39-42).
1. How readily the woman became a missionary!
(1) Home, in that she carried the gospel to her own people.
(2) Foreign, because those people were outside the pale of the true Israel.
2. The genuineness of the faith and grace of the Samaritan believers is seen in that their belief on good testimony led them to believe on good experience. (H. C. McCook, D. D.)
Sowing and reaping
I. THE GREAT TEACHER, AS HE AVAILS HIMSELF OF AN INSIGNIFICANT AND UNPROMISING OPPORTUNITY. The disciples marvelled at His doing what was beneath a Rabbis dignity. The same spirit interposed between Christ and little children. The woman, moreover, was a despised, hated, and ignorant Samaritan.
1. This was unpromising ground, but Jesus did not consider it beneath His notice.
2. In this unpromising soil He sows the best seed. An audience of one was not too small to call forth His richest treasures of truth.
3. Here is an example for every teacher. Wesley remembered his father saying to his mother, How could you have the patience to tell that blockhead the same thing twenty times over? Because if I had only told him nineteen times I should have lost all my labour.
4. Never mind if your seed falls by the wayside: a bird may carry it elsewhere.
II. THE DELIGHT OF THE TEACHER IN HIS WORK. He has sources of refreshment unknown to the disciples. He would rather work than eat.
1. No one can do his work well until he has learned to enjoy it.
2. The delight of labour is not only in that part of it which is interesting and agreeable. A teacher of imbecile children had one boy of five who had never spoken or given an intelligent look. He lay beside the child for half an hour every day, reading aloud, and watching eagerly for any volition. At length, being utterly weary, he did not read. The child began to be uneasy, and then, alter repeated efforts, the child placed his fingers on the teachers lips, as much as to say: Make that sound again. After a time the boy was taught to walk, and speak, and think.
III. THE GREAT SOWER EXPECTING A SPEEDY HARVEST. Men are too prone not to look for an early reaping, and so sometimes miss the harvest. We sow with too little hope. Four months, said the disciples. Now, said the Master. Expectancy is needful for courage and patience. Always look for near results. Do not pull up the stalk to see if it has taken root, but watch, and wait, and believe.
IV. THE DISPROPORTOINATENESS OF THE HARVEST. The audience and time were seemingly unfavourable–the result was that many believed.
1. The woman heard and heeded. Then she ran, as did the woman from the empty tomb, to tell those nearest.
2. All barriers were broken down. They believed not only because He spoke as never man spoke, but because He spoke the truth they needed.
3. God alone gives the increase, but He does so to the feeblest efforts. (Sermons by the Monday Club.)
A fourfold theme
I. PREJUDICE CREATING WONDER. The disciples had never examined the question as to the inferiority of women for themselves.
II. REVERENCE LIMITING INQUIRY. Though not understanding or deeming it improper, they did not dare to question. Genuine reverence will not allow the intellect to interrogate the Almighty, but recognizes the infinite disparity between the thoughts and ways of God and those of men. It becomes us to be humble listeners rather than busy critics.
III. CHRISTIANITY WORKING IN LIFE. Mark how faith worked in the woman.
1. Emotionally. The more Divine our feeling the less our care for worldly things.
2. Proselytingly. Her strong desire made her a blessed missionary.
3. Religiously. She knew that Christ had sounded the depths of her history.
4. Influentially. Real earnestness wields a magic wand.
IV. MAN FEASTING ON THE INVISIBLE.
1. A common natural fact–the influence of the emotions on the physical appetite.
2. The rare moral fact–the consciousness of acting in harmony with the Divine will, creating forgetfulness to bodily need. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
The Samaritan woman and her mission
1. Christ, with divinely skilful art, seeks after a single soul. We must have large congregations or we are disinclined for soul winning.
2. See the skill which compassion taught Him. Souls yield not to force, but to gentleness and wisdom.
3. The disciples marvel because Christ talked with a woman, a Samaritan, a sinner.
4. How could they do so after Christ had chosen them? It is sad when saved ones affect super-fine spirituality and turn away from such as Jesus would have welcomed.
5. In consequence of their interruption one of the sweetest conferences ever held was broken up. No breakers of communion are more blameable or frequent than Christs disciples when out of sympathy with their Master.
6. Although the conference was broken up it was over-ruled for good. Since the woman cannot contemplate Christ nor hear Him, she will give herself to holy activity. Driven away from sitting like Mary at the Masters feet, let us rise to play the worker. When you are taken out of your usual course by a jerk, the Lord has special work for you to do.
7. The woman now becomes a messenger for Christ. From conference to testimony.
8. She leaves her waterpot
(1) For speed.
(2) Perhaps her errand has made her forgetful; just as our Lord forgot His hunger in seeking her soul.
(3) Without thought she hit upon as good an action as thought would have suggested. The waterpot may have been useful to Christ.
(4) It was a pledge of her return.
9. Observe particularly her mode of address.
(1) Her one aim was to bring the people to Christ. She said nothing about their sins, nor did she try to reform them. She called them to one who could set them right.
(2) She was very earnest.
(3) She was self-forgetful. If you have been a great sinner be ashamed of it, hut do not be ashamed of the love which saved you. Never mind what people think–testify, and only look to what they will think of Jesus for having forgiven you.
(4) She was brief. If women preached just as long as she did no one could find fault with them.
(5) She was vivacious–almost as laconic as Caesar. I came, I saw, etc.
(6) She was sensible. She did not say that Jesus was the Christ, but suggested it with great modesty for the men to examine.
(7) Her argument was exceedingly strong–drawn from herself and adapted to the men. Let us look at the womans whole message.
I. THE INVITATION.
1. It was a clever, as well as a genuine and hearty invitation. Come, see, was putting it most fairly, and men like a fair proposal. This is Christs own word to His first disciples, and they used it when pleading with others.
2. It threw the responsibility on them. I may preach the gospel to you, but I cannot go to Christ in your stead.
3. It was pleasantly put, so as to prove the sympathy of the speaker–not go, but come. A sisters heart spoke in that word.
4. What a blessed vanishing of the speaker there is! Preaching is spoiled by self-consciousness. The fish knows little about the angler, but he knows when he has swallowed the hook.
II. THE ARGUMENT.
1. The argument lies concealed. The woman does not argue the point. If Jesus be the Christ, then you should come with me and see Him, because she is persuaded that the people have agreed to it. You are not so practical as these people. You believe that Jesus is the Christ; why then dont you believe in Him as your Saviour?
2. What she did argue was this–this man, is He not the Christ? because
(1) He has revealed me unto myself. Were you ever out in a black night when a single lightning flash has come? It has only smitten one oak, but it has revealed the landscape. So when the Lord showed one point in the womans history He showed all. No one proves himself truly anointed unless he begins by showing you your sins.
(2) He has revealed Himself to me.
(3) She seemed to say–This is more to me than it can be to you, for He has dealt personally with me; therefore I abide in my assurance that He is the Christ; but go and learn for yourselves.
(4) You may come, I know, for He received me. I was at home with Him in a moment. Conclusion: If you do not come to Christ for salvation, you will have to come to Him for judgment. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The mission of the woman
I. HOW MARVELLOUS IN THE EYES OF MEN ARE CHRISTS DEALINGS WITH SOULS.
1. The feeling of the disciples does not stand alone in the Bible (Lu Act 9:26; Act 12:16).
2. This feeling is common now.
3. If there was more real faith there would be less surprise at conversions Mat 11:25; Mar 6:6).
II. HOW ABSORBING IS THE INFLUENCE OF GRACE WHEN IT FIRST COMES INTO A SINNERS HEART (verse 28).
1. We see the expulsive power of the grace of the Holy Ghost, driving out old tastes and interests (Mat 9:9; Mar 1:19; Act 9:20).
2. This conduct is uncommon in the present day. Why? Because so few really feel their sins and flee to Christ.
III. HOW ZEALOUS A TRULY CONVERTED PERSON IS TO DO GOOD TO OTHERS (verses 28, 29).
1. She employed no abstruse argument in favour of our Lords claims.
2. Out of the abundance of her heart her mouth spoke
(1) Urgently.
(2) Simply.
(3) Experimentally. (Bp. Ryle.)
Gospel work in Sychar
I. THE GLORY OF ALL TRUE USEFULNESS BELONGS TO CHRIST (Joh 4:27). The woman is nameless, and nothing else is known of her.
II. COMMONPLACE SELF-DENIAL AN EVIDENCE OF GRACE (Joh 4:28). To leave a waterpot for a thirsty disciple better sometimes than the bequest of a fortune. Simon made a feast for Jesus, but the woman with the alabaster box showed more generosity.
III. THE NEAREST FIELD OF USEFULNESS IS OFTEN THE BEST (Joh 4:28). She knew the prejudices of the city and the great shock they would receive. But this was the field closest to hand. Many people spend half a lifetime in looking for their vocation, whereas God is always saying, Begin at home Mar 5:19).
IV. WOMEN ARE SOMETIMES MORE USEFUL THAN MEN. They have more tact, fervency, fortitude.
V. THE PRIVILEGE OF HIM THAT HEARETH IS THAT HE MAY SAY COME (verse 29). The Greek is an adverb of beckoning, a gesture of language, Hither. Let no one hesitate for addresses or acts. He who temporizes will be like Demas; he who calculates like Ananias; he who covets like Achan; but he who gives himself wholly to Christs service will say, Come and see.
VI. REVELATION OF ONES SINS THE CLEAREST EVIDENCE OF JESUS NEARNESS.
VII. NO GREAT TALENT NEEDED IN ORDER TO DO GOOD (verse 30). It is piety, not education, spirituality and experience, not culture or learning which God uses in the conversion of souls.
VIII. THE SUREST MEANS OF PERSONAL GROWTH IS PATIENT LABOUR FOR THE GROWTH OF OTHERS (verses 31-36).
IX. DIVISION OF LABOUR ESSENTIAL FOR THE WORK OF THE GOSPEL (verse 37). Some cannot preach like Whitefield; who can write letters like Harlan Page. Ingatherings are the result, often, not of preaching but prayers.
X. THE TRUTHS OF THE GOSPEL COME TO US BETTER BY EXPERIENCE THAN TESTIMONY. (verses 39-41). If any man will do His will, etc.
XI. THE BEST MEMORIAL OF ANY ONE IS FOUND IN THE SOULS HE HAS WON (verse 42). The Empress Helenas church has perished, the memory of the woman and her work has made the well immortal. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
Upon this came His disciples and marvelled yet no man said, What seekest Thou?
Moments of silence
I. Sacred story records many CRISIS-HOURS OF THRILLING INTEREST. Eli trembling for the ark; David trembling for the fate of Absalom.
II. WHO OF US HAS NOT KNOWN SIMILAR SEASONS?
1. When the telegraph has flashed the message of a distant bereavement; when we have watched an approaching dissolution.
2. Or to take the converse of these, a birth; a return; the first success in business; the triumph of an honourable ambition. These are like the illi dies of the old Roman, days marked with white or black chalk, symbols of joy or sorrow.
3. But what season can be compared to the crisis-hour of a souls conversion; what day so worthy to be marked with the white chalk of gladness?
III. SUCH SEASONS THRILL THE SPIRIT INTO SILENCE.
1. Is it a time of overpowering sorrow? The word expresses our meaning; the lips refuse to tell out the secrets of the dumb-stricken heart.
2. Is it some joyful occasion? Joy has its stunning moment, and holds fast the flood-gates of speech.
3. Such is the picture before us. The disciples have just come up. They hear the last most momentous words. And now not a word is uttered. All three parties are spell bound; the woman a moment before so garrulous; the disciples with all their curiosity; the Master more than all.
IV. The great lesson of the incident is THE DUTY OF SILENCE UNDER THE DIVINE DISPENSATIONS.
1. Often, like the disciples, we hays reason to marvel at the Lords doings. Providence often seems a dark enigma. Gods name is Secret, and blind unbelief is prone to ask, What seekest Thou? in the sudden ruin el business prospects; the pillaging of dearer household treasure; the breaking of the strong staff.
2. But the duty, the prerogative, the triumph of faith is to be silent, owning the faithfulness of God as David, I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because Thou didst it; as Aaron who, under a deeper trial, held his peace; as our Lord who, was oppressed, afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth.
3. This duty is often inculcated (Psa 37:7 (marg.), 62:1; Zec 2:13; Hab 2:1-3).
4. Blessed it will be for us if, amid frowning providences instead of questioning, we are ready to hear the voice of the invisible saying, Hold thee still and know that I am God. The dutiful servant asks no reason of his master; nor the loyal soldier of his commander; the faithful workman asks no reason for those rude gashes in the quarry; he is content to wait till its sculptor fashions the unshapely block into symmetry. (J. R.Macduff, D. D.)
The seclusion of Oriental women
The privilege of free speech with a woman is only accorded, in the East, to the most intimate friends of the family, who are privileged to see her face unveiled. Niebuhr, travelling in Arabia, and meeting a woman by the way, saluted her with the customary formula of Arabian politeness: Salamu alaykum, Peace be upon you; but, to his astonishment, he received no response, the woman turning her back at once upon him. The reason of this proceeding became clear to Niebuhr when his Arabian companions expressed displeasure, and informed him that to address a woman by the way was a grievous insult to her. When Burton retails his piquant conversations with the Abyssinian slave-girls in Egypt, it is to be borne in mind that he is speaking of the slave-market, where men and women are treated like oxen; and that slave-girls, though they have not the rights of the free woman, are also free from many of the restrictions imposed upon her. In general, it may be said that the old rule of the Rabbins is still in force in the East; speech with a woman on the street is a grievous scandal. (S. S. Times.)
Jewish prejudice against women
A Rabbinical prejudice prevailed to the effect that woman is not capable of profound religious instruction: Do not prolong conversation with a woman; let no one converse with a woman in the street, not even with his own wife; rather burn the sayings of the law than teach them to women. (F. Godet, D. D.)
The test of friendship
Even those whom we love and honour, and with whom our relations are peculiarly intimate, are likely to do things which we cannot at the time fully understand or account for. Then it is that our friendship is tested, and that it can show itself at its truest and best. A friend can be trusted even when he cannot be understood. A real friend will trust even when he does not understand. Nor does a friend always want to ask what or why when he is in doubt as to a loved ones conduct–which does not bear on his possible duty to that loved one. Peculiarly is it true that our Saviours course, even in His dealings with ourselves, is not always understood by us. We must trust Him because we know Him, even while we do not know just what He is doing, and why, in His loving control of our interests and of His own. (H. C. Trumbull, D. D.)
The reticence of the disciples
Although the hesitancy of the disciples to ask Jesus why He spoke with the woman, was due to their reverence for His character, and their trust in Him, rather than their fear of Him as their Master, yet it is to be noted that their silence was eminently Oriental. Let a high official do anything, however foolish or however unjust, and his servants will stand by impassively, giving no sign that they notice that anything unusual is taking place. After the Indian mutiny, it was remarked by many of the English officers that their body servants, who must have been aware of what was about to happen, not only gave no sign of their knowledge, but bore supercilious, and in some instances unjust, treatment from their masters without changing their attitude of impassive docility, or giving other evidence that their day of vengeance was about to dawn. Of course, when this impassive obsequiousness gets a chance to avenge itself, it does so with an excess of Oriental vindictiveness which an Occidental can hardly understand. Let the balance of power be suddenly changed, and the slavish inferiors who before cringed in the presence of their tyrant, will tread him in the dust with savage joy. (S. S. Times.)
Christs treatment of the waifs and strays
A certain painter was once employed to adorn a window in one of our national cathedrals, a work which he did with credit and skill. The artist, however, had an ingenious inventive apprentice, who picked up and preserved all the bits of glass that were nipped off and thrown away as useless. But out of these rejected pieces–so runs the story–he constructed a window of such exquisite beauty as to command greater attention and win heal-tier applause than that designed by the master artist. Thus the Scribes and Pharisees of Judaism, the poets and philosophers of Gentilism, the renowned builders of social fabric, had been constructing their imposing temples out of the best men and chastest women of their respective ages and countries; the slaves, the harlots, the publicans, had been contemptuously rejected, and trampled upon as worthless refuse. At last Jesus Christ appeared; He fixed His kind, compassionate eyes on the huge heap of human rubbish; He associated with the offscouring of society; and lo! He built a grander temple and made more beautiful windows than the world had ever beheld before, out of the soiled characters rejected by the architects and builders of states and churches as vile, noxious offal. The woman of Samaria, the woman who was a sinner, Mary Magdalene, how attractively the light of Divine grace streams down upon our world through their variegated histories. (J. Cynddylan Jones.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 27. Came his disciples] From the town, whither they went to buy food, Joh 4:8.
Marvelled that he talked with the woman] Because it was contrary to the custom of the eastern countries; and there are many canons, among the rabbins, against it. To the present time, if a man meet even his own wife in the street, he does not speak to her; and this is done to keep up the appearance of a chastity and temperance of which the eastern world knows nothing. They might wonder how a Samaritan, in whom they could expect no spirituality, could listen to the conversation of their Master, who never spake but about heavenly things.
Yet no man said, c.] They were awed by his majesty, and knew that he must have sufficient reasons to induce him to act a part to which he was not at all accustomed. A great man has said, “Converse sparingly, if at all, with women and never alone.” Every minister of the Gospel will do well to attend to this advice.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The disciples, as we heard before, were gone into the city Sichem to buy food, and were kept there by the providence of God till our Saviour had finished this discourse with the woman of Samaria, but came after the discourse was done. They
marvelled, possibly at his talking with a woman in the road, (a thing forbidden by their traditions), especially a woman of Samaria, with whom the Jews had no commerce. But yet they had so much reverence and respect for their Master, that they inquired not curiously into the matter or reason of his discourse.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
27. marvelled that he talked withthe womanIt never probably occurred to them to marvel that Hetalked with themselves; yet in His eye, as the sequel shows,He was quite as nobly employed. How poor, if not false, are many ofour most plausible estimates!
no man said . . . What? . . .Why?awed by the spectacle, and thinking there must besomething under it.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And upon this came his disciples,…. Just as he was saying the above words, and making himself known in this full manner, his disciples, who had been into the city to buy food, came up to them:
and marvelled that he talked with the woman; or with a woman; for, according to the Jewish canons, it was not judged decent, right, and proper, nor indeed lawful, to enter into a conversation, or hold any long discourse with a woman. Their rule is this,
“do not multiply discourse with a woman, with his wife they say, much less with his neighbour’s wife: hence the wise men say, at whatsoever time a man multiplies discourse with a woman, he is the cause of evil to himself, and ceases from the words of the law, and at last shall go down into hell q.”
And especially this was thought to be very unseemly in any public place, as in an inn, or in the street: hence that direction r,
“let not a man talk with a woman in the streets, even with his wife; and there is no need to say with another man’s wife.”
And particularly it was thought very unbecoming a religious man, a doctor, or scholar, or a disciple of a wise man so to do. This is one of the six things which are a reproach to a scholar, “to talk with a woman in the street” s. And it is even said t,
“let him not talk with a woman in the street, though she is his wife, or his sister, or his daughter.”
And besides, the disciples might marvel, not only that he talked with a woman, but that he should talk with that woman, who was a Samaritan; since the Jews had no familiar conversation with Samaritans, men or women: and the woman was as much astonished that Christ should have anything to say to her, and especially to ask a favour of her; for though they might, and did converse in a way of trade and business, yet did they not multiply discourse, or enter into a free conversation with one another: and it may be, that the disciples might overhear what he said to the woman, just as they came up; so that their astonishment was not merely at his talking with a woman, and with a Samaritan woman, but at what he said unto her, that he should so plainly tell her that he was the Messiah, when he so strictly charged them to tell no man.
Yet no man said; no, not Peter, as Nonnus observes, who was bold and forward to put and ask questions: “what seekest thou?” or inquirest of her about? is it food, or drink, or what? “or why talkest thou with her?” when it is not customary, seemly, and lawful. It may be considered, whether or no these two questions may not relate separately, the one to the woman, the other to Christ; as, the first,
what seekest thou? to the woman; and the sense be, that no man said to her, what do you want with our master? what are you inquiring about of him? what would you have of him? or what do you seek for from him? and the latter,
why talkest thou with her? peculiarly to Christ. The Arabic, Persic, and Ethiopic versions, and Beza’s ancient copy indeed read, “no man said to him”; which confines both the questions to Christ. Now this shows the reverence the disciples had for Christ, and the great opinion they entertained of him, that whatever he did was well, and wisely done, though it might seem strange to them, and they could not account for it: however, they did not think that he, who was their Lord and master, was accountable to them for what he did; and they doubted not but he had good reasons for his conduct.
q Pirke Abot, c. 1. sect. 5. Abot R, Nathan, c. 7. fol. 3. 3. & Derech Eretz, fol. 17. 3. r Bemidbar Rabba, sect 10. fol. 200. 2. s T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 43. 2. t Maimon. Hilch. Dayot, c. 5. sect. 7.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| Christ at the Well of Samaria. |
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27 And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her? 28 The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, 29 Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ? 30 Then they went out of the city, and came unto him. 31 In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. 32 But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. 33 Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat? 34 Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. 35 Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. 36 And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. 37 And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. 38 I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours. 39 And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did. 40 So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his own word; 42 And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.
We have here the remainder of the story of what happened when Christ was in Samaria, after the long conference he had with the woman.
I. The interruption given to this discourse by the disciples’ coming. It is probable that much more was said than is recorded; but just when the discourse was brought to a head, when Christ had made himself known to her as the true Messiah, then came the disciples. The daughters of Jerusalem shall not stir up nor awake my love till he please. 1. They wondered at Christ’s converse with this woman, marvelled that he talked thus earnestly (as perhaps they observed at a distance) with a woman, a strange woman alone (he used to be more reserved), especially with a Samaritan woman, that was not of the lost sheep of the house of Israel; they thought their Master should be as shy of the Samaritans as the other Jews were, at least that he should not preach the gospel to them. They wondered he should condescend to talk with such a poor contemptible woman, forgetting what despicable men they themselves were when Christ first called them into fellowship with himself. 2. Yet they acquiesced in it; they knew it was for some good reason, and some good end, of which he was not bound to give them an account, and therefore none of them asked, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her? Thus, when particular difficulties occur in the word and providence of God, it is good to satisfy ourselves with this in general, that all is well which Jesus Christ saith and doeth. Perhaps there was something amiss in their marveling that Christ talked with the woman: it was something like the Pharisees being offended at his eating with publicans and sinners. But, whatever they thought, they said nothing. If thou hast thought evil at any time, lay thy hand upon thy mouth, to keep that evil thought from turning into an evil word, Pro 30:32; Psa 39:1-3.
The notice which the woman gave to her neighbours of the extraordinary person she had happily met with, Joh 4:28; Joh 4:29. Observe here,
1. How she forgot her errand to the well, v. 28. Therefore, because the disciples were come, and broke up the discourse, and perhaps she observed they were not pleased with it, she went her way. She withdrew, in civility to Christ, that he might have leisure to eat his dinner. She delighted in his discourse, but would not be rude; every thing is beautiful in its season. She supposed that Jesus, when he had dined, would go forward in his journey, and therefore hastened to tell her neighbours, that they might come quickly. Yet a little while is the light with you. See how she improved time; when one good work was done, she applied herself to another. When opportunities of getting good cease, or are interrupted, we should seek opportunities of doing good; when we have done hearing the word, then is a time to be speaking of it. Notice is taken of her leaving her water-pot or pail. (1.) She left it in kindness to Christ, that he might have water to drink; he turned water into wine for others, but not for himself. Compare this with Rebecca’s civility to Abraham’s servant (Gen. xxiv. 18), and see that promise, Matt. x. 42. (2.) She left it that she might make the more haste into the city, to carry thither these good tidings. Those whose business it is to publish the name of Christ must not encumber or entangle themselves with any thing that will retard or hinder them therein. When the disciples are to be made fishers of men they must forsake all. (3.) She left her water-pot, as one careless of it, being wholly taken up with better things. Note, Those who are brought to the knowledge of Christ will show it by a holy contempt of this world and the things of it. And those who are newly acquainted with the things of God must be excused, if at first they be so taken up with the new world into which they are brought that the things of this world seem to be for a time wholly neglected. Mr. Hildersham, in one of his sermons on this verse, from this instance largely justifies those who leave their worldly business on week-days to go to hear sermons.
2. How she minded her errand to the town, for her heart was upon it. She went into the city, and said to the men, probably the aldermen, the men in authority, whom, it may be, she found met together upon some public business; or to the men, that is, to every man she met in the streets; she proclaimed it in the chief places of concourse: Come, see a man who told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? Observe,
(1.) How solicitous she was to have her friends and neighbours acquainted with Christ. When she had found that treasure, she called together her friends and neighbours (as Luke xv. 9), not only to rejoice with her, but to share with her, knowing there was enough to enrich herself and all that would partake with her. Note, They that have been themselves with Jesus, and have found comfort in him, should do all they can to bring others to him. Has he done us the honour to make himself known to us? Let us do him the honour to make him known to others; nor can we do ourselves a greater honour. This woman becomes an apostle. Qu scortum fuerat egressa, regreditur magistra evangelica–She who went forth a specimen of impurity returns a teacher of evangelical truth, saith Aretius. Christ had told her to call her husband, which she thought was warrant enough to call every body. She went into the city, the city where she dwelt, among her kinsfolks and acquaintance. Though every man is my neighbour that I have opportunity of doing good to, yet I have most opportunity, and therefore lie under the greatest obligations, to do good to those that live near me. Where the tree falls, there let it be made useful.
(2.) How fair and ingenuous she was in the notice she gave them concerning this stranger she had met with. [1.] She tells them plainly what induced her to admire him: He has told me all things that ever I did. No more is recorded than what he told her of her husbands; but it is not improbable that he had told her of more of her faults. Or, his telling her that which she knew he could not by any ordinary means come to the knowledge of convinced her that he could have told her all that she ever did. If he has a divine knowledge, it must be omniscience. He told her that which none knew but God and her own conscience. Two things affected her:–First, the extent of his knowledge. We ourselves cannot tell all things that ever we did (many things pass unheeded, and more pass away and are forgotten); but Jesus Christ knows all the thoughts, words, and actions, of all the children of men; see Heb. iv. 13. He hath said, I know thy works. Secondly, The power of his word. This made a great impression upon her, that he told her her secret sins with such an unaccountable power and energy that, being told of one, she is convinced of all, and judged of all. She does not say, “Come, see a man that has told me strange things concerning religious worship, and the laws of it, that has decided the controversy between this mountain and Jerusalem, a man that calls himself the Messias;” but, “Come see a man that has told me of my sins.” She fastens upon that part of Christ’s discourse which one would think she would have been most shy of repeating; but experimental proofs of the power of Christ’s word and Spirit are of all others the most cogent and convincing; and that knowledge of Christ into which we are led by the conviction of sin and humiliation is most likely to be sound and saving. [2.] She invites them to come and see him of whom she had conceived so high an opinion. Not barely, “Come and look upon him” (she does not invite them to him as a show), but, “Come and converse with him; come and hear his wisdom, as I have done, and you will be of my mind.” She would not undertake to manage the arguments which had convinced her, in such a manner as to convince others; all that see the evidence of truth themselves are not able to make others see it; but, “Come, and talk with him, and you will find such a power in his word as far exceeds all other evidence.” Note, Those who can do little else towards the conviction and conversion of others may and should bring them to those means of grace which they themselves have found effectual. Jesus was now at the town’s end. “Now come see him.” When opportunities of getting the knowledge of God are brought to our doors we are inexcusable if we neglect them; shall we not go over the threshold to see him whose day prophets and kings desired to see? [3.] She resolves to appeal to themselves, and their own sentiments upon the trial. Is not this the Christ? She does not peremptorily say, “He is the Messiah,” how clear soever she was in her own mind, and yet she very prudently mentions the Messiah, of whom otherwise they would not have thought, and then refers it to themselves; she will not impose her faith upon them, but only propose it to them. By such fair but forcible appeals as these men’s judgments and consciences are sometimes taken hold of ere they are aware.
(3.) What success she had in this invitation: They went out of the city, and came to him, v. 30. Though it might seem very improbable that a woman of so small a figure, and so ill a character, should have the honour of the first discovery of the Messiah among the Samaritans, yet it pleased God to incline their hearts to take notice of her report, and not to slight it as an idle tale. Time was when lepers were the first that brought tidings to Samaria of a great deliverance, 2 Kings vii. 3, c. They came unto him did not send for him into the city to them, but in token of their respect to him, and the earnestness of their desire to see him, they went out to him. Those that would know Christ must meet him where he records his name.
III. Christ’s discourse with his disciples while the woman was absent, v. 31-38. See how industrious our Lord Jesus was to redeem time, to husband every minute of it, and to fill up the vacancies of it. When the disciples were gone into the town, his discourse with the woman was edifying, and suited to her case; when she was gone into the town, his discourse with them was no less edifying, and suited to their case; it were well if we could thus gather up the fragments of time, that none of it may be lost. Two things are observable in this discourse:–
1. How Christ expresses the delight which he himself had in his work. His work was to seek and save that which was lost, to go about doing good. Now with this work we here find him wholly taken up. For,
(1.) He neglected his meat and drink for his work. When he sat down upon the well, he was weary, and needed refreshment; but this opportunity of saving souls made him forget his weariness and hunger. And he minded his food so little that, [1.] His disciples were forced to invite him to it: They prayed him, they pressed him, saying, Master, eat. It was an instance of their love to him that they invited him, lest he should be faint and sick for want of some support; but it was a greater instance of his love to souls that he needed invitation. Let us learn hence a holy indifference even to the needful supports of life, in comparison with spiritual things. [2.] He minded it so little that they suspected he had had meat brought him in their absence (v. 33): Has any man brought him aught to eat? He had so little appetite for his dinner that they were ready to think he had dined already. Those that make religion their business will, when any of its affairs are to be attended, prefer them before their food; as Abraham’s servant, that would not eat till he had told his errand (Gen. xxiv. 33), and Samuel, that would not sit down till David was anointed, 1 Sam. xvi. 11.
(2.) He made his work his meat and drink. The work he had to do among the Samaritans, the prospect he now had of doing good to many, this was meat and drink to him; it was the greatest pleasure and satisfaction imaginable. Never did a hungry man, or an epicure, expect a plentiful feast with so much desire, nor feed upon its dainties with so much delight, as our Lord Jesus expected and improved an opportunity of doing good to souls. Concerning this he saith, [1.] That it was such meat as the disciples knew not of. They did not imagine that he had any design or prospect of planting his gospel among the Samaritans; this was a piece of usefulness they never thought of. Note, Christ by his gospel and Spirit does more good to the souls of men than his own disciples know of or expect. This may be said of good Christians too, who live by faith, that they have meat to eat which others know not of, joy with which a stranger does not intermeddle. Now this word made them ask, Has any man brought him aught to eat? so apt were even his own disciples to understand him after a corporal and carnal manner when he used similitudes. [2.] That the reason why his work was his meat and drink was because it was his Father’s work, his Father’s will: My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, v. 34. Note, First, The salvation of sinners is the will of God, and the instruction of them in order thereunto is his work. See 1 Tim. ii. 4. There is a chosen remnant whose salvation is in a particular manner his will. Secondly, Christ was sent into the world on this errand, to bring people to God, to know him and to be happy in him. Thirdly, He made this work his business and delight. When his body needed food, his mind was so taken up with this that he forgot both hunger and thirst, both meat and drink. Nothing could be more grateful to him than doing good; when he was invited to meat he went, that he might do good, for that was his meat always. Fourthly, He was not only ready upon all occasions to go to his work, but he was earnest and in care to go through it, and to finish his work in all the parts of it. He resolved never to quit it, nor lay it down, till he could say, It is finished. Many have zeal to carry them out at first, but not zeal to carry them on to the last; but our Lord Jesus was intent upon finishing his work. Our Master has herein left us an example, that we may learn to do the will of God as he did; 1. With diligence and close application, as those that make a business of it. 2. With delight and pleasure in it, as in our element. 3. With constancy and perseverance; not only minding to do, but aiming to finish, our work.
2. See here how Christ, having expressed his delight in his work, excites his disciples to diligence in their work; they were workers with him, and therefore should be workers like him, and make their work their meat, as he did. The work they had to do was to preach the gospel, and to set up the kingdom of the Messiah. Now this work he here compares to harvest work, the gathering in of the fruits of the earth; and this similitude he prosecutes throughout the discourse, v. 35-38. Note, gospel time is harvest time, and gospel work harvest work. The harvest is before appointed and expected; so was the gospel. Harvest time is busy time; all hands must be then at work: every one must work for himself, that he may reap of the graces and comforts of the gospel: ministers must work for God, to gather in souls to him. Harvest time is opportunity, a short and limited time, which will not last always; and harvest work is work that must be done then or not at all; so the time of the enjoyment of the gospel is a particular season, which must be improved for its proper purposes; for, once past, it cannot be recalled. The disciples were to gather in a harvest of souls for Christ. Now he here suggests three things to them to quicken them to diligence:–
(1.) That it was necessary work, and the occasion for it very urgent and pressing (v. 35): You say, It is four months to harvest; but I say, The fields are already white. Here is,
[1.] A saying of Christ’s disciples concerning the corn-harvest; there are yet four months, and then comes harvest, which may be taken either generally–“You say, for the encouragement of the sower at seed-time, that it will be but four months to the harvest.” With us it is but about four months between the barley-sowing and the barley-harvest, probably it was so with them as to other grain; or, “Particularly, now at this time you reckon it will be four months to next harvest, according to the ordinary course of providence.” The Jews’ harvest began at the Passover, about Easter, much earlier in the year than ours, by which it appears that this journey of Christ from Judea to Galilee was in the winter, about the end of November, for he travelled all weathers to do good. God has not only promised us a harvest every year, but has appointed the weeks of harvest; so that we know when to expect it, and take our measures accordingly.
[2.] A saying of Christ’s concerning the gospel harvest; his heart was as much upon the fruits of his gospel as the hearts of others were upon the fruits of the earth; and to this he would lead the thoughts of his disciples: Look, the fields are already white unto the harvest. First, Here in this place, where they now were, there was harvest work for him to do. They would have him to eat, v. 31. “Eat!” saith he, “I have other work to do, that is more needful; look what crowds of Samaritans are coming out of the town over the fields that are ready to receive the gospel;” probably there were many now in view. People’s forwardness to hear the word is a great excitement to ministers’ diligence and liveliness in preaching it. Secondly, In other places, all the country over, there was harvest work enough for them all to do. “Consider the regions, think of the state of the country, and you will find there are multitudes as ready to receive the gospel as a field of corn that is fully ripe is ready to be reaped.” The fields were now made white to the harvest, 1. By the decree of God revealed in the prophecies of the Old Testament. Now was the time when the gathering of the people should be to Christ ( Gen. xlix. 10), when great accessions should be made to the church and the bounds of it should be enlarged, and therefore it was time for them to be busy. It is a great encouragement to us to engage in any work for God, if we understand by the signs of the times that this is the proper season for that work, for then it will prosper. 2. By the disposition of men. John Baptist had made ready a people prepared for the Lord, Luke i. 17. Since he began to preach the kingdom of God every man pressed into it, Luke xvi. 16. This, therefore, was a time for the preachers of the gospel to apply themselves to their work with the utmost vigour, to thrust in their sickle, when the harvest was ripe, Rev. xiv. 15. It was necessary to work now, pity that such a season should be let slip. If the corn that is ripe be not reaped, it will shed and be lost, and the fowls will pick it up. If souls that are under convictions, and have some good inclinations, be not helped now, their hopeful beginnings will come to nothing, and they will be a prey to pretenders. It was also easy to work now; when the people’s hearts are prepared the work will be done suddenly, 2 Chron. xxix. 36. It cannot but quicken ministers to take pains in preaching the word when they observe that people take pleasure in hearing it.
(2.) That it was profitable and advantageous work, which they themselves would be gainers by (v. 36): “He that reapeth receiveth wages, and so shall you.” Christ has undertaken to pay those well whom he employs in his work; for he will never do as Jehoiakim did, who used his neighbour’s service without wages (Jer. xxii. 13), or those who by fraud kept back the hire of those particularly who reaped their corn-fields, Jam. v. 4. Christ’s reapers, though they cry to him day and night, shall never have cause to cry against him, nor to say they served a hard Master. He that reapeth, not only shall but does receive wages. There is a present reward in the service of Christ, and his work is its own wages. [1.] Christ’s reapers have fruit: He gathereth fruit unto life eternal; that is, he shall both save himself and those that hear him, 1 Tim. iv. 16. If the faithful reaper save his own soul, that is fruit abounding to his account, it is fruit gathered to life eternal; and if, over and above this, he be instrumental to save the souls of others too, there is fruit gathered. Souls gathered to Christ are fruit, good fruit, the fruit that Christ seeks for (Rom. i. 13); it is gathered for Christ (Son 8:11; Son 8:12); it is gathered to life eternal. This is the comfort of faithful ministers, that their work has a tendency to the eternal salvation of precious souls. [2.] They have joy: That he that sows and they that reap may rejoice together. The minister who is the happy instrument of beginning a good work is he that sows, as John Baptist; he that is employed to carry it on and perfect it is he that reaps: and both shall rejoice together. Note, First, Though God is to have all the glory of the success of the gospel, yet faithful ministers may themselves take the comfort of it. The reapers share in the joy of harvest, though the profits belong to the master, 1 Thess. ii. 19. Secondly, Those ministers who are variously gifted and employed should be so far from envying one another that they should rather mutually rejoice in each other’s success and usefulness. Though all Christ’s ministers are not alike serviceable, nor alike successful, yet, if they have obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful, they shall all enter together into the joy of their Lord at last.
(3.) That it was easy work, and work that was half done to their hands by those that were gone before them: One soweth, and another reapeth,Joh 4:37; Joh 4:38. This sometimes denotes a grievous judgment upon him that sows, Mic 6:15; Deu 28:30, Thou shalt sow, and another shall reap; as Deut. vi. 11, Houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not. So here. Moses, and the prophets, and John Baptist, had paved the way to the gospel, had sown the good seed which the New-Testament ministers did in effect but gather the fruit of. I send you to reap that whereon you bestowed, in comparison, no labour. Isa. xl. 3-5. [1.] This intimates two things concerning the Old-Testament ministry:–First, That it was very much short of the New-Testament ministry. Moses and the prophets sowed, but they could not be said to reap, so little did they see of the fruit of their labours. Their writings have done much more good since they left us than ever their preaching did. Secondly, That it was very serviceable to the New-Testament ministry, and made way for it. The writings of the prophets, which were read in the synagogues every sabbath day, raised people’s expectations of the Messiah, and so prepared them to bid him welcome. Had it not been for the seed sown by the prophets, this Samaritan woman could not have said, We know that Messias cometh. The writings of the Old Testament are in some respects more useful to us than they could be to those to whom they were first written, because better understood by the accomplishment of them. See 1Pe 1:12; Heb 4:2; Rom 16:25; Rom 16:26. [2.] This also intimates two things concerning the ministry of the apostles of Christ. First, That it was a fruitful ministry: they were reapers that gathered in a great harvest of souls to Jesus Christ, and did more in seven years towards the setting up of the kingdom of God among men than the prophets of the Old Testament had done in twice so many ages. Secondly, That it was much facilitated, especially among the Jews, to whom they were first sent, by the writings of the prophets. The prophets sowed in tears, crying out, We have laboured in vain; the apostles reaped in joy, saying, Thanks be to God, who always causeth us to triumph. Note, From the labours of ministers that are dead and gone much good fruit may be reaped by the people that survive them and the ministers that succeed them. John Baptist, and those that assisted him, had laboured, and the disciples of Christ entered into their labours, built upon their foundation, and reaped the fruit of what they sowed. See what reason we have to bless God for those that are gone before us, for their preaching and their writing, for what they did and suffered in their day, for we are entered into their labours; their studies and services have made our work the easier. And when the ancient and modern labourers, those that came into the vineyard at the third hour and those that came in at the eleventh, meet in the day of account, they will be so far from envying one another the honour of their respective services that both they that sowed and they that reaped shall rejoice together; and the great Lord of thee harvest shall have the glory of all.
IV. The good effect which this visit Christ made to the Samaritans (en passant) had upon them, and the fruit which was now presently gathered among them, v. 39-42. See what impressions were made on them,
1. By the woman’s testimony concerning Christ; though a single testimony, and of one of no good report, and the testimony no more than this, He told me all that ever I did, yet it had a good influence upon many. One would have thought that his telling the woman of her secret sins would have made them afraid of coming to him, lest he should tell them also of their faults; but they will venture that rather than not be acquainted with one who they had reason to think was a prophet. And two things they were brought to:–
(1.) To credit Christ’s word (v. 39): Many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman. So far they believed on him that they took him for a prophet, and were desirous to know the mind of God from him; this is favourably interpreted as believing on him. Now observe, [1.] Who they were that believed: Many of the Samaritans, who were not of the house of Israel. Their faith was not only an aggravation of the unbelief of the Jews, from whom better might have been expected, but an earnest of the faith of the Gentiles, who would welcome that which the Jews rejected. [2.] Upon what inducement they believed: For the saying of the woman. See here, First, How God is sometimes pleased to use very weak and unlikely instruments for the beginning and carrying on of a good work. A little maid directed a great prince to Elisha, 2 Kings v. 2. Secondly, How great a matter a little fire kindles. Our Saviour, by instructing one poor woman, spread instruction to a whole town. Let not ministers be either careless in their preaching, or discouraged in it, because their hearers are few and mean; for, by doing good to them, good may be conveyed to more, and those that are more considerable. If they teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, a great number may learn at second hand. Philip preached the gospel to a single gentleman in his chariot upon the road, and he not only received it himself, but carried it into his country, and propagated it there. Thirdly, See how good it is to speak experimentally of Christ and the things of God. This woman could say little of Christ, but what she did say she spoke feelingly: He told me all that ever I did. Those are most likely to do good that can tell what God has done for their souls, Ps. lxvi. 16.
(2.) They were brought to court his stay among them (v. 40): When they were come to him they besought him that he would tarry with them. Upon the woman’s report, they believed him to be a prophet, and came to him; and, when they saw him, the meanness of his appearance and the manifest poverty of his outward condition did not lessen their esteem of him and expectations from him, but still they respected him as a prophet. Note, There is hope of those who are got over the vulgar prejudices that men have against true worth in a low estate. Blessed are they that are not offended in Christ at the first sight. So far were they from being offended in him that they begged he would tarry with them; [1.] That they might testify their respect to him, and treat him with the honour and kindness due to his character. God’s prophets and ministers are welcome guests to all those who sincerely embrace the gospel; as to Lydia, Acts xvi. 15. [2.] That they might receive instruction from him. Those that are taught of God are truly desirous to learn more, and to be better acquainted with Christ. Many would have flocked to one that would tell them their fortune, but these flocked to one that would tell them their faults, tell them of their sin and duty. The historian seems to lay an emphasis upon their being Samaritans; as Luk 10:33; Luk 17:16. The Samaritans had not that reputation for religion which the Jews had; yet the Jews, who saw Christ’s miracles, drove him from them: while the Samaritans, who saw not his miracles, nor shared in his favours, invited him to them. The proof of the gospel’s success is not always according to the probability, nor what is experienced according to what is expected either way. The Samaritans were taught by the custom of their country to be shy of conversation with the Jews. There were Samaritans that refused to let Christ go through their town (Luke ix. 53), but these begged him to tarry with them. Note, It adds much to the praise of our love to Christ and his word if it conquers the prejudices of education and custom, and sets light by the censures of men. Now we are told that Christ granted their request.
First, He abode there. Though it was a city of the Samaritans nearly adjoining to their temple, yet, when he was invited, he tarried there; though he was upon a journey, and had further to go, yet, when he had an opportunity of doing good, he abode there. That is no real hindrance which will further our account. Yet he abode there but two days, because he had other places to visit and other work to do, and those two days were as many as came to the share of this city, out of the few days of our Saviour’s sojourning upon earth.
Secondly, We are told what impressions were made upon them by Christ’s own word, and his personal converse with them (Joh 4:41; Joh 4:42); what he said and did there is not related, whether he healed their sick or no; but it is intimated, in the effect, that he said and did that which convinced them that he was the Christ; and the labours of a minister are best told by the good fruit of them. Their hearing of him had a good effect, but now their eyes saw him; and the effect was, 1. That their number grew (v. 41): Many more believed: many that would not be persuaded to go out of the town to him were yet wrought upon, when he came among them, to believe in him. Note, It is comfortable to see the number of believers; and sometimes the zeal and forwardness of some may be a means to provoke many, and to stir them up to a holy emulation, Rom. xi. 14. 2. That their faith grew. Those who had been wrought upon by the report of the woman now saw cause to say, Now we believe, not because of thy saying, v. 42. Here are three things in which their faith grew:— (1.) In the matter of it, or that which they did believe. Upon the testimony of the woman, they believed him to be a prophet, or some extraordinary messenger from heaven; but now that they have conversed with him they believe that he is the Christ, the Anointed One, the very same that was promised to the fathers and expected by them, and that, being the Christ, he is the Saviour of the world; for the work to which he was anointed was to save his people from their sins. They believed him to be the Saviour not only of the Jews, but of the world, which they hoped would take them in, though Samaritans, for it was promised that he should be Salvation to the ends of the earth, Isa. xlix. 6. (2.) In the certainty of it; their faith now grew up to a full assurance: We know that this is indeed the Christ; alethos—truly; not a pretended Christ, but a real one; not a typical Saviour, as many under the Old Testament, but truly one. Such an assurance as this of divine truths is what we should labour after; not only, We think it probable, and are willing to suppose that Jesus may be the Christ, but, We know that he is indeed the Christ. (3.) In the ground of it, which was a kind of spiritual sensation and experience: Now we believe, not because of thy saying, for we have heard him ourselves. They had before believed for her saying, and it was well, it was a good step; but now they find further and much firmer footing for their faith: “Now we believe because we have heard him ourselves, and have heard such excellent and divine truths, accompanied with such commanding power and evidence, that we are abundantly satisfied and assured that this is the Christ.” This is like what the queen of Sheba said of Solomon (1Ki 10:6; 1Ki 10:7): The one half was not told me. The Samaritans, who believed for the woman’s saying, now gained further light; for to him that hath shall be given; he that is faithful in a little shall be trusted with more. In this instance we may see how faith comes by hearing. [1.] Faith comes to the birth by hearing the report of men. These Samaritans, for the sake of the woman’s saying, believed so far as to come and see, to come and make trial. Thus the instructions of parents and preachers, and the testimony of the church and our experienced neighbours, recommend the doctrine of Christ to our acquaintance, and incline us to entertain it as highly probable. But, [2.] Faith comes to its growth, strength, and maturity, by hearing the testimony of Christ himself; and this goes further, and recommends his doctrine to our acceptance, and obliges us to believe it as undoubtedly certain. We were induced to look into the scriptures by the saying of those who told us that in them they had found eternal life; but when we ourselves have found it in them too, have experienced the enlightening, convincing, regenerating, sanctifying, comforting, power of the word, now we believe, not for their saying, but because we have searched them ourselves: and our faith stands not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God,1Co 2:5; 1Jn 5:9; 1Jn 5:10.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Upon this ( ). This idiom only here in N.T. At this juncture. Apparently the woman left at once when the disciples came.
They marvelled (). Imperfect active describing the astonishment of the disciples as they watched Jesus talking with a woman.
Was speaking (). As in 2:25, so here the tense is changed in indirect discourse from to , an unusual idiom in Greek. However, here may be “because” and then the imperfect is regular. It is not “with the woman” ( ), but simply “with a woman” ( ). There was a rabbinical precept: “Let no one talk with a woman in the street, no, not with his own wife” (Lightfoot, Hor, Hebr. iii. 287). The disciples held Jesus to be a rabbi and felt that he was acting in a way beneath his dignity.
Yet no man said ( ). John remembers through the years their amazement and also their reverence for Jesus and unwillingness to reflect upon him.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Came – marvelled [ – ] . The tense of each verb is different : the aorist, came, marking as in a single point of time the disciples ‘ arrival, and the imperfect, they were wondering, marking something continued : they stood and contemplated him talking with the woman, and all the while were wondering at it.
He talked [] . The imperfect tense, he was speaking. So Rev..
The woman. Rev., correctly, a woman. They were surprised, not at his talking with that woman, but that their teacher should converse with any woman in public. The Rabbinical writings taught that it was beneath a man’s dignity to converse with women. It was one of the six things which a Rabbi might not do. “Let no one,” it is written, “converse with a woman in the street, not even with his own wife.” It was also held in these writings that a woman was incapable of profound religious instruction. “Rather burn the sayings of the law than teach them to women.”
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “And upon this came his disciples,” (kai epi touto elthan hoi mathetai autou) “And upon this ((saying) his disciples came,” returned from the city where they had gone to buy food, Joh 4:8.
2) “And marveled that he talked with the woman:- (kai ethaumazon hoti meta gunaikos elalei) “And they marveled that he was speaking with a woman,” that kind of a woman, a Samaritan whose life was low-class in a moral sense. For Jewish men simply did not salute, converse with, or make friends with the Samaritans, lest they be defiled and degraded. And Rabbis were forbidden to speak or converse with a woman in a public place, not even their own wives.
3) “Yet no man said, What seekest thou,” (oudeis mentoi eipen ti zeteis) “However, no one said, what are you seeking:” trying to find or learn from her; Respect for one’s character will restrict curiosity, where the character is known to be above reproach, as the character of Jesus was, Luk 23:4.
4) “Or, why talkest thou with her?” (e ti laleis met’ autes) “Or why were you talking to her?” Their silence was due to their reverence or respect for Him, not for her. They had already learned that He had Divine reasons for His actions, reasons that might not always appear on the surface, for He was God, Isa 55:8-9.
One of the prayers of daily thanksgiving of Jewish Rabbis of that era was “Blessed art thou 0 Lord – who hast not made me a woman.”
Yet women were among His most faithful disciples who ministered to Him through all His ministry. They were also of the numbered of the church who received the baptism of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Act 1:12-26; Act 2:1-4.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
27. His disciples came, and wondered. That the disciples wondered, as the Evangelist relates, might arise from one of two causes; either that they were offended at the mean condition of the woman, or that they reckoned the Jews to be polluted, if they entered into conversation with the Samaritans. Now though both of these feelings proceeded from a devout reverence for their Master, yet they are wrong in wondering at it as an improper thing, that he deigns to bestow so great honor on a woman who was utterly despised. For why do they not rather look at themselves? They would certainly have found no less reason to be astonished, that they who were men of no note, and almost the offscourings of the people, were raised to the highest rank of honor. And yet it is useful to observe what the Evangelist says — that they did not venture to put a question; for we are taught by their example that, if any thing in the works or words of God and of Christ be disagreeable to our feelings, we ought not to give ourselves a loose rein so as to have the boldness to murmur, but ought to preserve a modest silence, until what is hidden from us be revealed from heaven. The foundation of such modesty lies in the fear of God and in reverence for Christ.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL NOTES
Joh. 4:27. Marvelled.The disciples evidently thought that Jesus would conduct Himself outwardly as did the Jewish rabbis. Those teachers said: Do not prolong conversation with a woman; let no one converse with a woman in the street, not even his own wife (Lightfoot).
Joh. 4:29. Is not, etc.Better, Can this be the Christ? or, as others, He is not however the Christ, is He? The , not however? suggests a negative reply. But the question was put to elicit, not a speculative, but a practical answerto bring the people of Sychar to see Jesus.
Joh. 4:30. The people came on their way toward Him.She proved herself, at the first certainly, to be a greater evangelist than Nicodemus.
Joh. 4:31-38. The disciples on their return, solicitous for His comfort, pressed Him to partake of the food they had brought. In reply He pointed them to what is far more important than material food, in view of which the want of food for the body is for the time forgotten.
Joh. 4:34. Finish., to complete and perfect (comp. Joh. 17:4).
Joh. 4:39-42. The firstfruits of the spiritual harvest in Samaria were reaped at Sychar. Whilst the Jews rejected Christ, the men of Sychar received Him in simple faith as truly the Saviour of the world.
Joh. 4:41-42. His word thy speech ( ).The , teaching, of Jesus was more weighty than the saying, the report, of the woman.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Joh. 4:27-42
Joh. 4:27-34. Jesus spiritual meat.The disciples found their Master, to their astonishment, talking with the Samaritan woman. It was a strange thing for a rabbi to engage publicly in conversation with a woman at all, but more especially with a Samaritan. They did not, however, express their astonishment openly, none saying, What seekest Thou?i.e. What service dost Thou require from her? or, Art Thou indeed conversing with her as a teacher? Meanwhile, the woman, in the excitement of new thoughts and feelings, leaving her water-pot, hurried away to the city, and the disciples came forward with the food they had purchased, pressing their Master to eat, astonished that He had required to be asked to do so and at the apparent absence of weariness, and more astonished still at His answer; so that they said one to another, Hath any man? etc. (Joh. 4:33). They then learned of that higher spiritual food which had cheered the Redeemers soul. We learn here:
I. The true place of physical food in our life.
1. It is essential, but is not the first essential, although too many make it soliving to eat, making their chief end the meat that perisheth in some of its varied forms. What shall we eat? what shall we drink? etc. Here is their chief anxiety.
2. Our Lord taught men that this lower must be subordinated to a higher, e.g. when He fasted in the wilderness (Mat. 4:4).
3. Yet the Saviour did not neglect the claims of the body. He worked marvels to supply the people with bread. The various provisions of nature for mans satisfaction are part of the divine plan of creation (Col. 1:16-17).
4. Jesus also, as the incarnate Son, came under human conditions in regard to physical food. As He hungered and thirsted, so He satisfied hunger and thirst as we do, and did not despise the means of refreshing and strengthening the body (Mat. 11:19).
II. There is a higher food for our life than that which is physical.
1. Even the sustenance of intellectual life is, we are told, conducive to a vigorous existence more than is generally imagined.
2. But there is a higher interest than merely physical comfort and pleasure. The highest duty of man is not to attend to the body, it is to do the will of God; whilst the body is to be used, and therefore duly nourished, as the instrument of the soul in doing the divine will, and in finishing, perfecting, the Fathers work.
3. Jesus had, by Jacobs well, been experiencing this satisfaction, which his soul hungered for more than for meat or drink (Luk. 12:49-50; Luk. 22:15). Whilst His disciples were in the city He had been enjoying a refreshment of spirit, which showed itself even in His physical framebefore wearied and fatigued, now glowing with inward spiritual energy.
III. In this also we are to follow our divine Example.
1. This was not a trait of Christs divine nature merely, but of His nature as the representative man to whose image we are to conform.
2. The highest happiness and satisfaction of mans nature is found in doing the divine will, etc. For this he was created (Psa. 84:3). The traces of it still remain in our nature, though blurred by the Fall, e.g. intellectual work and enthusiasm lead to forgetfulness of the bodys wants (instance Kepler, Spinoza, etc.). Many an earnest student has been nurtured on scanty fare.
3. The same experience may be seen in devotion to spiritual things. See, e.g., the lives of great missionariesSt. Paul, Columba, Cuthbert, Xavier, Martyn, Judson, Livingstone, etc. The meat that perisheth is almost forgotten in the absorption of spiritual work, in doing the will of God. And this to spiritual men is the greatest joy. They eat even here of the hidden manna (Rev. 2:17).
IV. Conclusion.This should be the chief desire of all Christians, especially of all ministers of the word. Their greatest joy should be to do Gods will, and to see His work prospering. There is always a danger that when the Church becomes too absorbed in the outward and material, the spiritual life should languish.
Joh. 4:35-38. The joy of the spiritual harvest.There is nothing more interesting and delightful to contemplate at the beginning of our Lords public ministry than the manner in which those who received Him and passed from darkness to light became in turn centres of light and life for others. Andrew and John influenced their brothers. Philip brought Nathanael to the Redeemer. And no sooner had the poor erring Samaritan woman received enlightenment and quickening by Jacobs well than she became an evangelist, a sower of heavenly truth. And this is the peculiarity in the harvest of humanity, which the natural figure fails to represent entirely. Not only does every good seed harvested and garnered contain the promise and potency of future fruitfulness; it may become in turn sower and reaperas an instrument in the divine Sowers hand. We consider now:
I. The joy at the extent and ripeness of the harvest.Behold, the fields that they are white to the harvest already.
1. Then the husbandman rejoices as he looks forth on the waving fields of grain, some of them dead ripe, as it might be said, waiting for the reapers toil. Many an anxious hour has passed since months agone the seed was committed to the soil. Would it come to maturity? Would the frost blight, a rainless sky wither, or some other unforeseen contingency blast the hopes of the fruitful year? But under the kindly influences of nature, ever guided by Providence, the fields of earth year by year, and with but few exceptions, offer the ripe grain to the reapers toil; and again and again to man is accorded the joy of harvest.
2. It was this general truth which led to these pregnant words of the Redeemer to His disciples at Jacobs well. All around, under the genial midday sunshine, the fruitful fields of Samaria (Oba. 1:19) lay decked with living green, promising in the course of the season an abundant harvest. Yet four months, and then those fields would ring with the joy of the reapers, and mens hearts be glad in the bountiful gift of heaven.
3. This joy the Saviour was experiencing in marked measure. It lifted Him above the necessities of the body, and gave Him meat to eat that His disciples knew not of. In the Samaritans drawing near He saw the first ripe field of that spiritual harvest which His disciples would yet gather from out of every nation under heaven (Act. 2:5; Isa. 60:3). He saw before His vision all those kingdoms of the world which He had seen on the mount of temptation (Luk. 4:6-8)those various fields, which, being slowly brought into cultivation, shall yet yield a glorious harvest. In some the good seed will grow slowly; in some, as in Samaria, ripen as in an hour.
4. And all were white unto the harvest. The fulness of time, the hour of realisation, had come, and the reapers were called to go forth to their labour. And this brought joy to the Saviours heart.
5. Since those memorable words were spoken nearly nineteen centuries have passed away. Many a spiritual harvest has been reaped; and anew the seed has been sown, and has sprung up and brought forth fruit. But much has been wasted by the folly of man. In many a field the enemy has sown tares. And in many more the harvest has remained ungathered because the reapers have been few or careless. And all the while the field has become wider, the numbers of the human race have increased, until to-day the same voice speaks to us in tones of mingled reproach and entreaty, Lift up your eyes, and behold the fields, that they are white to the harvest already. Those eight hundred and fifty millions of heathen, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, etc. (Ephesians 2), are waiting for the reapers toil; whilst around and in our very midst are many waiting to be gathered in. Vast and ready is the harvest. Are we doing our part in reaping it for the Lord of the harvest?
II. The joy in our fellow-labourers.
1. To have been sharers and helpers in any great work carried out by men of eminence is a cause of joy to every noble worker. To have stood side by side with some great explorer or discoverer on a lofty mountain peak, from which eminence new countries were seenlofty mountains, great lakes and rivers, and vast forest reaches; to have helped some great scientific explorer to unfold the wonders of the material universe, and to have ones name handed down with his in however humble a place; to have participated in the labours of a world-renowned social reformer and benefactor of his kind,these, e.g., are privileges that bring a joy of the highest sort to all noble minds.
2. Such is the joy given in the highest degree to the Christian labourers. One is the sower, and another the reaper. I sent you to reap that whereon ye have bestowed no labour; others have laboured, and ye are entered into their labours. They enter into and follow up the activity of a long and illustrious roll of predecessors and witnesses to the truthprophets and righteous men, who were the salt of the earth, and whose living influence is felt among us in these later days; for they being dead, yet speak. They sowed the golden seed of righteousness and truth, which we in Christian lands are reaping in a harvest of precious privileges to-day. It is surely an unspeakable privilege and joy to be successors to the long line of apostles and prophets and holy men in gathering in the harvest of humanity.
3. But more than this:
Behold a Witness nobler still, who trod afflictions path
Jesus, at once the Finisher and Author of our faith.
Christ, though Himself the great Sower and Lord of the harvest, laboured while on earth as all His servants labour. And therefore we have also His example to cheer and encourage us as we go forth to do His work, and the joy of being workers together with Him (2Co. 6:1).
4. And as we look abroad on the world now, and on those fields of the nations, white to harvest already, do we not discern a noble band of fellow-labourers, of various climes and races, united with us for this great work? And although it is strange that there is not that perfect union and fellowship which should attain among those working in the spiritual harvest, yet we can rejoice in each others success in the work, and recognise and realise that each is fulfilling in some fashion the divine purposethat from this diversity God will in the end bring forth a higher unity.
5. And when our labours are ended, when we have served our generation by the will of God (Act. 13:36), others will rise and enter into our labours, carrying on the line of succession of faithful workersthe truly universal apostolic successionuntil sowers and reapers rejoice together eternally.
III. The joy in the reward of the harvest.He that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal.
1. The Lord Himself participated in this joy when He saw the crowds of Samaritans coming to Him and confessing their faith in Him. It is the joy of the soul-gatherer expressed by the apostle of the Gentiles. What then is my reward? That, in preaching the gospel, I may make the gospel without charge. Yea, being free from all men, yet made I myself servant of all, that I might gain the greater number (1Co. 9:18-19). It is ever a joy to men to see the fruit of their labours; and that which we shall view with most satisfaction when the end is reached will not be our gains material or even mentalnot our possessions, not the pleasures life has yielded us, but the good we have been able to accomplishthe influence we have exerted in bringing men to God. This is indeed to gather fruit unto life eternal.
2. To save the life of another is a praiseworthy and honourable action. It brings with it, to well-constituted minds, a feeling of intense pleasure. How the physician rejoices to see the glow of health coming back to the cheeks of one whom he has guided, under Providence, back from the very gates of death! That is emphatically the true physicians reward more than any material gain. The scientific discoverer (like Kepler, who lived on a miserable pittance whilst unveiling the laws of planetary motion) finds his joy in the demonstrated fact. And to the true follower of Christ there is no higher reward, nor greater joy, than to be the means of converting a sinner from the error of his ways, and thus saving a soul from death (Jas. 5:20).
3. And this joy will be intensified eternally. When rescued and rescuer meet on earth their mutual joy expands. But it will do so perfectly and uninterruptedly in the eternal sphere. The Chief Sower and the reapersthose who are saved and those who were the instruments of their salvationshall rejoice together.
Is this harvest joy ours?
1. Do we realise the honour and privilege accorded to us of being fellow-workers with Christ in His harvest? or is it a matter of indifference to us whether we do His work or not? Are we rejoicing in being called to enter on the labours of all the great and good who have gone before us? or are we content to pass through life leaving the harvest of the fields of humanity to whiten in vain so far as we are concerned? Apparent indifference and want of interest in this work may often be set down to unreflecting modesty, which shrinks from supposing itself called to or worthy of such an honour, and imagines such a work far above it. It is a fatal error. The humblest labourer is called and welcomed, and for such also the reward is sure; and if all Christians, inspired with Christlike earnestness and zeal, were to bring but one other as the result of their reaping, speedily and grandly would the kingdom of God advance.
2. Do we realise and seek to grasp the promised reward?To have been able to place but one stone in the eternal spiritual building, founded on the sure foundation, to have brought but one sheaf from the spiritual harvest fields, will give more joy to a true man than the highest of earthly honours and rewards. And by divine grace to each of us this joy may be given. If the desire exists, then even to the humblest will the way be opened; and to them will be given here the joy of being workers together with God, and hereafter that eternal gladness when sower and reaper rejoice together.
Joh. 4:28-30; Joh. 4:39-42. A spiritual harvest at Sychar.It must have been a joyful experience to our Saviour to meet with one so docile and teachable as this woman by Jacobs well. The evil in her life, encouraged most likely by training and surroundings, had not wholly quenched the good. There had been in her heart thoughts of, perhaps longings for, a better life, a better guidance. And it was, it may be, with a sigh that the woman said, I know that Messias cometh when He shall come, He will tell us all things (Joh. 4:25). Here was a belief more simple and less material than the Jewish expectation. It was imperfect, very imperfect, but in the right direction. And therefore our Lord gave to this Samaritan a full revelation of His Messiaship, knowing that the good seed would not fall on barren soil. The first step, then, toward this spiritual harvest was
I. Christs revelation of Himself.
1. Jesus saw that this womans heart was ready for the reception of this great truth, the most blessed of all truths that had yet been proclaimed. He perceived that in her soul the grey dawn had risen. Dim and uncertain as yet were her conceptions of higher truth; but the moment need not be delayed when the full light of truth should flash in on her soul, dispelling the darkness for ever.
2. Therefore He spoke those words so full of divine consciousness and dignity: I that speak unto thee am He. What a moment that must have been to this Samaritan!a moment like that which the man born blind experienced when Jesus stood before him, speaking of the Son of God, and then added, Thou hast both seen Him, and He that talketh with thee is He; or that which Saul of Tarsus experienced as a voice spoke to him and said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest, etc. So with this woman. Her highest hopes were fulfilledthe long-promised Messiah stood before her. The voice of awakened faith in her heart told her that it was He in reality.
II. The womans witness to Christ in Sychar.
1. Like all who truly have come to know Christ, this woman must needs make Him known. In her joy and excitement she quite forgot her errand to the well, and leaving her water-pot hurried to the town, not bearing water from the well, but intelligence of the wonderful fountain of living water, etc. (Joh. 4:14).
2. No doubt a very abbreviated version of her message is given. She would most likely give the chief points of her interview with Jesus; but it was His power to read heart and life that appealed to her, and which she was convinced would impress others with the truth of Christs claims.
3. Her confession showed humility and earnestness. It was no light thing to recall to the memory of her fellow-townsmen her past smirched and unlovely life. But it showed the Saviours power, and therefore must be done.
4. Her testimony was effectual. From occupation and rest the dwellers of Sychar hastened to Jesus, who saw them approaching, and pointed His disciples to them as indications of the coming spiritual harvest of humanity.
III. The harvest at Sychar reaped.
1. The womans testimony awakened faith in the hearts of many (Joh. 4:39), so that they entreated Jesus to remain with them.
2. This He did to the strengthening of their faith (Joh. 4:42). Sychar was won, and the way was prepared for the entrance of the messengers of the cross a few years later, etc. (Act. 8:5-25).
HOMILETIC NOTES
Joh. 4:35. Four months to the harvest.In this conversation a note of time is given us in Joh. 4:35, which has given rise to a considerable amount of controversy. Some eminent scholars (Tholuck, etc.) have considered the words, Say ye not, There are four months, and then cometh harvest? as a proverbial expression meaning the time which elapses between sowing and reaping. They would make our Lords reference to the spiritual harvest to coincide with the state of the fields around Sychar. But there seems to be no need for this interpretation of the words, especially when it is remembered that more than four months elapse between sowing and reaping in Palestine. The plain meaning of the phrase is, that the grain in the smiling fields of Samaria was still in a green, immature stage, and that the disciples had been remarking to one another that four months would still elapse ere the harvest would begin. This fixes the date of the incident at about the end of December or beginning of January in the first year of our Lords ministry, as harvest began in those regions some time about the end of April or beginning of May. Thus we gather that our Lord seems to have spent a considerable time in Jerusalem after the first passover of His public ministry, probably five or six months, before He left for the country regions of Juda (Joh. 3:22), whence He came to Samaria. And it is of pathetic interest to notice that whilst the Jewish leaders and rulers did not receive Christs testimony (Joh. 3:32), in semi-heathen Samaria hearts were open to receive His word.
Joh. 4:36. Sower and reaper.To whom does our Lord refer when He speaks of sower and reaper, of others who have laboured, on whose labours the disciples had entered? It is clear, from Joh. 4:38, I sent you to reap that whereon ye have bestowed no labour, etc., that our Lord in the first instance intended to designate the disciples as the reapers; and from this it follows, as Godet and others point out, that our Lord intended to refer primarily to the circumstances of the moment. Whilst the disciples were absent He had been sowing the good seed, which had taken such speedy root and sprung up so quickly that the harvest was at hand, a fact testified to by the multitudes coming to Him from Sychar with hearts prepared to receive the good seed, with promise of speedy fruitfulness. And here on earth the Saviour tasted, as He did not always do during His ministry, the joy of the reapersaw of the travail of His soul, and was satisfied. Thus He was able on earth to participate in the joys of His servants in pentecostal days. But surely it is not necessary to restrict the application of our Lords words to this single incident? The spiritual fields of Samaria, we may be certain, did not limit His vision, which extended over the field of humanity. He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; but in the midst of that semi-heathen community He looked forward with joy to the time when His disciples, entering into the labours of those who had gone before them, would rejoice, bringing in the sheaves. Thus also we must not limit the contents of the phrase others have laboured to our Lord Himself and John the Baptist. It is to be taken as referring (Westcott, etc.) to all Gods true labourers in Old Testament times. Our Lord is the supreme Sower, no doubt; but He was the inspirer of those Old Testament labourers. Touched by His Spirit it was His word they sowed. But few of them saw the fruits of their labours to any great extent. Slowly and imperfectly did the fruit advance toward maturity under the oftentimes unfavourable conditions, the dimmer light and chillier atmosphere of pre-advent times. But now that the Light of men had arisen on the world, and the quickening and vivifying influences of His baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire were beginning to shoot from heart to heart, then the seed, which had been germinating and springing up, though slowly in past ages, would come more speedily to maturity, and the disciples would begin to reap largely in joy. Here our Lord foresaw not only the harvest reaped in Samaria soon after His ascension (Act. 8:1-17), but the universal harvest to be reaped in all succeeding ages until the end of time.
Joh. 4:37. The success of the gospel husbandmen.And these words might be taken as not only conveying promises of success to the disciples in their labours; they were also fitted to give consolation in times of apparent failure. The disciples in pentecostal times would be both sowers and reapers. They would see and rejoice in the fruits of their labours. But not always. Sometimes it would seem as if they had laboured in vain. Yet it would not be so. As they had entered into the labours of others, so others would enter into their labours. And as the reaping progresses age after age, so will the joy increase in the heart of the supreme Sower, and among the bright inhabitants of heaven, until, when at last the harvest fields of time have been fully reaped, sowers and reapers shall rejoice together when the sheaves have been all brought in.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Joh. 4:31-32.Brain work and vitality.You may kill a man with anxiety very quickly; but it is difficult to kill him with work, especially if he retains the power, which most men of intellectual occupations more or less possess, of sleeping nearly at will and without torpor. The man who has used his brain all his life, say for six hours a day, has, in fact, trained his nerve-power and placed it beyond the reach of early decay, or that kind of feebleness which makes so many apparently healthy men succumb so readily to attacks of disease. Doctors know the differences among men in this respect quite well, and many of them acknowledge that the habit of surviving which they find in their best patients arises from two causesone, which used to be always pleaded, being that soundness of physical constitution which some men enjoy by hereditary right, and the other, some recondite form of brain-power, seldom exhibited, except under strong excitement, by any but those who throughout life have been compelled to think and, so to speak, use their thoughts as other men use their ligaments and muscles. If such a man is tired of life, medicine will not save him; but as a rule his will, consciously or unconsciously, compels the trained nerve-power to struggle on. Whether the brain can actually give power to the muscles is not certain, though the enormous strength sometimes developed in a last rally looks very like it; but that it can materially affect vitality is quite certain, and has been acknowledged by the experienced in all ages.The Speaker.
Joh. 4:35. Glorious harvest fields.O glorious field of labour which presents itself to the Church of Christ to-day! Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, etc. Behold, Christendom, all that extent of the vast heathen world which sighs for redemption from its miserable servitude! This is thy harvest field. Many a beautiful stretch of the field is already reaped; many weary reapers have already succumbed at their labour under sultry skies; many sheaves of ripened grain have been stored, amid songs of rejoicing throughout Christendom, in the barns of the Lord: but still the field stretches before us immeasurable; still millionfold the stalks bend to meet the reaper; still is prayer needed, and gifts, and labourers from the heart of Christendom for the wide harvest field. The harvest is great, and few are the labourers. But not alone without, over land and sea, but here in our own neighbourhood, is a harvest field for the Lords labourers. When we ministers of the gospel look from your fields and from your hills upon your cities, beneath whose roofs lurk so much sorrow and sin, yet also where dwell so many pious hearts, so many souls thirsting for salvation; or when here in the holy place we see gathered around us a believing congregation, then also it is as if we heard the Lord saying, Behold your field, for it is white already to the harvest. When among us a father and mother look on their children, then we say, O parents, behold your harvest field! And even although your circle of influence is limited, though it should be a narrow and a lonely chamber, though a widows small room should be your kingdom and your world, yet even there a rich harvest field may open before you, daily rich in resignation, in duty, and daily rich in blessing, if so be that you have but an open eye and a willing heart for the Lords work. Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look! It is necessary only to lift up the eyes and look, and each one among you will find in his or her circle opportunity, calls, powers, and gifts sufficient for the work of the Lord, for labour in truth and love. Say not ye, There are yet four months, etc. It is needful only to perceive the opportunity, to redeem the time, and every day will be for you a harvest day, every hour you can do some good, every evening you can bring home a sheaf of labour done in God, or at least an ear or two gathered for the heavenly garners. Let no one say, beloved: I would willingly endeavour to be useful, but I cannot do anything. I would willingly engage in good work, but I have no means, no opportunity, no field for effort. See, a true workers heart, a heart rich in love to the brethren, and burning with zeal for the Lord, will find ever for itself a field of labour, and will like a sunbeam find everywhere a door of entrance, an opening, a chink, through which to press in with its gracious light. The pious pastor Hiller, when he had for ever lost, through heavy sickness, his voice, formerly so beautiful and powerful, by which he had called so many souls to the Lord, and when he could no more occupy his beloved pulpit, and when it might have seemed that the voiceless pastor was now useless for the work of the Lord, sat day after day in his little room, or in his arbour, and composed to the harp, with a heart like Davids, bruised and anguished, and wrote the many hundreds of sacred songs which he gathered together in his Jewel Box, and through which he still preaches to-day to many thousands of hearts. Thus a true servant of God will at all times find a field of labour, and when one door is closed to him another will be opened. And what need we of further witness? Behold the Great Servant of God in our Gospel. Who prompted Him to preach a sermon at Jacobs well? Who appointed Him to be a minister of truth to the Samaritans? Who had assigned to Him the field of Samaria, that strange and hostile land, to be His harvest field? Who had opened the gates of Sychar to Him, a Jew according to the flesh? His own heart aloneHis heart burning with zeal for the Fathers honour, and glowing lovingly with desire for the salvation of His brethren. To you Christians I will not say, Go and do likewise, for who could do like as He, the Only Begotten, did? But from Jacobs well the Lord calls to us also: Lift up your eyes, and look on the field, your field of labour, which is ripe unto the harvest. And Hiller also calls to us, and says, Brethren, let as still do good, and in well-doing not be weary. None need want a field of labour. Therefore
Riseto worldwide harvests speed!
The whitening fields stretch on and on.
Few the labourers are indeed,
But great the work that must be done.
Translated from Karl Gerok.
Joh. 4:36. Reaping after many days in joy.On the eastern shore of Virginia there stands to-day one of the few beautiful old homesteads of the past. Its fences are in repair. Its beautiful lawn, shaded by magnificent trees, is in perfect order. It bears still the name given by its founder. Its broad acres remain intact in the hands of the same family to-day that held it in the past century. The neighbours are proud of its name and beauty, and they love to tell the story of its founder. They say he was a man of noted character in his day. In a certain year there was a great famine in the whole country. Corn sold at three and four dollars a bushel, and was difficult to get at that price. The great barns of this farm groaned beneath the burden of an unusually large crop from the previous year. What did the owner of these great barns and broad acres do in this crisis of the people? Did he put his men to work, dig vaults, hide his grain, and then stand at the gate with a sad smile, and swear by heaven and earth that he didnt have a nubbin? No! He placed his men at the doors of his barns with this instruction: If a rich man comes to buy my corn with money, do not sell him a grain, no matter what price he may offer. When a poor man comes who has no money, let him have as much as he needs at last years price, and take promise to pay! Merchants offered him fabulous prices for his store that they might speculate in the necessities of their fellows. He would not sell them a peck. He sold to the poor for their promise to pay, and his childrens children are not done reaping the golden harvest. As the old inhabitant passes the gate that leads to the great clump of trees that marks this garden spot of humanity, it is no wonder that he tells you the story with moist eyes, and adds with evident satisfaction, Its still the handsomest place in the county. Such places will always be garden spots. Such men have always been and ever will be the salt of the earth.Rev. T. Dixon in the Christian.
Joh. 4:38. Self-denying labour for Christs harvest.About a year ago an old resident in a hospital, who had, about ten years previously, bought for himself, for a fixed sum, an asylum in a poor-house, came to a Saxon clergyman and told him that, feeling his end was near, he now wished to carry out to completion what he had for long contemplated, and of which no one knew anything. He had no near relatives, and it had long been his desire to contribute something toward the upbuilding of Gods kingdom. He had therefore lived as sparingly as possible, had curtailed his wants as much as he could, and by laying aside even the smallest coins, had gradually gathered a little sum, which he had intended to devote to the East India Mission. Finally he desired the minister to draw out his declaration formally in writing, and enter it on the last page of his savings-bank book which the minister did, the pensioner subscribing to it in his own hand. This man had been in former years a simple workman, and was known to the pastor as a pious Christian and a regular attender at divine worship. Shortly before his death he once more sent for the clergyman to visit him, and handed over to him his savings-bank book, requesting that it should be forwarded to the proper address, which was done. At the same time the pastor wrote: It is touching to think how this one thought occupied and moved him during long years, and how he had laboured with this one aim in view until his end, as is evidently the case from an inspection of his savings-bank book. The donation amounts to 1,760 marks. In the last will and testament of the man, who soon thereafter peacefully fell on sleep, which was written on the last page of the bank book, the following sentences occur: It is a heartfelt joy to me to be able to do something for my Saviour, since He has done all things for meredeemed me, made me a child of God, brought me to a lively hope in life and in death. I hold that the highest duty of a Christian man is to spread abroad His kingdom; for Christianity alone can bring salvation to the world.
Peace neer shall reign oer all the world
Till Jesus love gain victory meet,
And, neath the gospel flag unfurled,
All men shall bow down at His feet.
In my estimation far too little is done for the noblest of all works of lovefor mission work. I would earnestly seek to prove that even a plain man without personal means can certainly contribute something toward the upbuilding of Gods kingdom, if only the will to do so exists. For this purpose I have laboured, laid up, saved for many years. My name is not to be made known. I seek not my own honour, but that of Christ. May He graciously accept the thankoffering which I bring to Him, and in the end deliver me from all evil, and bring me safe into His heavenly kingdom. So far the simple but heart-touching testament of this departed brother. It is like the odour of the precious Indian nard which was poured out on Jesus feet and filled all the house. Who does not, on reading it, feel deeply ashamed? What say you to yourself, dear reader?From the Evangel. Luther. Missionsblatt.
Joh. 4:47-49. Men should make their requests known directly to God.It is related that a Scottish Roman Catholic nobleman had on his estate a Protestant tenant, who, in a season of depression, was in arrears for a considerable sum. He felt himself obliged to turn for help first to one of the under-officials of the nobleman, asking him to plead with the latter for some alleviation. The official promised, but did not perform. Thereupon he went to a higher official with the same request, who also promised, but did as little as the other. Finally, the twice-deceived peasant summoned courage to approach the proprietor personally. The latter remitted the whole amount of the debt, and accompanied his tenant, as he was departing, through the great hall of the castle, on the side walls of which were hung the pictures of martyrs and saints. Do you know, said the nobleman, what those paintings represent? No, said the peasant. They are pictures of the saints whom I pray to, so that they may make request for me before the Lord for the forgiveness of my sins, was the answer. But why do you not go to the Lord of all Himself with your requests? said the peasant simply. Oh, replied the nobleman, that would be to take too much on myself! It is far better to have mediators like the saints between God and men. I dont think so, replied the other; and Ill show you why. In my distress I turned first to your under-official. It was of no avail. Next I went to the higher official, who promised to do something, and did nothing. In the end I came to yon personally, and you have remitted all my debt.
Joh. 4:49. Earnest prayer answered.We read of Princess Louisa Augusta Magdalene of Darmstadt, that in the year 1741, falling into a grievous illness, she herself, like all about her, was entirely doubtful as to her recovery. As she was told that she could hardly survive over the night, she called the pious minister Fresenius to her bedside, spoke with him concerning the condition of her soul, and declared she would willingly depart hence, but that she had not yet made her peace with God, and felt in her heart no assurance of His grace and the forgiveness of her sins. Therefore, and on this account only, she desired to live a little longer. And since the Lord heard Hezekiah, such a prayer must not be displeasing to Him. Fresenius was convinced of this also, and prayed with her to the Lord that her life might be spared until she had received the witness of the Spirit in her heart, of grace and pardon. In these petitions the members of Fresenius household and other pious friends joined together. Their prayers were graciously answered. In a few hours the physician was able to give assurance that the crisis was past; the next day the improvement was much more marked, and the patient was full of praise to God for His grace and help. Her life was spared until the following year, when she passed into the presence of the Lord, saved and assured of her reconciliation.J. J. Weigel.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
SPONTANEOUS EVANGELISM
Text 4:27-30
27
And upon this came his disciples; and they marveled that he was speaking with a woman; yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why speakest thou with her?
28
So the woman left her waterpot, and went away into the city, and saith to the people,
29
Come, see a man, who told me all things that ever I did: can this be the Christ?
30
They went out of the city, and were coming to him.
Queries
a.
Why were the returning disciples reticent?
b.
What was the significance of the forgotten waterpot?
Paraphrase
At this junction His disciples returned from the market, and they were astonished to find Him talking to a woman, However, none of them asked Him, What do you want? or, Why are you talking with her? The woman, forgetting her waterjar, hurried off unto the city and began telling the people, Come, see a Man Who has told me everything that I ever did. You dont think this Man could be the Christ, do you? So the people came out from the city and were coming toward Him in a continual procession.
Summary
The Woman hurries excitedly into the city telling her discovery. The townspeople come immediately in search of a man who may be the Messiah.
Comment
This is one of the first examples of spontaneous evangelism. Perhaps a better title would be Evangelism by Compulsion. Certainly, as will be discussed later, this woman was constrained to tell of the One she had met at the well.
When the disciples returned from market they were taken aback to find Him freely conversing with a woman. The restrictive barriers between men and women were discussed in our comments on Joh. 4:9.
One noteworthy statement of the gospel writer in Joh. 4:27 is the reticence of the disciples to question openly the Masters actions. Either their respect for His wisdom would not allow them to brazenly question Him, or they feared He might upbraid them. The disciples were momentarily interested in eating (Joh. 4:31) and not in a long discourse on the emancipation of women. Perhaps this accounts for their silence.
Their conversation having been interrupted by the returning disciples, the woman hastens off to tell the townspeople of her experience (Joh. 4:28 ). In her excitement and soul-gripping conviction she forgets the waterjar sitting on the well-curb, and rushes off down the road toward the city. The verb used by John here, apheken, lends itself to the idea that she forgot the vessel. It is the same word which is translated remission, forgiveness, and means a forgetting of our sins by God.
Joh. 4:29 records for us, at least partially, her testimony to the people of the city. We also receive insight into the compelling force that causes her to testify. She had just undergone what some people might call a religious experience. This experience, as we have commented before (Joh. 4:15-18), consisted in a personal conviction of her sin and a beginning trust in His person as the omniscient One. These two factors were the motivating and compelling force that caused spontaneous evangelism in her life. As the apostle Paul said, Knowing therefore the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, . . . and, the love of Christ constrained us . . . (cf. 2Co. 5:11; 2Co. 5:14).
In the concluding phrase of Joh. 4:29 the woman puts the question in a hesitant form. As Robertson says, With a womans intuition she . . . does not take sides, but piques their curiosity. She is in no social position to make theological decisions and dogmatic conclusions. Who would accept her convictions a woman who is an outcast of the community! So she deftly plants the seed of curiosity and allows them to form their own conclusions.
The tense of the verb erchonto (were coming) in Joh. 4:30 is one of Johns word pictures. The picture is of a long stream of excited people coming toward Jacobs Well.
Quiz
1.
Why do you think the disciples hesitated to question Jesus openly?
2.
What caused the woman to leave her water pot?
3.
What are two factors which form motivation for spontaneous evangelism?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(27) With the woman.Better, probably, with a woman. They are surprised, not at His talking with a Samaritan, but at His talking in public with a woman, which was directly contrary to the Rabbinic precepts. The words of the Law were to be burnt rather than taught to a woman. A man should not speak in public to his own wife. They would like to ask Him, as He asked some of them (Joh. 1:38), what He sought to learn from her, or else to know what truth He would teach her (comp. speakest with I that speak, in the last verse); but there is already a sense of the reverence due to Him, which checks the question as it rises to the lip.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
27. Came his disciples They arrived at a striking instant of the conversation. Christ had had opportunity to make his first complete annunciation of himself as Messiah, and not a syllable more. But the work was done.
With the woman They seemed to feel, in a different way, much the same difficulties as our modern rationalists, at the want of dignity in Jesus in this free converse with a rustic woman at a well.
What seekest thou? Or, what do you want? addressed to the woman.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘And upon this came his disciples and they marvelled that he was speaking with a woman, yet no man said, ‘What are you looking for?’ or ‘Why are you speaking with her?’
At this crucial point the disciples returned with food. ‘They marvelled that he was talking with a woman’. It was not usual for women who were alone to chat with unknown men, unless they were of unsavoury reputation, and for the same reason men of reputation were wise to avoid it. And this was especially true of Rabbis, some of whom would not deign even to speak with a woman.
‘But none said, ‘what do you want?’ or ‘why are you talking to her?’ They dared not challenge the Master. This suggests that the writer is looking back and remembering the incident. He could still remember the questions that sprang into their minds but which they dared not ask. What did the woman want? Why was Jesus risking His reputation in speaking to a lone woman? You can almost see the disciples discussing the matter quietly among themselves. This was the memory of an eyewitness. There would be no real purpose in anyone inventing this, and it is very unlikely that a later Christian who admired the Apostles would do so. Once again we have evidence that the source of this narrative was there. Joh 4:28-29 ‘So the woman left her water pot and went away into the city, and says to the men, “Come and see a man who told me all things that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” ’
The woman solved their dilemma by leaving, as indeed she would feel she had to. But the writer remembered that ‘she left her water pot’. This act in itself was an indication that she intended to return, and was clearly noted and probably commented on among the disciples. It was certainly unusual. She had come with the purpose of drawing water. But now that had been forgotten in her excitement. Perhaps there is also an indication in it that she considered that her water jar no longer mattered. Her thirst had been satisfied by better water and she wanted to take that with her.
John may have seen a deeper significance in it. The waterpot that contained within it the gift of Jacob was no longer needed because she had now received the gift of God. The old was replaced by the new.
When she met the men she would have said in Aramaic, ‘Come and see a man who has told me my whole life story. Is not this the Taheb?’ The writer, translates it into Greek as Messiah. It is quite clear that it was Jesus’ knowledge of her inner thoughts that had impressed her most, and it is repeated again in Joh 4:39 for emphasis. Thus John wants to bring home to his readers the prophetic omniscience of Jesus.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Joh 4:27. Talked with the woman: The wonder of the disciples was raised by their Lord’s talking with a Samaritan woman.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Joh 4:27 . ] Hereupon , while this was going on. See Bernhardy, p. 250; Winer, p. 367 [E. T. p. 489]. Often in Plato.
] the descriptive imperfect alternates with the simply narrative Aor. See Khner, II. 74.
] with a woman; for they had yet to learn the fact that Jesus rose above the Rabbinical precepts, teaching that it was beneath the dignity of man to hold converse with women, and the directions of the law upon the subject (see Lightfoot, Schoettgen, and Wetstein).
, . . .] reverential fear.
] what desirest thou? i.e . what was it that led you to this strange conversation? (Joh 1:39 ). There is no reason to warrant our taking as referring by ( ) also to (Lcke, de Wette); and just as little to render , contrary to its ordinary meaning, to contend , as if the disciples thought there was a discussion prompted by national hostility going on (Ewald).
] or, i.e . if you want nothing.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
27 And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her?
Ver. 27. That he talked with the woman ] Solum cum sola. (Beza.) He might do that we must beware of, lest concupiscence kindle. Abraham may see Sodom burning, Lot may not.
Yet no man said ] All ill thoughts and sinister surmises, of superiors especially, are to be presently suppressed and strangled in the birth.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
27. ] . , with a woman . No inference, it is true, can be drawn as to the indefiniteness of the noun, from the omission of the article after a preposition , see Bp. Middleton, ch. 6 1: but the position of before the verb throws an emphasis on the words, and makes it probable that the meaning is as above.
; … ] Either to the woman What seekest thou? and to the Lord, Why talkest thou with her? or perhaps both questions to Him: and then we must suppose a mixture of two constructions, of . ; and ; I rather prefer the former interpretation.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Joh 4:27 . But just at this critical juncture, , “on this,” came His disciples . The imperfect better suits the sense; “they were wondering”: the cause of wonder being , “that He was speaking with a woman”; this being forbidden to Rabbis. “Samuel dicit: non salutant feminam omnino.” “The wise have said, Each time that the man prolongs converse with the woman [that is, his own wife] he causes evil to himself, and desists from words of Thorah and in the end inherits Gehinnom” (Taylor, Pirke Aboth , p. 29; see also Schoettgen in loc. ). But although the disciples wondered , “no one, however, said” , “what are you seeking?” nor even the more general question , “why are you talking with her?” Their silence was due to reverence. They had already learned that He had reasons for His actions which might not lie on the surface.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Joh 4:27-30
27At this point His disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why do You speak with her?” 28So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city and said to the men, 29″Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?” 30They went out of the city, and were coming to Him.
Joh 4:27 “they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman” Culturally this was just not done by orthodox Jews.
“yet no one said, ‘What do You seek’ or, ‘Why do You speak with her'” This is an eyewitness comment from John. He must have remembered this shocking event well!
Joh 4:28 “the woman left her waterpot” This is such a beautiful eyewitness, historical note that showed the excitement of this woman as she rushed back to the village to testify (cf. Joh 4:29-30).
Joh 4:29 “this is not the Christ, is it” The grammatical form expects a “no” answer, but the context shows that she really did believe He was! Context trumps grammar!
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
upon. Greek. epi. App-104.
marvelled. All the texts read “were wondering”. Greek. thaumazo. First occurance Mat 8:10.
talked = was talking.
with. Greek. meta. App-104.
the woman = a woman. One of six things forbidden to a Rabbi by the Talmud; and she being a Samaritan caused the greater wonder.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
27.] ., with a woman. No inference, it is true, can be drawn as to the indefiniteness of the noun, from the omission of the article after a preposition, see Bp. Middleton, ch. 6 1: but the position of before the verb throws an emphasis on the words, and makes it probable that the meaning is as above.
; …] Either-to the woman-What seekest thou? and to the Lord, Why talkest thou with her?-or perhaps both questions to Him: and then we must suppose a mixture of two constructions, of . ;-and ;-I rather prefer the former interpretation.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Joh 4:27. , upon this) Most opportunely there was time sufficient for the colloquy.-, wondered) Wonder whets [sharpens, tends to promote] progress.- ) with the woman in that place.- , what seekest thou?) They could not easily suppose that Jesus had conferred a spiritual benefit on a Samaritan woman.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 4:27
Joh 4:27
And upon this came his disciples; and they marvelled that he was speaking with a woman;-[Christs disciples had left him at the well while they went to the town of Sychar to buy food.] This conversation had occurred during their absence in the city. On their return they were surprised to find him talking with the woman because of the antipathy the Jews cultivated toward the Samaritans.
yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why speakest thou with her?-But they have learned enough of him to know remonstrance would be vain. Jesus never had a doubt or feeling of uncertainty in what he did.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
the Rewards of Service
Joh 4:27-38
As soon as Jesus opens the living spring within our hearts, we abandon our water pots. When we are saved, we must hasten with the tidings to those with whom we have sinned. First find Christ for yourself; then say, Come and see. He who knows us with an unchallengeable knowledge cannot be other than the Christ.
The disciples were naturally astonished when they came upon this interview. They might have asked the woman what she was seeking, and the Master why He was talking to her. But they were silent; the awe of God was upon them. Their natural care for their beloved leader led them to press on Him the viands they had purchased, but they were destined to learn that the soul may be nourished in obeying the will of God. The whiteness of the harvest appeared in the crowds that were coming down the valley; but at harvest time we are sometimes apt to forget the sower who passed home without seeing the result of his labor. That is not the divine method. The sower is rewarded for his share, as the reaper for his-they rejoice together.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her? The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ? Then they went out of the city, and came unto him. In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat? Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours. And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did. So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days. And many more believed because of his own word; and said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.
There are three distinct sections before us here. In verses 27-30 we have the return of the disciples from the city where they had gone to buy food, and the return of the woman of Samaria to her home in Sychar, there to give testimony. In verses 31-38 we have our Lords serious words in connection with the great harvest of souls and the necessity for more laborers. And in verses 39-42 we have the testimony of the Samaritans, who were brought to Christ by the woman to whom He had revealed His messiahship as recorded in the earlier part of the chapter.
We read in verse 27, Upon this. That is, just at the time that this Samaritan woman heard the Lord Jesus give that wonderful declaration, I that speak unto thee am he (v. 26), in answer to her doubtful, half-questioning word, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ (v. 25), just at that moment the disciples of the Lord returned. They marveled that He talked with the woman. Doubtless they knew her character, and that made them wonder all the more that their Lord should be found in conversation with her. But oh, how little people understood the love of His heart! Again and again we find certain ones surprised because of the depth of His interest in poor, sin-stained men and women. He loved to be with sinners. He loved to manifest His grace and compassion to them. But He never associated with sinners in order to go on with them in their ways. He sought them out in order to win them from their ways and to reveal to them the God of all grace.
And so here the disciples stood by, looking on in wonder and surprise, but nobody liked to speak out what was in his heart. They did not want to ask Him, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her? (v. 27). He could have answered readily. He could have replied, I seek the salvation of her precious soul. I seek to give her the living water that she may never thirst again. I seek to make her My own and to cleanse her from all her sin. And if I am speaking today to anyone still living away from Him, let me say that is what He longs to do for you. This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them (Luk 15:2). The Pharisees said that, and they thought they were bringing an evil charge against Him when they used such language, but oh, it is to the very glory of His Saviorhood that He received sinners. I like those words of John Bunyan. He exclaims, O this Lamb of God! He had a whole heaven to Himself, myriads of angels to do His bidding, but that could not satisfy Him. He must have sinners to share it with Him. We love to sing:
Sinners Jesus will receive;
Sound the word of grace to all
Who the heavenly pathway leave,
All who linger, all who fall.
Sing it oer and oer again,
Christ receiveth sinful men.
He received this poor sinner. He revealed Himself to her. He gave her the living Water. And then we read, The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city (v. 28a). Notice that. She came thirsty. She came to get the water from Jacobs well, but she found that in Christ which so satisfied the longing of her heart that she forgot her waterpot for love of Him, and off she hastened to the city. [She] saith to the men, Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ? (vv. 28b-29). And so she who, a little while ago, had been a sin-stained, characterless woman has now become an earnest evangelist. It is just what the Lord Jesus has been doing all down through the centuries, revealing His grace to needy souls. It is what, if you do not know His saving power, He is waiting to do for you.
Then we read, They [the people of Samaria] went out of the city, and came unto him (v. 30), and in the meantime the disciples prayed their Master to eat. But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of (v. 32). They were so concerned about meeting physical need. The Lord Jesus Christ was thinking of something very much higher. His first thought was not of satisfying the cravings of physical appetite. His great concern was a yearning love for poor, sinful men and women, and a desire to deliver them from their wretchedness, to cleanse them from their iniquity, and to make them pure and holy in the sight of God.
I have meat to eat. In other words, there was nothing that gave Him such satisfaction, there was nothing that meant so much to Him as seeing anxious souls ready to receive His message. And oh, dear friends, I want to tell any poor sinner, you need not hesitate about coming to Jesus. He longs to have you come. People say to me sometimes, I fear I am almost too great a sinner. You are not too great a sinner for Him. He loves to take even the vilest sinners and cleanse them from their sins. He is waiting to do it for you. Yes, I have meat, He says, that ye know not of.
And the disciples, who were thinking still on the natural plane, turned to one another and shook their heads and asked, Whatever does He mean? Hath any man brought him aught to eat? (v. 33). But Jesus knew what they were saying, and He said, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work (v. 34). It was in order to do that will that He came from the glory He had with the Father before the world was. We hear Him say in Psalm 40, I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart (v. 8). Doing that will meant assuming our humanity. It meant coming to earth as a little babe born of a virgin mother. It meant growing up in Nazareth, that mean, wicked, and dirty city. It meant growing up there in holiness of life and purity of heart, a Child without a stain of sin upon His conscience and undefiled by any evil thought or by anything unholy, a Man to whom the will of God was utterly supreme, a Man whose hands were hardened as He used the carpenters tools, who worked in the shop so that the people afterward were amazed when He went out preaching. They exclaimed, Is not this the carpenter? How, then, has this Man these things, having never learned? But in all this He was doing the will of God, and He was ever looking forward to the cross. In Gods due time, He laid aside His carpenters tools, left the shop, and went out to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God and to heal needy humanity of their ills. And the cross loomed ever nearer before His face.
In the seventeenth chapter of this very gospel we see Him in prayer, and He is bowed before the Father, His heart going up to God who had sent Him into the world and to whom He was soon going back again. He cries, I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do (17:4). In this He was anticipating the work of the cross, for the work that was specially given Him to do was that of making atonement for sin. He says, The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many (Mat 20:28; Mar 10:45). That was the work that He had in view. That was the work He must finish. He would not go back to the glory until He had accomplished that for which He had dedicated Himself from the very beginning.
And so at last, after those awful hours of suffering on the tree when God made Him to be sin for us, though He knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, after He had drained the bitter cup of judgment to the dregs, the cup that our sins had filled, after He had borne in His inmost soul all that our iniquities deserve, when he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed (Isa 53:6)-then we hear Him saying, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit (Luk 23:46). He cried with a loud voice, It is finished (Joh 19:30), and He bowed His head and yielded up His spirit to the Father. In the Greek language that is only one word instead of three. We say, It is finished. He cried, Finished! That means that the work that saves was completed. It means that the work whereby men and women may be cleansed from their sins and may stand justified from every charge before a holy God had been fully done, and upon the basis of that finished work God can now be just and the Justifier of him that believes in Jesus.
A dear saint was dying, and somebody stood over him and asked, Is all well? He looked up and replied with a smile. Yes, it is finished. Upon that I can hang my whole eternity. Oh, do you realize the blessedness of that? It is finished. You cannot add anything to a finished work. It is not a question of Christ having done His part and now you must do your part in order to put away sin. But the blessed truth is that Christ has forever put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and God wants us to receive the testimony of that, to believe it, and to give God glory for it. And the moment we do believe, all the work of the Lord Jesus Christ is put down over against our sin and our iniquity, and we are justified freely by His grace.
My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. He came into the world for that express purpose, and He would not go back to heaven until it was accomplished.
But now, He thinks of the millions, the untold millions, in the world who will have to wait so long before they hear the message. So He says to His disciples, Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? (v. 35a). This, evidently, was very early in the year and they could see the green fields about them. They would make their calculations and say, Well, in about four months it will be harvest time. Jesus says, Do not say that. Do not say, There are yet four months, then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest (v. 35)- not the fields of wheat, not the fields of corn, but these great fields of the nations of men all about us everywhere in the world. They are white already to harvest, men and women everywhere who need Christ. Men and women who are living in their sins, who are dying in their sins, who are crying out, Who will show us any good? (Psa 4:6). Now it is the responsibility of the servants of Christ, of those who know Him, of those who have been saved by His grace, to give this message of His gospel to those still living in sin.
Here, I may say, is the challenge in regard to foreign missions. People say sometimes, Well, I do not believe in foreign missions. You can be very thankful that somebody else did! If somebody had not believed in foreign missions long ago, you and I would be poor heathen still living in ignorance of God and in sin and corruption. But somebody was enough interested in foreign missions to come to our fathers in the various European lands from which our ancestors hail, and there to tell the story that turned them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. We today are enjoying the knowledge of Christ because of the faithfulness of those of bygone centuries. Oh, let us be as faithful today! Let us be as true today in heeding the command of our Lord Jesus Christ to get the gospel out to all the world in the shortest possible time! Do not let us put it off. Do not say, Oh, well, some other day will do. He says here, Say not ye, There are yet four months?
I think there are some to whom He might say today, if He were living in the earth, Say not ye there is another dispensation, when the remnant of Israel will do the reaping and get the crop out of the world? Say not that, but lift up your eyes and look. The fields are white already to harvest, and it is your responsibility to do what you can to give them the truth. And be assured of this: if you and I do faithfully what we can, whether by going ourselves or by upholding in prayer and by our gifts those who do go, He will see that we are rewarded accordingly. The Lord adds, He that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, One soweth and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours (vv. 36-38).
The disciples were sent out into the land of Israel, to which prophets had been sent of God during other centuries, and they were going to reap where others had sown. And so today, He sends His servants, some to sow and some to reap, that all, at last, may rejoice together.
Now, in verses 39-42, we get the effect of that Samaritan womans testimony. Whenever God saves a soul, it is in order that the saved one may give the ministry of His grace to somebody else. Has He saved you? Then are you trying to reach someone else? You have often heard the story of the life-saving crew that went out in a boat through a terrific storm and rescued a man who had been fastened to a mast on a wrecked ship caught in the rocks and visible clearly from shore through their glasses. They brought this man back, but he was utterly unconscious. They took him to the little hospital and gave him some restorative to bring him to. The first words he uttered when he came to consciousness were these: There is another man. They said, What do you mean? He said, Another, another man. They said, Do you mean there is another living man out on that wreck? Yes, he said, another man. And so they went out again through the storm, and this time they had to clamber aboard and search the ship. Sure enough, they found another man in the ship lying there unconscious. They brought him ashore in their boat, and he was saved. Have you been brought to know the missionary grace of God in redeeming love? Well, there is another man, there is another woman, there is somebody else needing Christ. Do what you can to reach them.
The Samaritan woman was saved. She had found the living water. She had gone back to the village and said to the men-I think that is significant: the men knew her pretty well-and she said to the men, Everything is different now. Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ? (v. 29). And so we read. Many of the Samaritans of that city believed on Him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did. So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days, and many more believed because of his own word (vv. 39-41).
There was a wonderful awakening in that Samaritan city, all because of the devoted and faithful testimony of this poor woman who had just newly come to know Him. Many more believed because of his own word; and said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world (vv. 41-42). It was she who aroused their interest. It was she who led the first to go out to Him. As a result of that, they invited Him into the city. But now they say, We believe not just because of your testimony, but because we have seen Him and have heard Him. He has spoken to our hearts and has moved our consciences. He has won our love and affection, and we have put our faith in Him. We know He is the Christ, the Savior of the world.
Do you know Him? What a blessed thing to be acquainted with Him, whom to know is life eternal, and then to endeavor to lead others to know Him too!
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
that he
that he was talking with a woman.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
marvelled: Joh 4:9, Luk 7:39
Reciprocal: Gen 37:15 – What 2Ki 4:27 – thrust Mar 9:32 – were Joh 21:12 – durst Act 10:28 – that it
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
7
The disciples marveled for the same reason for which the woman was surprised at the beginning of the conversation recorded in verse 9. There is no evidence they knew anything about her personal character, but they did know she was a Samaritan. The disciples were shocked, evidently, yet their respect for their Teacher held them back from criticizing him.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her?
[They marvelled that he talked with the woman.] They marvel he should talk with a woman; much more with a Samaritan woman. “R. Jose the Galilean being upon a journey [I am much mistaken if it should not be writ] found Berurea in the way; to whom he said, What way must we go to Lydda? She answered, ‘O thou foolish Galilean, have not the wise men taught Do not multiply discourse with a woman? Thou oughtest only to have said Which way to Lydda?’ ”
Upon what occasion this woman should be called Berurea is not our business at present to inquire: but that the reader may know something of her, she was the wife of R. Meir, a learned woman, and a teacher herself: “His wife Berurea was a wise woman, of whom many things are related in Avodah Zarah.” Another story we have of her; “Berurea found a certain scholar reading mutteringly, and spurned at him,” etc.
“Samuel saith, They do not salute a woman at all.” “A certain matron asked R. Eleazar, ‘Why, when the sin of the golden calf was but one only, should it be punished with a threefold kind of death?’ He answered, A woman ought not to be wise above her distaff. Saith Hyrcanus to him, ‘Because you did not answer her a word out of the law, she will keep back from us three hundred measures of tithes yearly.’ But he, Let the words of the law be burned rather than committed to women.” “Let no one talk with a woman in the street, no, not with his own wife.”
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
THESE verses continue the well-known story of the Samaritan woman’s conversion. Short as the passage may appear, it contains points of deep interest and importance. The mere worldling, who cares nothing about experimental religion, may see nothing particular in these verses. To all who desire to know something of the experience of a converted person, they will be found full of food for thought.
We see, firstly, in this passage, how marvelous in the eyes of man are Christ’s dealings with souls. We are told that the disciples “marveled that he talked with the woman.” That their Master should take the trouble to talk to a woman at all, and to a Samaritan woman, and to a strange woman at a well, when He was wearied with His journey,-all this was wonderful to the eleven disciples. It was a sort of thing which they did not expect. It was contrary to their idea of what a religious teacher should do. It startled them and filled them with surprise.
The feeling displayed by the disciples on this occasion, does not stand alone in the Bible. When our Lord allowed publicans and sinners to draw near to Him and be in His company, the Pharisees marveled. They exclaimed, “This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them.” (Luk 15:2.)-When Saul came back from Damascus, a converted man and a new creature, the Christians at Jerusalem were astonished. “They believed not that he was a disciple.” (Act 9:26.)-When Peter was delivered from Herod’s prison by an angel, and brought to the door of the house where disciples were praying for his deliverance, they were so taken by surprise that they could not believe it was Peter. “When they saw him they were astonished.” (Act 12:16.)
But why should we stop short in Bible instances? The true Christian has only to look around him in this world in order to see abundant illustrations of the truth before us. How much astonishment every fresh conversion occasions! What surprise is expressed at the change in the heart, life, tastes, and habits of the converted person! What wonder is felt at the power, the mercy, the patience, the compassion of Christ! It is now as it was eighteen hundred years ago. The dealings of Christ are still a marvel both to the Church and to the world.
If there was more real faith on the earth, there would be less surprise felt at the conversion of souls. If Christians believed more, they would expect more, and if they understood Christ better, they would be less startled and astonished when He calls and saves the chief of sinners. We should consider nothing impossible, and regard no sinner as beyond the reach of the grace of God. The astonishment expressed at conversions is a proof of the weak faith and ignorance of these latter days. The thing that ought to fill us with surprise is the obstinate unbelief of the ungodly, and their determined perseverance in the way to ruin. This was the mind of Christ. It is written that He thanked the Father for conversions. But He marveled at unbelief. (Mat 11:25; Mar 6:6.)
We see, secondly, in this passage, how absorbing is the influence of grace, when it first comes into a believer’s heart. We are told that after our Lord had told the woman He was the Messiah, “She left her water-pot and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did.” She had left her home for the express purpose of drawing water. She had carried a large vessel to the well, intending to bring it back filled. But she found at the well a new heart, and new objects of interest. She became a new creature. Old things passed away. All things became new. At once everything else was forgotten for the time. She could think of nothing but the truths she had heard, and the Savior she had found. In the fullness of her heart she “left her water-pot,” and hastened away to tell others.
We see here the expulsive power of the grace of the Holy Ghost. Grace once introduced into the heart drives out old tastes and interests. A converted person no longer cares for what he once cared for. A new tenant is in the house. A new pilot is at the helm. The whole world looks different. All things have become new. It was so with Matthew the publican. The moment that grace came into his heart he left the receipt of custom. (Mat 9:9.)-It was so with Peter, James, and John, and Andrew. As soon as they were converted they forsook their nets and fishing-boats. (Mar 1:16-20.)-It was so with Saul the Pharisee. As soon as he became a Christian he gave up all his brilliant prospects as a Jew, in order to preach the faith he had once despised. (Act 9:20.)-The conduct of the Samaritan woman was precisely of the same kind. For the time present the salvation she had found completely filled her mind. That she never returned for her water-pot would be more than we have a right to say. But under the first impressions of new spiritual life, she went away and “left her water-pot” behind.
Conduct like that here described is doubtless uncommon in the present day. Rarely do we see a person so entirely taken up with spiritual matters, that attention to this world’s affairs is made a secondary matter, or postponed. And why is it so? Simply because true conversions to God are uncommon. Few really feel their sins, and flee to Christ by faith. Few really pass from death to life, and become new creatures. Yet these few are the real Christians of the world. These are the people whose religion, like the Samaritan woman’s, tells on others. Happy are they who know something by experience of this woman’s feelings, and can say with Paul, “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ”! Happy are they who have given up everything for Christ’s sake, or at any rate have altered the relative importance of all things in their minds! “If thine eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light.” (Php 3:8; Mat 6:22.)
We see, lastly, in this passage, how zealous a truly converted person is to do good to others. We are told that the Samaritan woman “went into the city, and said to the men, Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” In the day of her conversion she became a missionary! She felt so deeply the amazing benefit she had received from Christ, that she could not hold her peace about Him. Just as Andrew told his brother Peter about Jesus, and Philip told Nathanael that he had found Messiah, and Saul, when converted, straightway preached Christ, so, in the same way, the Samaritan woman said, “Come and see Christ.” She used no abstruse arguments. She attempted no deep reasoning about our Lord’s claim to be the Messiah. She only said, “Come and see.” Out of the abundance of her heart her mouth spoke.
That which the Samaritan woman here did, all true Christians ought to do likewise. The Church needs it. The state of the world demands it. Common sense points out that it is right. Every one who has received the grace of God, and tasted that Christ is gracious, ought to find words to testify of Christ to others. Where is our faith, if we believe that souls around us are perishing, and that Christ alone can save them, and yet hold our peace? Where is our charity if we can see others going down to hell, and yet say nothing to them about Christ and salvation?-We may well doubt our own love to Christ, if our hearts are never moved to speak of Him. We may well doubt the safety of our own souls, if we feel no concern about the souls of others.
What are we ourselves? This is the question, after all, which demands our notice. Do we feel the supreme importance of spiritual things, and the comparative nothingness of the things of the world? Do we ever talk to others about God, and Christ, and eternity, and the soul, and heaven, and hell? If not, what is the value of our faith? Where is the reality of our Christianity? Let us take heed lest we awake too late, and find that we are lost forever, a wonder to angels and devils, and, above all, a wonder to ourselves, because of our own obstinate blindness and folly.
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Notes-
v27.-[Upon this.] The true idea contained in this expression seems to be, “At this point, at this critical juncture in the conversation between our Lord and the woman.”-What the woman would have said next after our Lord’s marvelous discovery of Himself, we are left to conjecture. But just as our Lord said, “I am the Messiah,” the disciples returned from buying food, and their appearance stopped the conversation. The woman’s heart was probably too full, and her mind too much excited to say more in the presence of witnesses, and especially of strangers. Therefore no more was said, and she withdrew. The soul, in the beginning of a work of grace, shrinks from discovering its workings before strangers.
[Marveled…talked with the woman.] I am inclined to think that these words would have been more correctly rendered, “Talked with a woman.” There is no article in the original Greek. The wonder of the disciples was excited, not so much by our Lord talking to this woman, as by His talking to a woman at all. It is clear from Rabbinical writings, that there was a common opinion among the Jews that both in understanding and religion women were an inferior order of beings to men. This ignorant prejudice had most likely leavened the minds of the disciples, and is probably referred to in this place. Of the woman’s moral character it is not clear that the disciples could know anything at all.
Rupertus thinks that our Lord, by conversing openly with a Samaritan woman, wished to show His disciples by an example, that the wall between Jews and other people was to be broken down by the Gospel, just as He taught Peter the same lesson after His ascension, by the vision of the sheet full of clean and unclean beasts. (Act 10:11-15.) He thinks that the wonder of the disciples arose from the same Jewish prejudice against intercourse with uncircumcised Gentiles which appeared so strongly in after times.
Lightfoot, Schottgen, and Tholuck quote proverbial sayings from Rabbinical writers, showing the Jewish feeling about women. The following are instances-“He who instructs his daughter in the law plays the fool.” “Do not multiply discourses with a woman.” “Let no one talk with a woman in the street, no not with his own wife.”-Whitby also says, from Buxtorf, that the Rabbins say that “talking with a woman is one of the six things which make a disciple impure.”
[No man said, What seekest…why talkest, &c.] We are left to conjecture whether both these questions apply to our Lord, or whether the first applied to the woman, “What seekest thou of Him?” and the second to our Lord, “Why talkest thou with her?” The point is of no particular importance. To me, however, it appears that both questions apply to Christ.-“No man said, ‘What art thou seeking from her? Why art thou talking with her?’ “
Grotius suggests that the disciples supposed our Lord might have been seeking meat or drink from the Samaritan woman, and meant, “Why seekest thou any meat or drink from her?”
I venture to doubt whether both questions had not better have been translated alike, “What art thou seeking from her? What art thou talking about with her?” The Greek word is the same which our translators have rendered “what” in the first question, and “why” in the second.
The expression, “No man said,” seems to imply that no man ventured to ask any question what was our Lord’s reason for talking with the woman. It is not very clear why the sentence is introduced. The object probably is, as Cyril and Chrysostom remark, to show us the deep reverence and respect with which the disciples regarded our Lord and all His actions, even at this early period of His ministry.-It also shows us that they sometimes thought things about Him to which they dared not give expression, and saw deeds of His which they could not understand, but were content silently to wonder at them. There is a lesson for us in their conduct. When we cannot understand the reason of our Lord’s dealings with souls, let us hold our peace, and try to believe that there are reasons which we shall know one day. A good servant in a great house must do his own duty, and ask no questions. A young student of medicine must take many things on trust.
v28.-[The woman…left…water-pot.] The Greek word here rendered “water-pot” is the same that is used in the account of the miracle at Cana in Galilee. (Joh 2:6.) It does not mean a small drinking-vessel, but a large jar, such as a woman in Eastern countries would carry on her head. We can therefore well understand that if the woman wished to return in haste to the city she would leave her water-pot. So large a vessel could not be carried quickly, whether empty or full.
The mind of the woman in leaving her water-pot seems to me clear and unmistakable. She was entirely absorbed in the things which she had heard from our Lord’s mouth. She was anxious to tell them without delay to her friends and neighbors. She therefore postponed her business of drawing water, for which she had left her house, as a matter of secondary importance, and hurried off to tell others what she had been told. The sentence is deeply instructive.
Lightfoot thinks, beside this, that the woman left her water-pot out of kindness to our Lord, “that Jesus and His disciples might have wherewithal to drink.”
[Went her way….city.] The Greek word rendered “went her way,” means simply, “departed” or ”went.” The city must of course mean “Sychar.”
[Saith to the men.] We must not suppose that the woman spoke to the men only, and not to her own sex. But it is probable that the “men” of the place would be the first persons she would see, and that the women would not be in the streets, but at home. Moreover it is not unlikely that the expression is meant to show us the woman’s zeal and anxiety to spread the good tidings. She did not hesitate to speak to men, though she well knew that anything a woman might say about religion was not likely to command attention.
Cyril, on this verse, remarks the power of Christ’s grace. He began by bidding the woman to go and “call her husband.” The end of the conversation which ensued was her going and calling all the men of the city to come and see Christ.
v29.-[Come, see a man.] The missionary spirit of the woman, in this verse, deserves special notice. Having found Christ herself, she invites others to come and be acquainted with Him. Origen calls her “the apostle of the Samaritans.”
Let it be noted that her words are simple in the extreme. She enters into no argument. She only asks the men to “come and see.” This, after all, is often the best way of dealing with souls. A bold invitation to come and make trial of the Gospel often produces more effect than the most elaborate arguments in support of its doctrines. Most men do not want their reason convinced so much as their will bent, and their conscience aroused. A simple-minded, hearty, unlearned young disciple will often touch hearts that would hear an abstruse argument without being moved.-This fact is most encouraging to all believers who try to do good. All cannot argue. But all believers may say, “Come and see Christ. If you would only look at Him and see Him, you would soon believe.”
Barradius remarks what a practical illustration the woman affords of one of the concluding sentences of Revelation, “Let him that heareth say, Come.” (Rev 22:17.) The Samaritan woman having heard, said “Come,” and the result was that many souls came and took the water of life freely.
Cyril remarks the difference between the woman’s conduct and that of the servant who buried his talent in the ground. She received the talent of the good tidings of the Gospel, and at once put it out at interest.
Chrysostom remarks the wisdom of the woman. “She did not say, Come, believe, but Come, see, a gentler expression than the other, and one which more attracted them.”
[Told me all things…ever I did.] These words must be taken with some qualifications. Of course they cannot mean that our Lord had literally told the woman “all things that ever she did in her life.” This would have been physically impossible in the space of a single afternoon.-The probable meaning is, “He has told me all the principal sins that I have committed. He has shown a perfect knowledge of the chief events of my life. He has shown such thorough acquaintance with my history, that I doubt not He could have told me anything I ever did.”
Some allowance must probably be made for the warm and excited feelings of the woman when she spoke these words. She used hyperbolical and extravagant language, under the influence of these feelings, which she would probably not have used in a calm state of mind, and which we must therefore not judge too strictly. Moreover, as Poole remarks, it admits of doubt whether our Lord may not have spoken of other things in the conversation, which John has not been inspired to record.
Let it be noted, that the Samaritan woman, in saying that our Lord had “told her all things she had ever done,” very probably referred to the common opinion about Messiah’s omniscience. The Rabbinical writers, according to Lightfoot, specially applied to Messiah the words of Isaiah, “He shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by the sight of his eyes.” (Isa 11:3.) Her words, therefore, were a well-known argument that our Lord must be the Christ, and her object in using them would be thoroughly understood.
[Is not this the Christ?] The Greek words so rendered would be translated with equal correctness, “Is this the Christ? Can this be the Christ?” A similar form of interrogative sentence is found in thirteen other places in the New Testament. In twelve of them the interrogative is used without “not,” viz., Mat 7:16; Mat 26:22, Mat 26:25; Mar 4:21; Mar 14:19; Luk 4:34; Joh 7:31; Joh 8:22; Joh 18:35; Act 10:47; 2Co 1:17; Jam 3:11.-In only one place is the interrogative used with “not,” Mat 12:23. I am inclined, on the whole, to think that “not” would have been better omitted in the sentence before us. Euthymius takes this view.
The value of questions, if we want to do good to souls, is well illustrated in this verse. A question often sets working a mind which would be utterly unmoved by an affirmation. It drives the mind to exertion, and by a gentle compulsion arouses it to think. Men are far less able to go to sleep under religious teaching, when they are invited to answer a question. The number of questions in the New Testament is a striking and instructive fact. Had the woman said, “This is the Christ!” she might have excited prejudice and dislike. By asking, “Is this the Christ?” she got the men to inquire and judge for themselves.
v30.-[Then they went out of the city.] This sentence is full of encouragement to all who try to do good to souls. The words of one single woman were the means of arousing a whole city to go forth and inquire about Christ. We must never despise the smallest and meanest efforts. We never know to what the least beginnings may grow. The grain of mustard seed at Sychar was the word of a feeble woman, “Come and see.”
Specially we ought to observe the encouragement the verse affords to the efforts of women. A woman may be the means, under God, of founding a Church. The first person baptized by Paul in Europe was not a man but a woman, Lydia, the seller of purple.-Let women never suppose that men only can do good. Women also, in their way, can evangelize as really and truly as men. Every believing woman who has a tongue can speak to others about Christ.-The Samaritan woman was far less learned than Nicodemus. But she was far bolder, and so did far more good.
[And came unto him.] Perhaps the sentence would be more literally rendered, “were coming,” or “began to come to Him.” It was while they were coming that the conversation which immediately follows, between Christ and His disciples, took place, and perhaps it was the sight of the crowd coming which made our Lord say some of the things that He did.
Calvin remarks on this part of the woman’s history, that some may think her blamable, in that “while she is still ignorant and imperfectly taught, she goes beyond the limits of her faith.” I reply that she would have acted inconsiderately if she had assumed the office of a teacher; but when she desires nothing more than to excite her fellow-citizens to hear Christ speaking, we will not say that she forgot herself, or proceeded further than she had a right to do. She merely does the office of a trumpet or a bell, to invite others to come to Christ.”
The concluding verse shows us most forcibly that ministers and teachers of religion ought never to be above taking pains and trouble with a single soul. A conversation with one person was the means of leading a whole city to come and hear Christ, and resulted in the salvation of many souls.
Cornelius Lapide, at this point of his commentary, gravely informs us that the name of the Samaritan woman was Photina,-that after her conversion she preached the Gospel at Carthage, and that she suffered martyrdom there on the 20th of March, on which day the Romish Martyrology makes special mention of her name! He also tells us that her head is kept as a relic at Rome, in the Basilica of St. Paul, and that it was actually shown to him there!-It is well to know what ridiculous and lying legends the Church of Rome palms upon Roman Catholics as truths, while she withholds from them the Bible!
Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels
Joh 4:27. And upon this came his disciples; and they marvelled that he talked with a woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her? To talk with a woman in public was one of six things forbidden to a Rabbi. As the disciples were returning from the village, they wonderingly descry their Master thus engaged. Their surprise, no doubt, found expression in these very questions (asked among themselves) which the Evangelist speaks of as not addressed to their Lord. What seeketh He? what can He be in quest of that we cannot furnish? or, if He is not seeking anything, why is He talking with a woman? The questions uttered to one another they would have at once addressed to Jesus, but awe checked their impulse to speak. Something in His look may have restrained them; or the eager wondering attitude of the one, and the solemn earnestness of the Other, proclaiming the willing hearer and the earnest Teacher, may have forbidden them to interrupt such intercourse.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Observe here, 1. How the providence of God so ordered and disposed of things, that the disciples did not return to Christ, till he had finished his discourse with this poor woman. An humbled sinner may meet with such satisfaction and sweet refreshment in Christ’s company, that the presence even of disciples themselves (the best and holiest of saints) may be looked upon as injurious to it, and an interruption of it. This poor woman had so sweet a time with Christ, that an end being put to the conference by the coming of the disciples, might be matter of grief and resentment to her: yet the providence of God so ordered, that the disciples did not come to break off the conference till Christ had made himself known as the Messias to this poor woman.
Observe, 2. The carriage and behaviour of the disciples, upon their return to Christ: finding him preaching a sermon to a single woman, they marvelled, but yet were silent.
Learn, 1. That the humility and condescension of the Lord Jesus Christ, in treating poor penitent and humble sinners, is a matter of wonder and admiration, even to disciples themselves.
O, blessed Saviour! there was more kindness and condescension, more love and compassion, more meekness and humility in thyself alone, than in all thy disciples and followers put together.
Yet observe, 2. Though they marvelled, they were silent, No man said, Why talkest thou with her?
Thence note, That such reverence is due to Christ in all his dispensations and actions, that when we can see no reason for what he doth, it is not for us to inquire, much less for us to quarrel, but we must awfully admire what we cannot comprehend.
Observe, 3. The behaviour of this woman after the conference was over, she leaves her water-pot, and makes haste to invite and call her neighbours to Christ, whose grace and kindness she had experienced.
Learn hence, That such as truly know Christ, have tasted sweetness in him, and derived comfort and satisfaction from him, will be forward to invite, and industrious to draw, others to a saving acquaintance with him. Come with me, and see a man that told me all that ever I did: Is not this the Christ?
Learn farther, From the woman’s leaving her water-pot behind her, and hastening to the city, That when once a soul has tasted the sweetness and excellency that is in Jesus Christ, those things which were highly esteemed before, will be little regarded then. The poor woman came to draw water, and thought much, and spake much, of the water of that well which was before her: but meeting with Jesus Christ, and tasting of his grace, she forgets both water and water-pot, and away she goes to fetch in all her acquaintance to Christ.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Joh 4:27. Upon this came his disciples Who, as was said before, were gone into the city to buy food; and marvelled that he talked with the woman Or rather (as the word is without the article) with a woman, which the Jewish rabbies reckoned it scandalous for a man of distinction to do. And that the disciples were not, in such things, superior to the prejudices of their countrymen, is manifest from the whole of their history. They marvelled likewise at his talking with a woman of that nation, which was so peculiarly hateful to the Jews. Yet no man said to the woman, What seekest thou? Or to Christ, Why talkest thou with her?
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.
XXI.
The following points in Joh 4:27-38 may be noticed:
1. The impression produced upon the mind of the woman was that which came from the wonderful knowledge of Jesus respecting herself, that is, her past history. That upon Nicodemus, which led him to go to Jesus, came from the miracles. The influence which induced him to become a disciple, if indeed he became one in consequence of that first interview, was derived from the truth which he heard respecting the kingdom of God. The woman, though her past life differed from that of Nathanael, seems to have been affected by the same manifestation of unexpected knowledge or insight. That she should have personally met the Christ, seems almost impossible to her mindthat one who had exhibited such knowledge might perchance be the Christ, she could not but believe. This divided state of mind, as between the possibility and the impossibility, is expressed by the form of her question () addressed to the people of her city.
2. The words addressed by Jesus to the disciples in Joh 4:32; Joh 4:34 do not seem to belong immediately to the testimony contained in this chapter, but they must have offered the disciples matter for reflection in respect to His mission. Joh 4:35 ff., on the other hand, called their thought to their own mission as related to His. The interpretation of these last verses must take into account the fact that what is said is evidently suggested by the circumstances of the present scene, and, on the other hand, the fact of the general form of the statement. We may believe, therefore, that, just as the remark of the disciples about eating led Jesus to say what is recorded in Joh 4:34,a word which teaches them of His relation to the Father,so here, the sight of the people who were approaching gives Him a vision of the future and wide-extended work of the Gospel, as the disciples were to carry it forward.
The general truth, in each case, is illustrated by what is taking place at the hour of their conversation. As related to the present scene, the disciples have returned in season to see the approaching people who are ready to believe, and perhaps to have part in receiving them as believers; but the work of sowing has been already done by Jesus. He has prepared for the result. And the ordering of the Divine plan in this way is, that they may share together in the rejoicing. This is a picture and representation of the future. So it will be in all their work; they will enter into the labors of others, and, at the end, both sowers and reapers will rejoice. So far as concerns the present scene, the sower is, undoubtedly, Jesus; but, as the words extend in their meaning and application over all the ministry of the disciples, the sowers may be all who have gone before them in the work of the kingdom of God. This twofold and enlarged application of the passage answers, apparently, all the demands of the several verses.
3. The word is probably to be connected with Joh 4:35, although there is no serious difficulty in joining it, as Godet does, with the following verse.
4. The phrase in Joh 4:36 seems to be clearly used in the sense which is common in other writings of the New Testament, but not so in Johnthat is, as referring wholly to the future life.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
Joh 4:27-38. The Return of the Disciples.The disciples return with the food they have bought. They are surprised that Jesus is talking with a woman (cf. Pirke Aboth, i. 5, Prolong not discourse with a woman). The woman returns to the city, and her report leads the men to come and see. Meanwhile the disciples offer the food to Jesus. But His experiences have banished physical hunger. He explains that His true life is supported by doing His Fathers work. Signs of accomplishment are not wanting. In common parlance four months separate seed-time from harvest (unless Joh 4:35 a is to be taken as a note of time, in which case the event must have happened in December or January). In the spiritual harvest, which is independent of time, the grain is already ripe, as they will see if they look at the men coming from the city to Him. When fruit is gathered in to eternal life, sower and reaper share a common joy. The saying, One soweth, another reapeth, which in the earthly sphere voices the complaint of the oppressed, deprived of the fruit of their toil, receives in the spiritual sphere its ideal fulfilment, when all the workers rejoice that men are brought to eternal life. In the bread they have just bought the disciples have reaped the reward of others sowing. Let them remember it when it is their turn to sow.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
2. Jesus’ explanation of evangelistic ministry 4:27-38
Jesus had modeled evangelistic effectiveness for His disciples, though ironically they were absent for most of the lesson. Now he explained the rewards, urgency, and partnership of evangelism.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
When Jesus’ disciples returned from their shopping trip (Joh 4:8), they were amazed to see Jesus talking with a woman. Their reaction reflects the typical Jewish prejudices against Samaritans and women. It was uncommon for rabbis to speak with women. [Note: For one of their sayings prohibiting conversation with females, see Morris, p. 242.] However they refrained from questioning her and Him, probably to avoid becoming involved in this unusual conversation.