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| Samaritan Woman at the Well by He Qi |
John 4:5-42
Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)
5 So he came to a city of Samar′ia, called Sy′char, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and so Jesus, wearied as he was with his journey, sat down beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 There came a woman of Samar′ia to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samar′ia?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?” 13 Jesus said to her, “Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband; this you said truly.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain;[a] and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
27 Just then his disciples came. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but none said, “What do you wish?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar, and went away into the city, and said to the people,29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the city and were coming to him.
31 Meanwhile the disciples besought him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has any one brought him food?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest. 36 He who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor; others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.”40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of your words that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”
Footnotes:
Cited in the Catechism: In promulgating the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Blessed John Paul II explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium." He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum). Passages from this Gospel reading are cited in the Catechism in sixteen (16) paragraphs.
Commentary
4:4–5. There were two normal routes for going from Judea to Galilee. The shorter one went through the city of Samaria; the other, which followed the Jordan, was longer. Jesus took the Samaria route, perhaps not just because it was shorter and busier but also to have a chance of preaching to the Samaritans. When he was approaching Samaria, near Sychar, the present-day El ‘Askar, at the foot of Mount Ebal, he met this Samaritan woman.
4:6. The Gospels, particularly St John’s, sometimes give us little bits of information which seem irrelevant but really are not. Like us, Jesus did get tired, he needed to take regular rest, he felt hunger and thirst; but despite his tiredness he does not waste an opportunity to do good to souls.
“Recollect yourselves and go over the scene again slowly in your minds. Jesus Christ, perfectus Deus, perfectus homo, is tired out from his travels and his apostolic work. Perhaps there have been times when the same thing has happened to you and you have ended up worn out, because you have reached the limit of your resources. It is a touching sight to see our Master so exhausted. He is hungry too—his disciples have gone to a neighbouring village to look for food. And he is thirsty […].
“Whenever we get tired—in our work, in our studies, in our apostolic endeavours—when our horizon is darkened by lowering clouds, then let us turn our eyes to Jesus, to Jesus who is so good, and who also gets tired; to Jesus who is hungry and suffers thirst. Lord, how well you make yourself understood! How lovable you are! You show us that you are just like us, in everything but sin, so that we can feel utterly sure that, together with you, we can conquer all our evil inclinations, all our faults. For neither weariness nor hunger matters, nor thirst, nor tears … since Christ also grew weary, knew hunger, was thirsty, and wept. What is important is that we struggle to fulfil the will of our heavenly Father (cf. Jn 4:34), battling away goodheartedly, for our Lord is always at our side” (St Josemaría Escrivá, Friends of God, 176 and 201).
4:7. Jesus has come to save what was lost. He spares no effort in this mission. The hostility between Jews and Samaritans was proverbial; but Jesus embraced everyone, he loved all souls and he shed his blood for each and every person. He begins his conversation with this woman, by asking a favour of her—which indicates God’s great respect for us: here we have Almighty God asking a mere creature to do him a favour. “Give me a drink”: Jesus makes this request not just to slake his physical thirst but because his love made him thirst for the salvation of all men. When nailed to the cross he again said: “I thirst” (Jn 19:28).
4:9. The Samaritan woman’s reply starts the dialogue and shows how well she is responding to the action of grace in her soul: her readiness to talk to Christ, who was a Jew, is the first stage in her change of heart. Later (v. 11), by taking a real interest in what Christ is saying, she opens up further to God’s influence. Her religious feelings begin to revive (“our father Jacob”: v. 12). Jesus rewards her and she replies truthfully: “I have no husband” (v. 17); and, seeing that Jesus has penetrated the intimacy of her conscience, she makes an act of faith: “I perceive that you are a prophet” (v. 19).
4:10. As in his dialogue with Nicodemus, Jesus makes use of common expressions to get across teachings of a much deeper nature. Everyone knows from experience that water is absolutely necessary for human life; similarly, the grace of Christ is absolutely necessary for supernatural life. The water which can truly quench man’s thirst does not come from this or any other well: it is Christ’s grace, the “living water” which provides eternal life.
Once again, taking occasion of human interests and preoccupations, Jesus awakens a desire for things supernatural; in the same way as he led St Peter and others away from their work as fishermen to involve them in the apostolic work of being fishers of men, he leads the Samaritan woman away from her chore of drawing water from the well to the point where she desires to find this better water which wells up to eternal life (v. 14).
4:13–14. Our Lord’s reply is surprising and really captures the woman’s attention. Here is someone greater than Jacob, someone offering her water that will quench her thirst once and for all. Christ is referring to the change worked in every person by sanctifying grace, a share in God’s own life, the presence of the Holy Spirit in the soul, the great gift which those who believe in him will receive.
We worry about the future, we are full of desires to be happy and at peace; a person who receives our Lord and remains united to him as a branch to the vine (cf. Jn 15:4–5) will not only slake his thirst but become a well of living water (cf. Jn 7:37–39).
4:16–19. Although the woman cannot yet realize the deep meaning of what he is saying, Jesus uses her growing interest to reveal to her his divinity, little by little: he shows that he knows about her life, the secrets of her heart; he can read her conscience. In this way he gives her enough to motivate her to make her first act of faith: “I perceive that you are a prophet.” Her conversion has begun.
4:20. The origin of the Samaritan people goes back to the period of the conquest of Samaria by the Assyrians in the eighth century before Christ (cf. 1 Kings 13:24–31). They were foreigners who very quickly integrated with the Israelites in the region. After the Babylonian captivity they tried to ally themselves with the Jews for political reasons and to contribute to the rebuilding of the temple, but the Jews would have none of them. From that time onwards the Jews and the Samaritans were always hostile to each other (cf. Ezra 4:1ff; Jn 4:9).
On this occasion, the Samaritan woman, now fully aware that she is speaking to someone of authority, asks our Lord one of the key questions affecting the religious life of the two peoples: where was the right place to offer worship to God; the Jews held that only Jerusalem would do; whereas the Samaritans claimed that the shrine erected on Mount Gerizim was also legitimate (they based their claim on some passages in the Pentateuch: cf. Gen 12:7; 22:2; 33:20).
4:21–24. Jesus not only answers the question but takes advantage of it to confirm the value of the teachings of the prophets and thereby reaffirm revealed truth: the Samaritans are in the dark about many of God’s plans because they do not accept any revelation not found in the first five books of Holy Scripture, that is, in the Law of Moses; the Jews, on the other hand, are much nearer the truth because they accept the whole of the Old Testament. But both Samaritans and Jews need to open themselves to the new revelation of Jesus Christ. With the coming of the Messiah, whom both peoples are awaiting, and who is the true dwelling-place of God among men (cf. Jn 2:19), the new, definitive Alliance has begun; and neither Gerizim nor Jerusalem count any more; what the Father wishes is for all to accept the Messiah, his Son, the new temple of God, by offering him a form of worship which comes right from the heart (cf. Jn 1:12; 2 Tim 2:22) and which the Spirit of God himself stirs people to render (cf. Rom 8:15).
This is why the Church’s solemn Magisterium teaches that through Baptism we become true worshippers of God: “By Baptism men are grafted into the paschal mystery of Christ; they die with him, are buried with him, and rise with him. They receive the spirit of adoption as sons ‘in which we cry, Abba, Father’ (Rom 8:15) and thus become true adorers such as the Father seeks” (Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium, 6).
4:25–26. This is the last stage in the Samaritan woman’s conversion: she has come from acknowledging her sins to accepting the true teaching about worshipping the Father in spirit and truth. But she still has to recognize Jesus as the Messiah; on this subject she simply confesses her ignorance. Seeing that she is favourably disposed, Jesus explicitly reveals that he is the Messiah: “I who speak to you am he”.
These words of our Lord are especially significant: he declares that he is the Messiah, and he uses words—“I … am he”—which evoke the words Yahweh used to reveal himself to Moses (cf. Ex 3:14) and which on Jesus’ lips indicate a revelation not only of his messiahship but also of his divinity (cf. Jn 8:24, 28, 58; 18:6).
4:27. “During the course of his life on earth, Jesus our Lord had all manner of insults heaped upon him and was mistreated in every way possible. Remember the way it was rumoured that he was a trouble-maker and how he was said to be possessed (cf. Mt 11:18)? At other times, demonstrations of his infinite Love were deliberately misinterpreted, and he was accused of being a friend of sinners (cf. Mt 9:11).
“Later on he, who personified penance and moderation, was accused of haunting the tables of the rich (cf. Lk 19:7). He was also contemptuously referred to as fabri filius (Mt 13:55), the carpenter’s son, the worker’s son, as if this were an insult. He allowed himself to be denounced as a glutton and a drunkard … He let his enemies accuse him of everything, except that he was not chaste. On this point he sealed their lips, because he wanted us to keep a vivid memory of his immaculate example—a wonderful example of purity, of cleanliness, of light, of a love that can set the whole world on fire in order to purify it.
“For myself, I always like to consider holy purity in the light of our Lord’s own behaviour. In practising this virtue, what refinement he showed! See what St John says about Jesus when fatigatus ex itinere, sedebat sic super fontem (Jn 4:6), wearied as he was from the journey, he was sitting by the well. […]
“But tired though his body is, his thirst for souls is even greater. So when the Samaritan woman, the sinner, arrives, Christ with his priestly heart turns eagerly to save the lost sheep, and he forgets his tiredness, his hunger and his thirst.
“Our Lord was busy with this great work of charity when the Apostles came back from the village, and they mirabantur quia cum muliere loquebatur (Jn 4:27), they were astonished to find him talking to a woman, alone. How careful he was! What love he had for the beautiful virtue of holy purity, that virtue which helps us to be stronger, more manly, more fruitful, better able to work for God, and more capable of undertaking great things!” (St Josemaría Escrivá, Friends of God, 176).
4:28–30. Grace brings about an amazing change in this woman. Now her whole thinking centres around Jesus; she forgets what brought her to the well; she leaves her pitcher behind her and goes off to the town to tell people about her discovery. “The Apostles, when they were called, left their nets; this woman leaves her water jar and proclaims the Gospel, calling not just one person but influencing the whole city” (St John Chrysostom, Hom. on St John, 33). Every genuine conversion is necessarily projected towards others, in a desire to have them share in the joy of encountering Jesus.
4:32–38. Our Lord uses the occasion to speak about a spiritual form of food—doing the will of God. He has just brought about the conversion of a sinful woman and his spirit feels replete. The conversion of souls must be the apostles’ food also, and the food of all those who through priestly ordination are sacramentally associated with Christ’s ministry (cf. 1 Cor 4:9–15; 2 Cor 4:7–12; 11:27–29). Apostolic work sometimes means sowing, with no apparent results, and sometimes reaping where others sowed. The apostles will reap what was generously sown by the patriarchs and prophets and especially by Christ. And they in their turn must prepare the ground, with the same generosity, so that others can later reap the harvest.
But it is not only ministers who have this apostolic role: all the faithful are called to take part in the work of apostolate: “Since Christians have different gifts they should collaborate in the work of the Gospel, each according to his opportunity, ability, charism and ministry; all who sow and reap, plant and water, should be one so that ‘working together for the same end in a free and orderly manner’ they might together devote their powers to the building up of the Church” (Vatican II, Ad gentes, 28).
4:39–42. This episode shows a whole evangelization process at work, beginning with the Samaritan woman’s enthusiasm. “The same thing happens today with those who are outside, who are not Christians: they receive tidings of Christ through Christian friends; like that woman, they learn of Christ through the Church; then they come to Christ, that is, they believe in Christ through this report, and then Jesus stays two days among them and many more believe, and believe more firmly, that he indeed is the Saviour of the world” (St Augustine, In Ioann. Evang., 15, 33).
Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.
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