Chapter. Instruction of the Samaritans; healing of the royal son.
After these words of John, his disciples immediately came to Me, and the number of My disciples grew from day to day, indeed often from hour to hour. For everyone who began to believe in Me and upon whom I had laid My hands according to the measure of his faith and after baptism with water, performed by My earlier disciples, became full of the spirit of power and courage and free of all fear of bodily death.
When many learned this, they nevertheless made it known everywhere they went, despite My prohibition. Moreover, all My deeds were spread throughout Judea, not infrequently with various additions and exaggerations. Among the Jews, who were eager for miracles, this had the quite natural result that they came to Me in ever greater numbers from day to day and often remained with Me at once.
But it also had the inevitable, regrettable consequence that all this reached the wide-open ears of the Pharisees, as already noted, with many additions and exaggerations. Some of these sounded so unusual that even some Romans began to think I must be either Zeus himself or at least a son of his.
Spies were also sent to Me by the Romans, but they did not find what they had been sent to Me for. I generally performed no signs in such cases either, so that this superstitious people would not become even more obtuse than they already were.
But from such exaggerations a multitude of false gospels subsequently arose and then distorted the truth.
The Pharisees, these wicked and exceedingly jealous heads of the temple and Scripture, immediately began making plans among themselves to put an end to My work and John’s. They meant either to remove us from the world in a quite innocent manner or at least to place us in some institution providing lifelong care, so charmingly situated underground, as they later managed to arrange with Herod for John.
That such noble intentions did not remain unknown to Me needs no further explanation. But to avoid brawls and troublesome, evil disturbances, I had no choice but to leave ultramontane, dark-minded Judea and go to the more liberal-minded Galilee.
John 4:4. But He had to travel through Samaria.
It was not even advisable to go directly to Galilee, but rather to take the road through Samaria, which had long since freed itself from the temple priests with Roman help. (This was easy and welcome work for the Romans, whose principle was in any case to divide all lands so as to rule them more easily.)
For that reason the Samaritans were also the most despised and most blasphemous people on earth in the eyes of the priests of Jerusalem. In turn, those priests stood in such repute among the Samaritans that they generally used the name ‘temple priest’ to designate the very worst thing. If, for example, a Samaritan said to someone in some agitation for which he had no sufficient cause, ‘You Pharisee!’ the person thus reviled went to court and sued the offender, who often had to pay for his rashness with a heavy fine and a year in prison. It goes without saying that no Pharisee or other priest was well advised to set foot in Samaria. This circumstance served Me and all those who followed Me well, for in Samaria we were safe from the wicked persecution of the temple Jews.
John 4:5. Then He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the little village that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
The road led through Sychar, a town near the ancient little village that Jacob gave his son Joseph as a cradle gift, together with the inhabitants of that village, who as a rule consisted entirely of shepherds whom he had received as a dowry with Rachel. Sychar was not a capital of this land, yet very many well-to-do Samaritans lived there, as did quite a few rich Romans, because the town was very beautifully situated and the region very healthy.
John 4:6. Jacob’s well was there. Since Jesus was tired from the journey, He sat on the stone railing of the well; it was just about the sixth hour.
By present-day reckoning, we had left Judea as early as about four o’clock, walked briskly without rest and reached old Jacob’s well at exactly twelve noon, which was then the sixth hour. It lay just outside the village, scarcely some forty paces from it, toward Sychar. This well had a very good spring, was enclosed by a stone railing delicately carved in the old manner, and was also surrounded by shady trees.
The day was hot, since it was high summer, and I Myself had already become very tired in body from the strenuous journey. All who had followed Me from Judea and earlier from Galilee sought shelter, some in the village and some beneath the trees with their ample shade, and, because of their great weariness, a most welcome rest.
Even the first disciples, Peter, My John, Andrew and Thomas, Philip and Nathanael, fell as if half dead onto the lush grass beneath the trees. Only I, although also very tired, sat on the stone railing of the well, for I knew beforehand that a good opportunity would soon present itself there for a very useful encounter with the Samaritans, who were indeed stubborn but otherwise freer of prejudice. At the same time I was already very thirsty and waited for a vessel to draw water, which a disciple had gone into the village to fetch, but with which he failed to appear as soon as I wished.