BY THE WELL OF SYCHAR.
IN our last paper we called attention to some of the points of difference between the Lord Jesus — “a teacher come from God”— and the Rabbis of His day. If further proof or illustration of this difference were sought, perhaps in no place could we find it more distinctly than in that familiar scene by the Well of Sychar. A strong contrast was it to the ways and thoughts of the time, and a rebuke to the Jew who would scorn a Samaritan, to the Pharisee who would loathe contact with a sinner, and to the Rabbi who was forbidden by the traditions he so highly honored to hold converse with a woman.
But there was more. The love of Christ — the love of God in Christ — is there plainly seen, and He who had come to reveal the Father speaks the first word of that revelation to the sinful woman who had refused Him a cup of water. Let us follow the story.
The Lord “left Judæa, and departed again into Galilee. And He must needs go through Samaria.” Why such need? It was not simply that it was the most direct route; there was another, but a longer, road by way of Peræa, but He may have thought it well to avoid that seat of Herod’s government; or, better still, the soul-want of the poor Samaritaness may have furnished the “needs-be” of His route, even as He said He must the same word] abide in Zacehæus’s house. He journeys, and reaches a city of Samaria, called Sychar, where also was Jacob’s Well. Wearied with His journey, “He sat thus on the well,” and to the woman who came thither for water, He said, “Give Me to drink.” It was not much to ask, but, in strange contrast to the eagerness with which Rebekah answered the request of Abraham’s servant (“Drink, my lord, ... I will draw water for thy camels also”), she replies with a question: “How is it that Thou, being a Jew askest drink of me which am a woman of Samaria?” The evangelist adds a word to account for it: “The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.”
In order to rightly understand this, we must go back some time in the Bible history. During the reign of Hoshea, the Samaritans were, under God’s judgment, taken into captivity by the King of Assyria, and after the fashion of those days, the district was repopulated by various peoples, but principally by Cuthims from Cuthah. The new people were idolaters, and for their idolatry the Lord sent lions among them. This led to the king sending an instructor to teach the people “how they should fear the Lord,” but a priest who had been consecrated by such a king as Jereboam, was not likely to greatly help them, and the result of his teaching is stated in the Divine history — “they feared the Lord, and served their own gods.” In Ezra’s time, these semi-heathens claimed to be of the same faith with the returned Israelites, and asked that they might help in the rebuilding of the Temple — help firmly and rightly refused by the faithful. This strengthened, however, the rivalry already existing between Jews and Samaritans (up to the captivity a national quarrel), and the feud henceforth raged with more or less fury according to the circumstances of various times. The religious differences became fixed when the Samaritans built a rival temples at Shechem on Mount Gerizim (“this mountain,” on which according to the woman, their fathers worshipped), and, by a shameless falsification of Scripture, struck out the word “Ebal” from Deuteronomy 27:44Therefore it shall be when ye be gone over Jordan, that ye shall set up these stones, which I command you this day, in mount Ebal, and thou shalt plaster them with plaster. (Deuteronomy 27:4), and substituted “Gerizim.” It added to the feud that the Samaritans were joined by some apostate priests and others from. Jerusalem, who brought the Samaritan worship into greater likeness to the Jerusalem ritual, though they could not give to it the divine sanction which Jerusalem possessed, or make their worship any the less false. There was outward resemblance, but they worshipped they knew not what. So little was God really known and feared, that at the time of the persecution by Antiochus Epiphanes, they (calling themselves Sonians, and addressing him as God) prosed to dedicate their temple to Jupiter!
Scornful as was the manner of the Jews to the Samaritans, the latter were little better. They only were the faithful; they only kept Moses’ words. As for the prophets, they refused them, and every person or thing which might help to establish the authority of Jerusalem. Samuel was “a magician and an infidel;” Ezra was “cursed forever.” Nor did they confine their opposition to words. They defiled the Temple at Jerusalem by scattering dead men’s bones in it; they killed pilgrims journeying thither; and it will be remembered that they even refused to entertain the Lord because “His face was as though He would go to Jerusalem.” On the other hand, the Jews charged their rivals with worshipping the idol-gods which Jacob had buried under the oak at Shechem, and, what would be more keenly felt, they disclaimed all affinity with them in race or religion. In the Jews’ estimation the Samaritans were “lion-converts,” a name having scornful reference to the incident before referred to. “May I never set eyes on a Samaritan!” was their saying; and it was taught that he who hospitably entertained a Samaritan, deserved that his children should go into captivity. Even the writer of the apocryphal book, Ecclesiasticus, says: “There be two manner of nations which my heart abhorreth, and the third is no nation; they that sit upon the mount of Samaria, and they that dwell among the Philistines, and that foolish people that dwell in Sichem [Shechem].”Yet, notwithstanding all this, Samaritan food might lawfully be eaten by a Jew, so that there is no want of harmony between the evangelist’s statement as to the absence of intercourse between Jews and Samaritans, and his information that the disciples had gone into the city to buy meat. At a later time, when the jealousy had reached a higher pitch, Samaritan bread was declared to be like swine’s flesh, and so was absolutely forbidden.
We return to the gospel story. In several ways — by dress, by feature, by pronunciation — the woman would know that the stranger was a Jew. “How is it that Thou... askest drink of me?” The Lord heeds not her repulse, for, however real His natural thirst, He had a yet greater — her blessing. “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give Me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water.” Very little of this did she understand. Who or what was the gift of God she knew not; she caught at the words, “living water,” for it was for water that she had come thither, and the words themselves were by no means new. When Isaac dug his well at Gerar, “living water” sprang up; the bird which was killed at the cleansing of the leper was killed over “living water.” In the idiom of the language it meant bright, fresh, running water, and this was all that the woman saw in it. But from whence and how was it to come? He had no vessel, and then, the well was deep. Was He greater than their father Jacob, who gave them the well?
Again the Lord answers her, with words which might well lead her thoughts from earthly to heavenly things, and again she misses everything that speaks of spiritual blessing; she thinks only of having a full water pot, and of release from the drudgery of toiling to the well. And then, abruptly, the Lord changed the current of His words. “Go, call thy husband, and come hither.” And in His presence she could not speak falsely, though her words gave not the whole truth, but what was lacking the Lord supplied. It told of a life of sin and shame, and though she confessed nothing, she saw that she was in the presence of One who knew all things. Conscience at last was reached. “Sir, I perceive that Thou art a prophet.” This was an advance, that she could admit a prophet to have arisen in Judaea. And then she turns off to that hotly-fought question of the rival claims of Gerizim and Jerusalem, perhaps not so much to ward off all dealing with her conscience as we might at first imagine, as because in those days, to a heart which longed to be right with God, the place for worship was a really grave consideration. Here was a prophet — could he answer the question? On her side she had the traditions of her people; from the dust of this mountain Adam had been formed; here he had erected his first altar; here the ark had rested, and Noah had offered his burnt offerings. Here, too, Abraham had bound his son, and Jacob had seen heaven opened. Accepting, as no doubt she did, all these fictions as truth, was there not enough to support the sanctity of Gerizim as against Jerusalem?
Then came those wondrous declarations from the lips of the Lord concerning the Father and the worshippers He sought. It may seem strange that He should discourse on such high themes to a poor, sinful woman, but it is the way of His love, and the way of His wisdom. So He told of the cessation of all merely local worship; vindicated the Jewish faith against the Samaritan, thus roving the false hope which they cherished of a Messiah to arise from among themselves, and declared that the hour had then come when the true worshippers should worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for “God is a Spirit.”
As though all this seemed infinitely beyond the woman’s understanding, she only answered, “I know that Messias cometh...when He is come, He will tell us all things.” And now the Lord discovers Himself. That relation which He had withholder from the learned Nicodemus He makes to her, “I that speak unto thee am He,” and she finds that beside her sits the One of whom Moses did write the Prophet whom the Lord should raise up. And in true keeping with their limited view of the Messiah, she sees only His Prophet-character: “He shall teach us all things.” It was little that she knew, but, after all, the great thing is not the extent of our knowledge about the Christ, but that we receive Him. Leaving her water pot, she went to the men of the city, saying, “Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” And when they came to Jesus and heard His word, they, too, believed in Him, “not” (say they to the woman) “because of thy saying: for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.” So for two days He abode with them.
We cannot help recalling that name given by Pharaoh to “Father Jacob’s” best loved son — “ Zaphnath-Paaneah.” None can say positively whether it is a Hebrew or an Egyptian name, but strangely enough (and probably there was a divine overruling in the choice of the name, however little conscious of it Pharaoh might be) in the one tongue it signifies “the Revealer of Secrets”; in the other it means “the Saviour of the world.” To the woman He was indeed “the Realer,” it was as though He had told her all things that she had done; to the Samaritans He was “the Saviour of the world,” from among the Jews, indeed, as He had said, but like that “fruitful vine by a well,” of which Jacob spoke, “whose branches run over the wall,” He had brought life and blessing and joy for them, for it was not possible that His love could be restrained by any Jewish limitations.
Have we learned Him thus — as Revealer, as Saviour? Or to go back to other parts of the wealth of blessing which the story brings before us, have we received from Him the “living water” which He gives to those thirsty souls who ask of Him? Whatever “waters” we may find on earth, none can satisfy — we thirst again; but His promise is, that they who drink of the water which He will give shall never thirst, but it shall be in them a well of water, springing up into everlasting life.