John 4 Bible Study Questions and Answers: The Samaritan Woman's Life-Changing Encounter With Jesus

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John 4:1-42  Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2(although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

7 A woman from Samaria came 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 for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (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 water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will 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, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

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 the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people 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 is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people 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 tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town 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 town and were coming to him.

31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” 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’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering 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 town 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 what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” 

John 4:1-4 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2(although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria.

• How far of a journey are we talking about here? And what is meant by the phrase “he (Jesus) had to pass through Samaria”?

  
  

The journey from Jerusalem (the capital of Judea) to Nazareth is roughly 65 miles as a straight shot. Jesus and his disciples could have made this journey in 2-3 days on foot.

The phrase “he had to pass through Samaria” is antithetical to the reality of the day. Most Jews did everything to avoid traveling through Samaria, even adding 35-40 miles onto their journey by going around Samaria to the east. Jesus deliberately went against custom to have this encounter. Reading between the lines here, he “had to pass through Samaria” because he had a divine appointment with this woman.

John 4:5-9 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 A woman from Samaria came 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 for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 

• Who were the Samaritans? Why was it inappropriate for Jesus to ask for water from a Samaritan woman?

  
  

The Samaritans were a group of people descended from the 10 tribes of Israel, the Northern Kingdom, which had been scattered by the Assyrians and mixed with the pagan nations of antiquity. Remember, the capital of Northern Israel, after the unified kingdom split up following the reign of Solomon (died in 931 BC), became Samaria. In 722 BC, the Assyrians conquered Israel and scattered its people to the four corners of the Assyrian empire. People from other nations were also relocated and settled in Samaria. At some point, a Jewish priest was brought back with instructions to teach the people of the land about the God of Israel (who the Assyrians considered “the god of the land”). Eventually, more Samaritan Jews came back and settled in the land along with the pagans who were living there. 

Reference: 2 Kings 17:24-28

Most Jews considered Samaritans unclean. This would include the utensils they used to eat and the vessels they used to drink. Their women were certainly considered unclean. Within a generation of Jesus’ own life, Jewish leaders codified a law which stated that Samaritan women were “menstruants from their cradle, and therefore perpetually in a state of ceremonial uncleanness.”[1] The woman at the well was aware of this prejudice, and she obviously recognized Jesus as a Jew right away, perhaps before he even opened his mouth. What she did not know, at least not yet, was that he was very different from the typical Jewish male of the day.

Further, Jesus is breaking all sorts of cultural norms here. To ask a woman for water would very likely have been considered flirtatious. To ask a woman who was alone at a well in the middle of the day for water – even to speak to her – would have been scandalous. Not to mention the history in play: Isaac, Jacob, and Moses all found or met their wives at wells.

• What time of day was it? Why is this important?

  
  

The sixth hour of the day is high noon. That the woman was there at this time, by herself, means that she was a social outcast, unwelcome to come with the rest of the women from Sychar in the early morning hours after sunrise. More on why she was a social outcast below.

• Why did Jews have no dealings with Samaritans

  
  

Aside from the fact that they were considered unclean, there was also a sordid history between the Jews and Samaritans. Aside from everything that is recorded in the Old Testament (the ten northern tribes breaking from Israel, etc.) the Samaritans also failed to support Israel during the Maccabean Revolt that had happened one-and-a-half to two centuries before this encounter took place.

John 4:10-12 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 water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”

• What is meant by the phrase “living water”?

  
  

The phrase “living water” simply means fresh or flowing water as opposed to well water. However, based on the usage of this phrase in the famous Hebrew passage in Jeremiah 2, it carries multiple levels of meaning for Jesus.

Jeremiah 2:13 “for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

But wait, this woman was a Samaritan. Samaritans only read the first five books of the Tanakh (Hebrew Old Testament), aka the Torah. This woman likely never heard Jeremiah read in her life. And yet, she seems to pick up on Jesus’ guise, the fact that Jesus was talking about more than fresh water. If not, why would she ask, “are you greater than our Father Jacob?” I don’t believe her question is a reference to the fact that Jacob dug the well she was currently drawing water from. It had to do with the fact that this man was claiming to be someone special; someone who, despite appearing as a weary traveler, claimed to possess living water.

John 4:13-15 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will 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, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” 

• What did Jesus say or do in this passage to make her think that he actually had the ability to give her “living water”?

  
  

Nothing. There is nothing on the surface that indicates that he is anyone special, outside of the fact that he is saying odd things. The fact that she is willing to go along with this and humbly responds in the affirmative demonstrates a genuine hunger for God in her. She wants help.

There is some scholarly debate about whether or not she, at this point, recognizes that he is talking about more than water and physical thirst. Personally, I believe that the woman sensed at this point that something more was being offered. Again, I don’t believe she would bring up Jacob, one of the greatest men in history for the Samaritans, as a way of comparing water sources (fresh vs. stagnant). I believe she did that to initially challenge whether or not this man was a legitimate spiritual teacher.

Jesus’ next statement would take away all doubt that he was offering her more than fresh water.

John 4:16-18 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 the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 

• What about this statement proved to the woman that Jesus was, at the very least, a genuine prophet?

  
  

Jesus had an explicit, crystal clear word of knowledge for this woman. There is no way, in the natural realm, for him to have known this information. Further, the fact that she had five husbands AND lived with a man who was not her husband would have been astonishing and unthinkable in first-century Jewish and Samaritan society. This is undoubtedly the reason she was a social outcast and was forced to come to the well by herself in the heat of the day.  She was not welcome to be in company with the honorable women of the town.

The magnitude of what is happening here is something few ever grasp: Jesus is not only breaking social and cultural norms by speaking alone to a Samaritan woman, he is speaking to the lowest of the low; the social pariah of the Samaritan women. That is who Jesus is. He couldn’t care less about her standing in society. This woman, in my view, possessed a humble heart that was hungry for deliverance. That’s why he came to her.

John 4:19-24 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people 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 is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

• Why does the woman begin talking about mountains? And what is the meaning of Jesus’ answer to her?

  
  

Simply put, once Jesus shares his word of knowledge with her, she becomes immediately enlightened to the fact that he is someone special. Someone from God. Someone with answers. Her next move was to ask a question that cuts straight to heart of the division between Samaritan and Jew; that goes straight to the point of why she and her people were considered unclean by Jewish people of the day.

Both Jews and Samaritans acknowledged that God had commanded their ancestors to “seek the place the Lord your God would choose from among all the tribes to put his name there for his dwelling” (Deuteronomy 12:5). Simply put, the Jews, who read the entire Old Testament, knew that Jerusalem was the place David had determined to build a temple for God, who then authorized David’s son, Solomon, to build it. Since Samaritans only read the Torah, they assumed that the holy place, Shechem, overlooked by Mt. Gerizim, was the place where God should be worshiped. This is, after all, the location where Abraham first built an altar when he entered the promised land.[2]

In asking this question, the woman offers an unspoken yet valid complaint: if the Jews are right, and Jerusalem is the place where one must go to worship God, but I’m not allowed there, how am I supposed to worship? Receive forgiveness? Meet with God?

Jesus’ answer is stunning. He offers the woman an early glimpse of all that will be made available as a result of his atoning death and resurrection. He previews a time soon when it won’t matter where a person is or what ethnicity they possess; all true worshipers will worship God in the Spirit, wherever they are. It must be noted, however, that Jesus does not shy away from the most obvious aspect of her question: the Jews are the rightful ancestors of God’s covenant with Abraham, not the Samaritans. Salvation, including the Messiah, comes through them. Soon, however, all ethnic and covenantal blessing from being Jewish will be superseded by something far greater: the ability for anyone to be part of the new covenant, the Body of Christ, through faith.

John 4:25-26 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

• Did the woman recognize Jesus as the Messiah in this moment? Or was her invocation of the Messiah’s coming her way of probing Jesus further?

  
  

Some think that the woman, at this point, would have recognized Jesus as the Messiah. That her response to Jesus here probably represents the fact that she is somewhat disappointed in one element of Jesus’ answer: his defense of the Jews as the people of God.

I personally don’t take this view. I believe that the woman suspects that Jesus might be more than just a prophet and that her comment, “I know that Messiah is coming…” is her way of probing whether or not Jesus could be that man.

Either way, once he informs her that he is the Messiah and that what he has declared about true worship is so, she awakens to the reality of all that he’s just told her. Her next move is to become Jesus’ primary, initial evangelist to the Samaritans.

John 4:27-30;29-42 27Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town 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 town and were coming to him…

39 Many Samaritans from that town 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 what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” 

• The legacy of one woman’s humility in the face of immense suffering:

  
  

Many people came to Jesus as a result of this woman’s witness, and eventually, many from the town of Sychar believed in him. Later, the Samaritans would become the first major ethnic group outside the Jewish people to convert to Christianity.

[1] Mishnah Niddah 4:1

[2] D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1991), 222.

John 4 Bible Study Questions and Answers: The Samaritan Woman's Life-Changing Encounter With Jesus