What has always fascinated me most about the Woman of Samaria, otherwise known as the Samaritan Woman, or even The Woman at the Well (Gospel according to John, chapter 4), was how promptly and excitedly she had been to share the Good News with the rest of the people. There’s this song – Get All Excited – that I love very much because it beautifully captures what I believe the woman must have felt when she left her water jar to rush to the village to inform others about the Messiah.
However, I’ve been puzzled for years about how Bible scholars came up with the picture of her as some sort of immoral outcast hiding in shame. As far as I am concerned, this simply didn’t fit the facts provided about the woman in the Bible. Among others, from the conversation recorded in the Bible, it is clear that the woman was savvy about politics and religion, could carry on a conversation comfortably with a man in spite of the prevailing culture which discouraged this at that time, and she was very teachable.
I also found it strange that all it took for her to be convinced that Jesus was a Prophet was the fact that He told her something about her marital status that no ordinary stranger could know. And stranger still was how fast she moved from accepting Him as a Prophet, to accepting Him as the Messiah just at His say-so, and her promptitude in announcing it to everybody in the same community she was supposed to have been avoiding. And strangest of all, that the whole community took her seriously and acted on it!
Over the years, I have tried to compare this account with the many powerful conversion testimonies I have heard and read in and outside the Bible. There is nothing to compare with this! The closest to this was the conversion of apostles Peter and Nathaniel but even they only responded to the nudging of someone they had a close relationship with. And they certainly didn’t rush off enthusiastically in such a short space of time to announce it to everyone in their community. Why, even the most zealous of them all, Apostle Paul, the former learned Pharisee who must already have known about the Messiah and Jesus’ claim to be He long before his powerful encounter on his way to Damascus acted so rapidly to the Call!
Please allow me to quickly point out here that I am a great believer in the limitless power of God to work in mysterious ways to achieve His purposes. Nevertheless, I sense that there is much more to this woman that made her respond so delightfully, and inspired her extraordinary zeal in sharing the Good News so promptly with her community. Furthermore I feel strongly that, far from being despised, the relationship between her and her community must have been at the very least, that of respect and trust. Such is the case of all converts in all ages.
Which now brings me to my theory on the Divine Preparation Principle. No, you won’t find that expression in a scholarly book, since I came up with it all by my own little self. But I beg you to please indulge me by hearing me out.
The way I see it, right from the beginning of creation, God always prepares the ground in advance to achieve His purposes. He did so before instructing Adam and Eve to occupy, have dominion, and multiply on the earth. After the Fall, He prepared the Seed of the woman for Salvation. Before expulsing Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, He prepared the skin of the slaughtered lamb as a protective covering for them. Subsequently, God prepared the nation of Israel to expect the Messiah who was to save the world. He prepared a Fore-runner, John the Baptist, to announce the first coming of the Messiah. Through him, He prepared the first Apostles to follow the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
For the Gentile world, God prepared Cornelius through an angel, in answer to prayer, and prepared Apostle Peter to break protocol so that Gentiles too can receive Salvation. In a similar fashion, He prepared the Ethiopian Eunuch through a desire for clarity in His Word, and the Evangelist Stephen so that the Good News can be carried to Africa. He prepared Lydia and the women who had gathered for their routine prayer session, to receive Apostle Paul who by the way had expected a ‘Man from Macedonia!’ so that the Good News can penetrate Europe.
God, who is the same yesterday, today and forever is still doing the same today. Apart from having observed a similar pattern in the salvation testimonies of many other people today, I also can personally testify that He also prepared me, the least of them all, by stirring in me the desire to attend Sunday worship in a church after over twenty years. I still remember today, the young man who taught the Sunday School or Search the Scriptures session as it was called in the particular church. I still remember that the topic dealt with the difference between Salvation and Sanctification for three weeks consecutively. And I still recall how my nagging questions about Jesus as Saviour were answered on my third Sunday visit, and I finally surrendered my life into His loving Arms. Alleluiah!
And now, a Food For Thought, dear reader: I am sure that if you too have truly accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, you will be able to recall how God prepared your heart to embrace the Way, the Truth and the Life in Jesus Christ. But IF you have had no such experience yet, then perhaps God is preparing you even right now to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour. In which case, my prayer for you is this: May you not miss the day of your Visitation in His mighty Name. Amen!
Now, to continue, I am sure you will agree with me that since this Divine Preparation Principle was the case for so many whom God called, you will not quickly jettison the idea that this Samaritan woman and her whole community might also have been prepared in advance by God in some way that may not be explicit in the text, to accept Jesus as Messiah. Therefore, I appeal to you, dear reader, to allow me once again to use the liberty of the writer’s imagination to fill in the first blank in the story of this Samaritan woman. Do bear with me.
First, the reason usually given to classify this Samaritan as some sort of outcast or immoral woman (which the Bible never alluded to), was the fact that our Lord said she had previously had five husbands and was now living with a man she was not married to. According to this theory, this was probably why she came to fetch water at an unusually late and inconvenient hour of the day. But I urge you to please keep an open mind on this as we explore other possibilities.
It starts with my conviction (which is not new or exclusive to me, by the way) that this was why on this particular occasion, our Lord ‘must needs pass through Samaria’, as the Bible text puts it.
Why do I support this? It is a well-known historical fact that Jews and Samaritans have been hostile towards each other since the days of Nehemiah some 500 years earlier. For this reason, in spite of the Pax Romana, Jews still avoid contact with the Samaritans whom they considered half-breeds. Samaritans too did not welcome Jews as is clearly recorded in the Gospel of Luke (chapter 9 verses 51 to 55). In this account which was towards the end of Jesus’ Ministry on earth, another Samaritan village refused to allow Him and His disciples to make the shorter and more convenient journey through their village, on their way to Jerusalem. And note that He had to rebuke two of His disciples (James and John) for their aggressive response to this hostility.
Another popular teaching about this woman that I have always found very odd, is that she was an immoral woman who, because of her shameful lifestyle, avoided social contact with the people of her community. When I look at the way the woman carried herself, she struck me as a rather confident. In fact, I would even go as afar as to say that she struck me as so kind of militant religious zealot or activist who knew how to stand up for her beliefs.
As earlier mentioned, the woman is very knowledgeable about social, political and religious matters and is not afraid to defend her position: Furthermore, going by her interaction with our Lord Jesus Christ, far from the picture painted of her of a ‘shrinking violet’ hiding in shame from other people. Her posture, even in this day and age, appears to be an uncommonly audacious for a woman! She does not appear to be intimidated by a man, and a Jewish one at that. She also seems to have a healthy disregard for protocol and diplomacy. Take for example, her response to Jesus’ request for water to drink:
9 … “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans).
The phrase in brackets in verse 9 shed more light on the fact that Jews were the snobs and not the other way round. If we are to put that in contemporary context, this attitude could result in religious, tribal and/or social resentment, as personal experience in my own country makes clear.
Usually, the person who considers himself superior than another is more likely to take umbrage when an inferior initiates conversation or asks for help. Moreover, the woman must have known that a man, a Jewish one at that, knew what protocol demanded! Just listen to her in verses 11 and 12!
11 “But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket,” she said, “and this well is very deep. Where would you get this living water? 12 And besides, do you think you’re greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his animals enjoyed?”
She was practically being cantankerous! This is why I suspect that there was more to her belligerent response to a simple request for water. Why, even in Old Testament times, Eliezer could ask Rebecca for a drink of water without having his head bitten off! The reason could of course be general irritation in the heat of the sun, but from the conversation that ensues, methinks there has to be more behind her mean and resentful disposition towards a distressed male figure in a highly patriarchal society.
Had there perhaps been a recent outrage committed against the Samaritans of her village by a Jew? Or an account she heard recently about the arrogance of a Jew towards a relative of hers?
It may even not be out of the question to suggest that her coming late to fetch water might be related to some religious debate among a group of mostly men, whose duty did not include fetching water from the well. So instead of what is popularly supposed shame, the woman was actually paying for getting involved with ‘men’s affairs’ – as is still the case today for emancipated women – by having to come fetch water in the late noon sun! There’s more. Please stay with me.
Again, rather than the popular picture of a downcast and depressed woman painted for us, this woman seems very alert and quite witty. Note her smart repartee to Jesus when He said He could give her the kind of water that quench her thirsty forever:
15 … “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
Obviously, you and I, and of course this woman know that literally speaking, no such water existed! But in spite of not understanding what Jesus meant, rather than ask for clarification, she chose to respond facetiously by associating it with water from the well, which she must have certainly known was not the intention! It would seem she was in fact teasing or even mocking Jesus!
Quite a tiresome woman, wouldn’t you say? And this may explain why our Lord suddenly switched to a subject that would get her attention: 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
He brief and somewhat terse response that she did not have a husband spoke volumes! It would appear she was trying to bring a quick end to a topic she would rather not discuss. However, our Lord Jesus Christ finally cut her down to size by pursuing the topic in spite of her, and revealing an aspect of her past life that she might have preferred to keep to herself:
Jesus said, “You’re right! You don’t have a husband— 18 for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now. You certainly spoke the truth!”
This must have been a shock to her, coming from a total stranger. It must have suddenly dawned on her that there was a supernatural power at work through Jesus and He finally got her full attention. Her response was brief once again, but very pensive:
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet.
I imagine her whispering this sentence in awe. However, I still wonder why the Word of Knowledge about her marital status was enough for her shift so quickly to believing Jesus was a prophet. Could it be again that in fact, nobody, or very few people in the community knew details of her domestic arrangement or marital past, contrary to the general teaching that it was common knowledge about this that made her ashamed? But we’ll probably only find out the facts when we get to heaven. But that’s not to say that my suggestion that it was a well-hidden secret from the community should be dismissed! J
The woman seemed to have recovered her aplomb very quickly though, as she switched to questions on the practice of true religion that had probably been nagging at her for years.
20 So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped?”
We really must admire her for this as it showed her strong desire to learn the Truth. You see, the way I see it, once it dawned on her that she was face-to-face with a true prophet, she jumped at the opportunity to learn the truth! She must have found our Lord’s detailed reply from verses 21-26 very satisfactory, as it was in fact a lesson in Theology! Amazingly, Jesus taught a Samaritan of the female gender who was all alone, an aspect of theology that is fundamental to the Christian faith!
21 … “Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem.
22 You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews.
23 But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way.
24 For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”
This must have been a great blessing to her, and this apparently religious woman from a tribe that was considered inferior must have found verses 23 – 24 in particular exceedingly freeing! No wonder her response her response was once again brief:
25 … “I know the Messiah is coming—the one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
Could she have been thinking aloud when she said this? Could her thoughts have gone along these lines:
I can’t believe a Jewish man is taking time out to carry on a conversation with me! And a Jewish prophet at that! And what is saying is unbelievable! Actually putting their Temple in Jerusalem and ours on Mount Gerizim on the same level??!!! Neither is as important to Him as the spirit behind the worship. So worship can be anywhere then? What a strange thing to say to a woman from my part of the woods! But what he is saying makes so much sense! All the hostilities and resentments and arguments over nothing at all! Has not the Torah told us so many times that God does not live in a building? And that He can use anybody from anywhere to achieve His Purposes? Was Rahab from Jericho not admitted into the family of Judah, an ancestor of the Messiah? Were some of Jacob’s children not mere servants with no blood relationship with the patriarch’s family? Did King David not descend from the Moabite Ruth? Was Bathsheba the adulteress not the mother of King Solomon? All this grandstanding and vainglory and fighting really mean nothing at all. This makes sense!
Furthermore, in line with my Divine Preparation Principle, could it be that the topic of the Messiah was already on the hot-burner in the village that day? May I even go so far as to play with the idea that the debate, argument, or discussion in the community that made her come fetch water late just might have something to do with the announcement of Jesus as the Messiah in Galilee and Judea! Perhaps one or some of them, or even this woman herself, had heard about John the Baptist’s declaration that the Messiah had come?
Or even better still, perhaps they had heard the testimony of the Samaritan leper who had been healed? After all, Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee when they met Him! (Luke 17:11). Who knows whether this ex-leper, the only one of the ten that returned to thank Jesus, was from the same village? Perhaps his testimony had generated a heated debate between two groups of Samaritans: those who believed that the Messiah would come from among their own people, and those who insisted He had come to believe he would be a Jew?
Similar religious debates are still going on today about the Second Coming of Christ. Over and beyond those who proclaim themselves Messiah, even as the Bible had warned us beforehand, it is interesting to note that Moslems believe that Mohamed supersedes Jesus, and that some future prophet from their own midst that they refer to as the Mahdi would be the true Messiah.
Finally, I would like to point out that there is good reason to believe that Jesus told the woman much more about her past than what was recorded. Just hear the woman’s testimony in verse 29:
“Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did! …
Certainly, marriage was not all she ever did, especially given the fact that women did not really have a say about who they married and at what age. And to buttress this fact, research of bible scholars has shown that Jesus’ sayings captured in the Bible were often abbreviated to focus on the most important details. Furthermore, the last verse of the Gospel according to John also states clearly: 25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
The Samaritan woman must have been awed by everything Jesus taught her, just like those Jesus taught in Matthew 7: 28:
28 When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, 29 for he taught with real authority—quite unlike their teachers of religious law.
And it was then, when she was fully prepared to receive the Ultimate Truth, that Jesus finally fully revealed Himself to her n very clear terms:
26 … “I AM the Messiah!”
Amazing, when you look at it. This was one exceptional woman in the New Testament who did not approach Jesus, but was rather approached by Jesus. She did not ask for help from Jesus, but rather, Jesus asked her for help. She did not ask for healing or deliverance, nor did she make any request on behalf of anybody else, but Jesus asked about her family life and talked about her marital status. Her disposition towards Jesus was neither humble nor friendly, and yet somehow, our Lord was compassionate towards her and tolerated her quarrelsome attitude. And when she finally humbled herself and asked relevant questions, our Lord gave a one-on-one Theology lesson about deep spiritual Truths!
She was the only female, individual, non- fundamental Jew, non-apostle, non-Jewish leader, non-secular governor that Jesus told without any prevarication: I am the Messiah!!!
Can all this therefore not explain why she could hardly contain such a privileged revelation? To her credit, she dropped everything else to rush to her village to share the Good News. And the positive result was captured in the next verse:
30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
To conclude, it must be emphasized that the woman spread the joy cheerfully on her initiative. This suggests to me that she could not have been avoiding people or feeling ashamed. Rather, she must have cared a lot about her people, and they must have known she did. If not a highly-placed woman (which is debatable) she must have been highly respected in the community. Only this can explain why so many people, including men, took her seriously in a society where women’ witness was considered undependable! (Remember the response of the Apostles to the announcement of the resurrection of Christ by women). That is the only explanation I can proffer for her effort to have yielded such wonderful fruit as captured from verses 39 to 42:
39 Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, “He told me everything I ever did!”
40 When they came out to see him, they begged him to stay in their village.
And isn’t it wonderful that Jesus honoured the request of this community of despised people, some of whom have even been hostile towards Him in the past! What a great lesson for us His followers today!
40 … So he stayed for two days, 41 long enough for many more to hear his message and believe.
42 Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard him ourselves. Now we know that he is indeed the Savior of the world.”
What beautiful words to end a beautiful testimony!
O Lord, help me to be as zealous to share the Good News with those you have prepared me to encounter for Your Namesake! Amen!
THE END
Below are extracts from a document I found online while writing this article. I find it both enlightening and very reassuring, especially as it further buttresses my position on what is more likely to be the status of this Woman at the Well in her community. You too may find it interesting.
While they do not consider themselves Jews, the Samaritans draw their beliefs from the Torah. Samaritan liturgy featured women prominently and showed them in positions of power. While there is little information about their status, there are indications that some Samaritan women have held positions in which they may have wielded considerable power. Whether or not they were in fact able to do so is not always clear. It may well be that Samaritan women were used as chattels to cement mésalliances. The first such instance was the unnamed daughter of Sanballat, Pehah of Samaria in Nehemiah’s time (Neh. 13:28), whose marriage to the grandson of the High Priest Joiada must have been an act of anti-Judaean policy. A second such woman was Malthace, one of the ten wives of Herod (AJ xvii.19(3)) whose son, Archelaus, became an Ethnarch, while another son, Herod Antipas, became a Tetrarch after Herod’s death and a daughter, Olympias, in typical Samaritan fashion, married her uncle, Joseph. (See Herodian Dynasty family tree.) The Samaritans seem to have exercised some influence under Herod and Archelaus. Another woman of limited political influence was the unnamed leader of the abortive rebellion of the Samaritans in the reign of Anastasius (491–518); she led the rebels up Mt. Gerizim, where they slew the Roman guards, but was unable to persuade the Samaritans in Nablus to join a general revolt.
Though the matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Rac
| Naamah: Bible | Jewish Women’s ArchiveNaamah is one of only three women included in the genealogies of the early chapters of Genesis. No vocational ro… |
Among Samaritan folktales preserved in their chronicles are stories of women, all of whom seem to be involved with priestly families. Most of these stories, which are few, have a sexual bias. One such, which follows the witchcraft tradition, is the story of Sul, the maidservant of the High Priest Nathaniel, who had an affair with her master’s son, Bahaam, and then resorted to a magician (Simon Magus) to have him slain. When the matter was exposed, she was put to death.
Another story involves Miriam, the daughter of the High Priest Eleazar, who fled Nablus to avoid being married to the child of her guardian after the death of her father. Since the story seems to fit what is known today of Samaritan marriage rites and practices, it may have some historical basis. The most famous of such stories is that of the unnamed daughter of the High Priest Amram, a close parallel to the Apocryphal story of Susannah, in which a charge of lewdness is laid. The story indicates that a woman could study the Torah and indeed she is said to have written a Torah scroll—an unlikely circumstance in view of the Samaritan attitude to niddah. She is also said to have become a nezirah for a year. The story implies that prostitution was not unknown among Samaritan women, a view apparently borne out by the tale of the Samaritan woman in John 4, though this story may be much misunderstood….