Bible Commentary (1871–1879 Edition) (continued)
Christ a7i(I the Womam. (if Samaria. JOHN IV. He Eevealeth Himself to her.
nature, they are soon spent, and need to be anew supplied as much as if we had never experienced them before, while the deeper wants of our being are not reached by them at all; whereas the "water" that Christ gives spiritual life—is struck out of the very depths of our being, making the sou! not a cistern, for holding water poured into it from without, but a fountain (the word had been belter so rendered, to distinguish it from the word rendered "well" in u. II), springing, gushing, bubbling up and flowing forth within us, ever fresh, ever living. The indwelling of the Holy Ghost as the Spirit of Christ is the secret of this life wilh all its enduring energies and satisfactions, as is expressly said (ch. 7. 37-39). " Never thirsting," then, means simply that such souls ha ve the supplies at home. Into everlasting life—carrying the thouglils up from the eternal freshness and vitality of these waters to the great ocean in which they have their confluence. 'Tliither may I arrive!' [Bengel.] 15-18. give inc thU water, Ac-This is not obluseness— that is giving way— it expresses a wondering desire after she scarce knew what from this mysterious Stranger, call thy husbnnd—now proceeding to arouse her slumbering conscience by laying bare the guilty life she was leading, and by the minute det.ails which that life furnished, not only bringing her sin vividly up before her, but preparing her to receive in His true cliaracter that wonderful Stranger to whom her whole life, in its minutest particulars, evidently lay open. 19, 30. Sir, I perceive, &c.—Seeing hois(df all revealed, does she now break down and ask what hopes there might be for one so guilty? Nay, her conviclions have not reached that point yet. She ingeniously shifts the subject from a personal to a pu!)lic question. It is not, '.\las, what a wicked life am I leading !' but ' Lo, what a wonderful prophet I got into conversation with ! He will be able to settle that interminable dispute between us and the Jews. Sir, you must know all about such matters—our fathers hold to this mountain here,' pointing to Goizim in Samaria, ' as tlie divinely-consecrated place of worship, but ye Jews say that Jerusalem is the proper place—which of us is right?' How slowly does the human heart submit to thorough humiliation! (compare t\\ii prodigal ; see on Lulce 15. 15). Doubtless our Lord saw through the fetch; but does He say, 'That question is not tlie point Just now, but have you been living in tlie way d(«cribed, yea or nay? Till this is disposed of I cannot be drawn into theological controversies.' The Prince of preachers takes another method : He humours the poor woman, letting her take her own way, allowing her to lead while He follows—but thus only the more effectually gaining his object. He answers her question, pours light into her mind on the spirituality of all true worship, as of its glorious Object, and so brings her insensibly to the point at which He could disclose to her wondering mind Whom she was all the while speaking to. ai-a-t. Woman, &c. Here are three weighty pieces of information: (1.) 'The point raised will very soon cease to be of any moment, for a total change of dispensation is about to come over the Church.' (2.) 'The Samaritans are wrong, not only as to theptace, but the whole grounds and nature of their worship, while in all these respects the trutli lies with the Jews.' (3.) 'As God is a Spirit, so He both invites and demands a spiritual worship, and already all is in preparation for a spiritual economy, more in harmony with the true nature of acceptable service than the cerenioni.il worship by consecrated persons, place, and times, which God for a time has seen meet to keep up till fulness of the time should come.' neither in this mountain nor at Jerusalem i.e., exclusively. (Malachi 1. 11; 1 Timothy 2. 8.) worship the Fattier—She had talked simply of "worship;" our Lord brings up before her the great Object of all acceptable worship "the Father." Ye worship ye know not what-without any revealed authority, and so very much in the dark. In this sense, the Jews knew what they were about.. But the most glorious thing here la the reason assigned, " For Salvation is of the Jews," Intimating to her that Salvation was not a thing left to bo reached by any one who might vaguely desire It of a God of mercy, but something that had been revealed, prepared, will endure for ever—the other not only has it not now, biu sliall never have It—never see it. abidfth on Ulm—
It was on Him before, and not beinf< removed in the only possible way, by " believing on the Son," it necessarily )-emnine/h on him! iJ.—How flatly does this contradict the tcachinj of many in our day, thai there neither was, uor is, anything in God against sinners wliicli needed to t>e remove-i by Christ, but only in men against God ! CHAPTER IV.
Ver. 1-12. Christ and thk Woman of Samaria—The Kamakitans ok Sychar. 1-1. tile Lord knew—not by reiiort, but in the sense of ch. 2. 2.5, for wliich reason He is here styUd "the Lord." Jcsns baptized not—John being a servant baptize<l vvitli his own hand ; Clirist as the Master, " baptizing wilh the Holy Ghost," administered the outward symbol only through His disciples, left Judea —!o avoid persecution, wiiicli at that early stage would have marred His work, dejiarted into Galilee—by which time John had been cast into prison (Mark 1. 14). must needs go tUi-o>«gli Samaria-for a geographical reason, no doubt, as it lay straight in his way, but certainly not without a higher design. 5. coineth to i.e.. as far as: for He remained at some distance from it. Syeliar—the "Sliechein" of the Old Testament, about thirty-lbur nriles from Jei usalem, afterwards called " Neapolis," and now
Nahlous." G-8. wearied . . . sat thus i.e., 'as you niight fancy a weary man would;' an instance of the graphic style of .St. John. [Webstkr and Wii.KiNriON.] In fact, this is perhaps the most human of all the scenes of our Lord's earthly history. We seem to be beside Him, overhearing all that is here recorded, nor could any painting of the scene on canvas, however perfect, do other than lower the conception which this exquisite narrative conveys to the devout and intelligent reader. But witli all that is /ix/nan, how much also of the Divine have we here, both blended in one glorious manifestation of the niajcs'y, grace, pity, patience with which "the Lord" im-
liglit and life to this unlikeliest of strangers, standlag midway between Jews and heathens, theslxtli liour —noonday, reckoning from 0 A. M. From Song of Solomon
1.7 we know, as from other sources, that the very flocks " rested at uoon." But Jesus, whose maxim was, " I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day" (ch.
9. -(1, seems to have denied Himself that repose, at least on this <x-casion, probably that He might reach this well when He knew the woman would be there. Once there, however. He accepts the grateful ease of a seat on the patriarclmf stone. But what music is that which I hear from His lips, " Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11.28). Give ine to drink—for the heat of a noonday sun had parclied His lips. But " in the last, that great day of the feast," Jesus stood and cried, saying, "If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink" (ch. 7. 37). 0-1^. How
Is It tliat thou—not altogether refusing, yet wondering at so unusual a recjaest from a Jew, as his dross and dialect would at once discover him to be, to a Samaritan. For, &c.—It Is this national antipathy that gives point to the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10. 30, &c.), and the thankfulness of the Samaritan leper (Luke 17. lit, 18). If thon knewest, itc.—17. (/., 'In Me thou seest only a petitioner to thoe ; but if thou k newest Who that Petitioner is, and the Gift that God is giving to men, thou wouldst have changed places with Him, gladly suing of Him living water—nor shouldst thou have sued in vain' (gently retlectlng on her for not Immediately meeting His request). Art thou greater, &c,.—already perceiving in this Stranger a claim to some mysterious greatness, our father Jacob—for when It went well with the Jews thej' claimed kindred with them, as being descended from Joseph, but when misfortunes befel the Jews they disowned all connection with them. [Josephus, 9. 14,3.] 13, 14. thIrMt again . . . nevcv thirst, &c.—The contrast here Is fundamental and all comprehensive. "This water" plainly means ' this natural water and all sati.%factiom 0/ a like earthly and perishable nature.' Coming tons fnm uithoui,mid reaching only the superficial jmrts of our
Christ Dedareik to His Disciples JOHN IV. His Zeal for God's Glory.
filled His whole soul, and raised Him above the sense of natural hunger (Matthew 1. 4). yet fonr months, and then harvest—5. d., 'In current speech, ye say thus at this season; but lift up your eyes and look upon those fields in the light of another husbandry, for lo! in that sense, they are even now wliite to harvest, ready for tlia sickle.' The simple beauty of this language is only surpassed by the glow of holy emotion in the Redeemer's own soul which it expresses. It refers to the ripeness of these Sycharites for accession to Him, and the joy of this great Lord of the reapers over the anticipated ingathering. Oh could we but so " lift up our eyes and look" upoq many fields abroad and at home, which to dull sense appear unpromising, as He beheld those of aamaria, what movements, as yet scarce in embryo, and accessions to Clirist, as yet seemingly far distant, might we not discern as quite near at hand, and thus, amidst difficulties and discouragements too much for nature to sustain, be cheered as our Lord Him-ielf vms in circumstances far more overwhelming—with "songs in the night !" he that reapeth, &c.—As our Lord could not mean that the reaper only, and not the sower, received " wages," in the sense of personal reward for liis work, the "wages" here can be no other than the Joy of having such a harvest to gather in—the joy of "gathering fruit unto life eternal." rejoice together—The blessed issue of the whole ingathering is the interest alike of the sower as of the reaper; it is no more the fruit of the last operation than of the first; and just as there can be no reaping without previous sowing, so have those servants of Christ, to whom is assigned the pleasant task of merely reaping the spiritual harvest, no work to do, and no joy to taste, that has not been prepared to their hand by the toilsome and often thankless work of their predecessors in the field. The joy, therefore, of the great harvest festivity will he the common Joy of all irlio have taken any part in the work from the first operation to the last. (See Deuteronomy deposited unth a particular people, and must be sought in connection with, and a.i issuing from Ihem ; and that people " the Jews." Itour conietU and now Is—evidently meaning her to understand that this new economy was in some sense being set up while He was talking to her, a sense which would in a lew minutes so lar ajipear, when He told her plainly He was llie Clirist. 'Zrt, 20. I know Mesglas cometli . . . wlirn He is come, &c.—If we take our Lord's immediate disclosure of Himself, in answer to this, as the proper key to its meaning to HLi ear, we can hardly doubt that the woraau was already all but prej>ared for even this startling announcement, which indeed she seems (from
I'. 29) to have already begun to suspect by His revealing her to herself. Thus quickly, under so matchless a Teacher, was she brought up from her sunken condition to a frame of mind and heart capable of the noblest revelations, tell us nil tilings—an expectation founded probably on Deuteronomy 18. 15. I that sitealt: . . . am lie— He scarce ever said anything like this to His own people, the Jews. He had magnified them to the woman, and yet to themselves He is to the last far more reserved than to her—p7-oui»(/ rather than plainly telling them He was the Christ. But what would not have been safe araong them was safe enough with her, whose siinplicity a.t this stage of the conversation appears from the sequel to have become perfect. What now will the woman say? We listen, the scene has changed, a new party arrives, the disciples have been to Sychar, at. some distance, to buy bread, and on their return are astonished at the company their Lord has been holding in their absence. 27. inarvel Sed tliat l>e tallied with tlie woman—It never probal)ly occurred to them to marvel that He talked with tliemselves ; yet in His eye, as the sequel shows. He was quite as nobly employed. How poor, if not false, are many of our most plausible estimates! none suld . . . WUatI . . . AVliy?- awed by the spectacle, and tliinking there must be something under it. 38-30. left lier watei--pot — How exquisitely natural! The presence of strangers made her feel that it was time for
16. 11, H; Psalm 126. 6; Isaiah 9. 3.) What encouragement is here for those "fishers of men" who "have toiled all the night" of their otllcial lite, and, to human appearance, "have taken nothing!" I sent you, Ac-The I lier lo withdraw, and He who knew what was in her heart, and what she was going to the city to do, let her go without exchanging a word with her in the hearing of others. Their interview was too sacred, and tlie effect on the. woman too overpowering (not to speak of His own deep emotion) to allow of its being continued. But this one artless touch—that she "left her water-pot" speaks volumes. The living water was already beginning to spring up within her; she found that man doth not live by bread nor by water only, and tliat tliere was a water of wondrous virtue that raised people above meat and drink, and the vessels that held them, and all human things. In short, she was transported, forgot everything but One; and her heart running over with the tale slie had to tell, she hastens home and pours it out. Is not tills tlie Clii-lst—The form o( the question (In the Greek) is a distant, modest way of only half insinuating what it seemed hardly fitting for her to affirm; nor does Bhe refer to what He said of Himself, l)ut solely to His disclosure to her of the particulars of her own life, tliey went out, &e.—How ditl'erent from the .lews ! ami richly was tlieiropenness to conviction rewarded. 31-3S. meantime—t. <?., while the woman was away. Master, eat is emphatic— I, the Lord of the whole harvest: "sent you," points to their past appointment to the apostleship, though it has reference only to their future discharge of it, for they had nothing to do with the present ingathering of the Sycharites. ye bestowed no labour— meaning that much of their future success would arise from the prejjai'ation already made for them. See on v. 42. others laboured—Referring to the Old Testament labourers, the Baptist, and by implication Himself, though He studiously keeps this In the background, </in< the line of distinction between Himself and all His servants might not be
' Christ represents Himself as the Husbandman [rather the Lord of the labourers], who has the direction both of the sowing and of the harvest, who commissions all the agents—those of the Old Testament ns well as of the New—and therefore does not stand on a level with either the sowers or the reapers.' [Or.silAUSEN'.] 39-4'i. many believed, &c.—Tlie truth of v. 35 begins to appear. These Samaritans were the foundation of the Church afterwards built up tliere. No miracle appears to have been wrought there [but unparalleled supernatural knowledge displayed]: "ice have heard Him ourselves" sulllced to raise their faith to a point never attained by the Jews, and hardly as yet by the discliiles-- tlmt He was "the Saviour of the world.'' [Ai.kokd.I 'This incident is further remarkable as a rare instance of the Lord's ministry producing ati awakening on a large lost siglil of.
Ji'atigue and tliirst we saw He felt; here is revealed another of our common infirmities to which the Lord was subject hunger, meat ye know n€>t of—Wliiit spirituality of mind! 'I hiive been eating all th'.« while, and such food as ye dream not of.' What can tiint be? they ask each other; have any supplies been brought Him In our aljsence? He knows wliat they are saying though He hears it not. My meat Is, Ac.—'A Servant here to scale.' [Or.SH.\USKN.] abode two days—Two precious days, surely, to the Uedeenier Ilinisilf! Unsought, He had come to His own, yet His own received Him not : now those wlio were not His own had come to Him, been won by Him, and invited Him totheirtown thatothers might share Willi them in the benefit of His wonderful ministry. Here, then, would He solace His already wounded spirit and have in this outfield village triumph of His grace, a sublime foretaste of the inbriuglug of the whole UentUe world into the Church.
fullll a prescribed work, to do and to finish that is " meat" to Me; and of tills, while you were away, I have had niy fill.' And of what does He speak thus? Of the condescension, pity, patience, wisdom He had been laying out upon one soul—a very liutnlde woman, and In some respects repulsive too! But He had gaimd her, and throtigh her was going to gain more, and lay i)crlinps tlie foundations of a great work In the country of Samaria • and this 134