John 4:11-15 11The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where then do you have that living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and he himself drank from it and his sons and his livestock.” 13Jesus anwered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks from this water will be thirsty again; 14but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, but the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water springing up to eternal life.” 15The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
The Samaritan woman, like Nicodemus to whom she can be compared, was thinking on the literal, physical level about the water in the deep well of Jacob. The well was connected to a deep spring that provided constant fresh water. Jacob’s Well is said to be over 135 feet deep now, but it is uncertain how deep it was in the first century. It would have required a rope and bucket to get the water, which the woman noticed that Jesus did not have. There was no nearby stream, so there was no place for him to get the living water that he was talking about. It would take some type of miracle to get that kind of water in that location without the right equipment.
The woman’s question in verse 12 indicates she was smart and knew some Bible history or at least the traditions about the well that she frequented. As a Samaritan, a descendant of one of the ten northern tribes of Israel, she traced her heritage back to Jacob, just like the tribe of Judah, from which descended the Jews. Her question rings with a bit of sarcasm and shows her doubts about Jesus and that he was perhaps some man playing around with her like so many others in her life. She is curious enough to stick around and talk with him. There was something sincere about this man that was attractive. The truth draws those who seek it.
Jesus responds to the woman’s question and comment first on the literal level and then gets to the spiritual level. The water of Jacob’s well, even though great and refreshing, only temporarily quenched thirst. The physical body would be thirsty again later on. What Jesus provided satisfied the thirst. The world promises to satisfy the thirst of our souls, but people fill the empty place with idols. Jeremiah 2:13 remains true today: “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” The Samaritan woman was like every other human being who was looking for meaning, truth, purpose, hope, peace, joy, and love, but everywhere she looked, she came up empty. Jesus promised her a source that would never run dry and would even provide eternal life. His promise would be a fulfillment of Isaiah 12:3, “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” The woman was thirsty like what Isaiah 55:1-3 speaks about.
The woman was interested in what Jesus was talking about but did not yet understand his meaning, especially the idea of eternal life. She wanted a water faucet like what modern people have that always had water come out of it. That would have been a great miracle that showed Jesus to indeed be greater than Jacob. It would put Jesus on the level of Elijah who performed the miracle of unending oil and flour for the widow in 1 Kings 17. A bottomless water jar would be great to have. A dream was planted in her mind that began to stir her heart.
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