John 4:6

The Evangelist, after relating how John checked the envy of his disciples, on the success of Christ’s teaching, comes next to the envy of the Pharisees, and Christ’s retreat front the them. When therefore the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard, &c.

Truly had the Pharisees’ knowledge that our Lord was making more disciples, and baptizing more than John, been such as to lead them heartily to follow Him, He would not have left Judea, but would have remained for their sake: but seeing, as He did, that this knowledge of Him was coupled with envy, and made them not followers, but persecutors, He departed thence. He could too, had He pleased, have stayed amongst them, and escaped their hands; but He wished to show His own example to believers in time to come, that it was no sin for a servant of God to fly from the fury of persecutors. He did it like a good teacher, not out of fear for Himself, but for our instruction.

He did it too to pacify the envy of men, and perhaps to avoid bringing the dispensation of the incarnation into suspicion. For had he been taken and escaped, the reality of His flesh would have been doubted.

It may perplex you, perhaps, to be told that Jesus baptized more than John, and then immediately after, Though Jesus Himself baptized not. What? Is there a mistake made, and then corrected?

Christ Himself did not baptize, but those who reported the fact, in order to raise the envy of their hearers, so represented it as to appear that Christ Himself baptized. The reason why He baptized not Himself, had been already declared by John, He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Now He had not yet given the Holy Spirit: it was therefore fitting that He should not baptize. But His disciples baptized, as an efficacious mode of instruction; better than gathering up believers here and there, as had been done in the case of Simon and his brother. Their baptism, however, had no more virtue than the baptism of John; both being without the grace of the Spirit, and both having one object, viz. that of bringing men to Christ.

Or, both are true; for Jesus both baptized, and baptized not. He baptized, in that He cleansed: He baptized not, in that He dipped not. The disciples supplied the ministry of the body, He the aid of that Majesty of which it was said, The Same is, He which baptize.

The question is often asked, whether the Holy Ghost was given by the baptism of the disciples; when below it is said, The Holy Ghost was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. We reply, that the Spirit was given, though not in so manifest a way as he was after the Ascension, in the shape of fiery tongues. For, as Christ Himself in His human nature ever possessed the Spirit, and yet afterwards at His baptism the Spirit descended visibly upon Him in the form of a dove; so before the manifest and visible coming of the Holy Spirit, all saints might possess the Spirit secretly.

But we must believe that the disciples of Christ were already baptized themselves, either with John’s baptism, or, as is more probable, with Christ’s. For He who had stooped to the humble service of washing His disciples’ feet, had not failed to administer baptism to His servants, who would thus be enabled in their turn to baptize others.

Christ on withdrawing from Judea, joined those whom He was with before, as we react next, And departed again into Galilee. As the Apostles, when they were expelled by the Jews, went to the Gentiles, so Christ goes to the Samaritans. But, to deprive the Jews of all excuse, He does not go to stay there, but only takes it on His road, as the Evangelist implies by saying, And he must needs go through Samaria. Samaria receives its name from Somer, a mountain there, so called from the name of a former possessor of it. The inhabitants of the country were formerly not Samaritans, but Israelites. But in process of time they fell under God’s wrath, and the king of Assyria transplanted them to Babylon and Media; placing Gentiles from various parts in Samaria in their room. God however, to show that it was not for want of power on His part that he delivered up the Jews, but for the sins of the people themselves, sent lions to afflict the barbarians. This was told the king, and he sent a priest to instruct them in God’s law. But not even then did they wholly cease from their iniquity, but only half changed. For in process of time they turned to idols again, though they still worshipped God, calling themselves after the mountain, Samaritans.

He must needs pass through Samaria; because that country lay between Judea and Galilee. Samaria was the principal city of a province of Palestine, and gave its name to the whole district connected with it. The particular place to which our Lord went is next given: Then comes He to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar.

It was the place where Simeon and Levi made a great slaughter for Dinah.

But after the sons of Jacob had desolated the city, by the slaughter of the Sychemites, Jacob annexed it to the portion of his son Joseph as we read in Genesis, I have given to you one portion above your brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword, and with my bow. This is referred to in what follows, Near to the place of ground which Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there.

It was a well. Every, well is a spring, but every spring is not a well. Any water that rises from the ground, and can be drawn for use, is a spring: but where it is ready at hand, and on the surface, it is called a spring only; where it is creep and low down, it is called a well, not a spring.

But why does the Evangelist make mention of the parcel of ground, and the well? First, to explain what the woman says, Our father Jacob gave us this well; secondly, to remind you that what the Patriarchs obtained by their faith in God, the Jews had lost by their impiety. They had been supplanted to make room for Gentiles. And therefore there is nothing new in what has now taken place, i.e.; in the Gentiles succeeding to the kingdom of heaven in the place of the Jews.

Christ prefers labor and exercise to ease and luxury, and therefore travels to Samaria, not in a carriage but on foot; until at last the exertion of the journey fatigues Him; a lesson to us, that so far from indulging in superfluities, we should often even deprive ourselves of necessaries: Jesus therefore being wearied with His journey, &c.

Jesus, we see, is strong and weak: strong, because in the beginning was the Word; weak, because the Word was made flesh. Jesus thus weak, being wearied with his journey, sat on the well.

As if to say, not on a seat, or a couch, but on the first place He saw - upon the ground. He sat down because He was wearied, and to wait for the disciples. The coolness of the well would be refreshing in the midday heat: And it was about the sixth hour.

He mentions our Lord’s sitting and resting from His journey, that none might blame Him for going to Samaria Himself, after He had forbidden the disciples going.

Our Lord left Judea also mystically, i.e. He left the unbelief of those who condemned Him, and by His Apostles, went into Galilee, i.e. into the fickleness of the world; thus teaching His disciples to pass from vices to virtues. The parcel of ground I conceive to have been left not so much to Joseph, as to Christ, of whom Joseph was a type; whom the sun, and moon, and all the stars truly adore. To this parcel of ground our Lord came, that the Samaritans, who claimed to be inheritors of the Patriarch Israel, might recognize Him, and be converted to Christ, the legal heir of the Patriarch.

His journey, is His assumption of the flesh for our sake. For whither does He go, Who is every where present? What is this, except that it was necessary for Him, in order to come to us, to take upon Him visibly a form of flesh? So then His being wearied with His Journey, what means it, but that He is wearied with the flesh? And wherefore is it the sixth hour? Because it is the sixth age of the world. Reckon severally as hours, the first age from Adam to Noah, the second from Noah to Abraham, the third from Abraham to David, the fourth from David to the carrying away into Babylon, the fifth from thence to the baptism of John; on this calculation the present age is the sixth hour.

At the sixth hour then our Lord comes to the well. The black abyss of the well, methinks, represents the lowest parts of this universe, i.e. the earth, to which Jesus came at the sixth hour, that is, in the sixth age of mankind, the old age, as it were, of the old man, which we are bidden to put off; that we may put on the new. For so do we reckon the different ages of man’s life: the first age is infancy, the second childhood, the third boyhood, the fourth youth, the fifth manhood, the sixth old age. Again, the sixth hour, being the middle of the day, the time at which the sun begins to descend, signifies that we, who are called by Christ, are to check our pleasure in visible things, that by the love of things invisible refreshing the inner man, we may be restored to the inward light which never fails. By His sitting is signified His humility, or perhaps His magisterial character; teachers being accustomed to sit.

2. Superfluous, too, in that case is His descent into Mary; for why did He come down into her if He were to take nothing of her? Still further, if He had taken nothing of Mary, He would never have availed Himself of those kinds of food which are derived from the earth, by which that body which has been taken from the earth is nourished; nor would He have hungered, fasting those forty days, like Moses and Elias, unless His body was craving after its own proper nourishment; nor, again, would John His disciple have said, when writing of Him, “But Jesus, being wearied with the journey, was sitting [to rest];” nor would David have proclaimed of Him beforehand, “They have added to the grief of my wounds;” nor would He have wept over Lazarus, nor have sweated great drops of blood; nor have declared, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful;” nor, when His side was pierced, would there have come forth bl …

Feed us, the children, as sheep. Yea, Master, fill us with righteousness, Thine own pasture; yea, O Instructor, feed us on Thy holy mountain the Church, which towers aloft, which is above the clouds, which touches heaven. “And I will be,” He says, “their Shepherd,” and will be near them, as the garment to their skin. He wishes to save my flesh by enveloping it in the robe of immortality, and He hath anointed my body. “They shall call Me,” He says, “and I will say, Here am I.” Thou didst hear sooner than I expected, Master. “And if they pass over, they shall not slip,” saith the Lord. For we who are passing over to immortality shall not fall into corruption, for He shall sustain us. For so He has said, and so He has willed. Such is our Instructor, righteously good. …

How many, therefore, are the pleas of nature, how many the privileges of grace, how many the solemnities of discipline, the figures, the preparations, the prayers, which have ordained the sanctity of water? First, indeed, when the people, set unconditionally free, escaped the violence of the Egyptian king by crossing over through water , it was water that extinguished the king himself, with his entire forces. What figure more manifestly fulfilled in the sacrament of baptism? The nations are set free from the world by means of water , to wit: and the devil, their old tyrant, they leave quite behind, overwhelmed in the water . Again, water is restored from its defect of “bitterness” to its native grace of “sweetness” by the tree of Moses. That tree was Christ, restoring, to wit, of Himself, the veins of sometime envenomed and bitter nature into the all-salutary waters of baptism. …

From the side of its pertinence to the Gospel, the question of the parables indeed has by this time been disposed of. If, however, the Lord, by His deeds withal, issued any such proclamation in favour of sinners; as when He permitted contact even with his own body to the “woman, a sinner,”, washing, as she did, His feet with tears, and wiping them with her hair, and inaugurating His sepulture with ointment; as when to the Samaritaness, not an adulteress by her now sixth marriage, but a prostitute, He showed (what He did show readily to any one) who He was; no benefit is hence conferred upon our adversaries, even if it had been to such as were already Christians that He (in these several cases) granted pardon. …

Ver. 5, 6 . “He cometh to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there.”

Ver. 6, 7, 8 . “Jesus therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus by the well; and it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, Give Me to drink. For His disciples were gone away into the city to buy meat.”

“Since his going down into Mary is useless; for why went He down into her if He was designed to take nothing from her? And further, if He had taken nothing from Mary He would not have accepted the food taken from earth whereby is nourished the body taken from earth, nor would He like Moses and Elias, after fasting forty days, have hungered, on account of His body demanding its own food, nor yet would John his disciple when writing about him have said, ‘Jesus being wearied from his journey sat,’ nor would David have uttered the prediction about him ‘And they added to the pain of my wounds,’ nor would he have wept over Lazarus, nor would He have sweated drops of blood, nor would He have said, ‘my soul is exceedingly sorrowful,’ nor yet when He was pierced would blood and water have issued from His side. …

Orth. Again when the divine Scripture says, “Jesus therefore being wearied with his journey sat thus on the well,” of what is the weariness to be understood, of the Godhead or of the body?

7. Of the divine nature the prophet Isaiah said, “He shall neither be hungry nor weary” and so on. But the Evangelist says “Jesus being weary with his journey sat thus on the well;” and “shall not be weary” is contrary to “being weary.” Therefore the prophecy is contrary to the narrative of the gospels. But they are not contrary, for both are of one God. Not being weary is of the uncircumscribed nature which fills all things. But moving from place to place is of the circumscribed nature; and when that which moves is constrained to travel it is subject to the weariness of the wayfarer. Therefore what walked and was weary was a body, for the union did not confound the natures.

9. Let us take pattern, my beloved, from our Saviour, Who though He was rich, made Himself poor; and though He was lofty, humbled His Majesty; and though His dwelling place was in heaven, He had no place to lay His head; and though He is to come upon the clouds, yet rode on a colt and so entered Jerusalem; and though He is God and Son of God, He took upon Him the likeness of a servant; and though He was (for others) rest from all weariness, yet was Himself tired with the weariness of the journey; though He was the fountain that quenches thirst, yet Himself thirsted and asked for water; though He was abundance and satisfied our hunger, yet He Himself hungered when He went forth to the wilderness to be tempted; though He was a Watcher that slumbers not, He yet slumbered and slept in the ship in the midst of the sea; and though He was ministered to in the Tabernacle of His Father, yet let H …