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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - John 4:10 - 4:10
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
If thou knewest, etc.
Answering rather something latent in the question than the question itself, as in Jesus' first answer to Nicodemus.
The gift (δωρεὰν)
Only here in the Gospels, though Luke uses it in Acts four times, and the kindred adverb, δῶρημα, freely, is found once in Matthew. The word carries the sense of a bountiful, free, honorable gift. Compare δῶρημα, gift, and see on Jam 1:17.
Asked (ᾔτησας)
Jesus uses the same word for ask which the woman had employed of his asking her, the word expressing the asking of the inferior from the superior. Here it is the appropriate word.
Living water (ὕδωρ ζῶν)
Fresh, perennial. A familiar figure to the Jews. See Jer 2:13; Jer 17:13; Zec 14:8. Not necessarily the same as water of life (ὕδωρ ζωῆς, Rev 21:6; Rev 22:1, Rev 22:17).