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Joh_4:25-26. The woman is struck by Christ’s answer, but she does not yet understand it, and she appeals to the Messiah; Χριστῷ Χριστὸν ἔλεξεν , Nonnus. Well says Chrysostom: εἰλιγγίασεν ἡ γυνὴ (she grew dizzy) πρὸς τὰ λεχθέντα , καὶ ἀπηγόρευσε πρὸς τὸ ὕψος τῶν εἰρημένεν , καὶ καμοῦσα ἄκουσον τί φησιν , κ . τ . λ . The presentiment that Jesus Himself was the Messiah is not to be recognised in her words (against Luthardt); yet these are neither evasive nor abrupt (Lücke, de Wette), but the expression of the need of the manifestation of the Messiah, which was deeply felt in this moment of profound impression,—a need which Jesus perceived, and immediately satisfied by the declaration that followed. The Samaritans, sharing the national hope of the Jews, and taking their stand upon the Messianic passages in the Pentateuch (such as Genesis 15; Gen_49:10, Numbers 24, and especially Deu_18:15), were expecting the Messiah,[193] whom they called äÇùÑÌÈäÅá or äÇúÌÈäÅá (now el Muhdy; see Robinson, III. 320), whose mission they apprehended less in a political aspect, though also as the restoration of the kingdom of Israel, and the re-establishment of the Gerizim-worship, yet merely as the result of human working. See Gesen. de theol. Sam. p. 41 ff., and ad carmina Sam. p. 75 f.; Bargès, passim; Vilmar, passim. Against B. Bauer’s unhistorical assertion, that at that time the Samaritans had no Messianic belief (Evang. Gesch. Joh. Beil. p. 415 ff.), see B. Crusius. Μεσσίας (without the article, as in Joh_1:42) is uttered by the woman as a proper name, and thus she adopted the Jewish title, which was doubtless well known in Samaria, and the use of which might be so closely connected with a feeling of respect for the highly gifted Jew with whom she was conversing, that there is no adequate ground for the assumption that the evangelist puts the word into her mouth (Ammon).
ΠΆΝΤΑ ] used in a popular indefinite sense.
ἘΓΏ ΕἸΜΙ ] I am He, i.e. the Messiah, Joh_4:25, the simple usual Greek expression, and not in imitation of Deu_32:39. Observe the plain and direct avowal, in answer to the guilelessness of the Samaritan woman, whose faith was now ready to acknowledge Him (comp. Chrysostom). The consideration of the special circumstances, and of the fact that here there was no danger of a political abuse of the avowal (Joh_6:15), obviates the seeming contradiction between this early confession and Mat_8:4; Mat_16:20.
[193] The Samaritan name äùÑäá or äúäá is by some rendered the converter (so Gesenius and Ewald), and by others the returning one (Moses), as Sacy, Juynboll (Commentar. in hist. gentis Sam. L. B. 1846), Hengstenberg. Both are linguistically admissible; the latter, considering Deu_18:15, is the most probable.