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Joh_4:4-5. Ἔδει ] from the geographical position; and hence the usual way for Galilaean travellers lay through Samaria (Josephus, Antt. xx. 6. 1), unless one chose to pass through Perea to avoid the hated land, which Jesus has at present no occasion to do. Comp. Luk_9:52.
εἰς πόλιν ] towards a city (not into, Joh_4:28 ff.). Comp. Mat_21:1; see Fritzsche, ad Marc. p. 81.
Συχάρ ] (not Σιχάρ , as Elz. has, against the best witnesses) is, according to the usual opinion,—though, indeed, the λεγομένην , comp. Joh_11:54, pointing to an unknown place, does not tally with it,—the same town as that called ùÑÀëÆí (LXX. Συχέμ , comp. Act_7:16; also Σίκιμα , comp. Josephus) in Gen_33:18, Jos_20:7, Jdg_9:7, et al.; after the time of Christ, however, called Neapolis (Joseph. Bell. iv. 8. 1), and now Nablus. See Crome, Beschreib. von Pal. I. p. 102 ff.; Robinson, III. 336; Rosen, in the Zeitschr. d. morgenl. Gesellsch. 1860, p. 634 ff. Upon the remnant of the Samaritans still in this town, see Rogers on the Modern Samaritans, London 1855; Barges, les Samaritains de Naplouse, Paris 1855. The name Συχάρ ,[182] which Credner quite arbitrarily tries to refer to a mere error in transcription, was accordingly a corruption of the old name, perhaps intentional, though it had come into ordinary use, and signifying drunken town (according to Isa_28:1), or town of lies, or heathen town, after Hab_3:18 ( ùÑÆ÷Æø ). Reland takes the former view, Lightfoot and Hengstenberg the latter, Hengstenberg supposing that John himself made the alteration in order to describe the lying character of the Samaritans—quite against the simplicity of the narrative in general, and the express ΛΕΓΟΜΈΝΗΝ in particular. This ΛΕΓΟΜ ., and the difference in the name, as well as the following ΠΛΗΣΊΟΝ , etc., and Joh_4:7, suggest the opinion that Sychar was a distinct town in the neighbourhood of Sychem (Hug, Luthardt, Lichtenstein, Ewald, Brückner, Baeumlein). See especially Delitzsch, in Guericke’s Luth. Zeitschr. 1856, p. 244 ff.; Ewald, Jahrb. VIII. 255 ff., and in his Johann. Schr. I. 181. The name may still be discovered in the modern al Askar, east of Nablus. Schenkel still sees here an error of a Gentile-Christian author.
The ΧΩΡΊΟΝ belonged to Sychem (Gen_33:19; Gen_48:22, LXX. Jos_24:32),[183] but must have lain in the direction of Sychar.
ΠΛΗΣΊΟΝ ] the town lay in the neighbourhood of the field, etc. Here only in the N. T., very often in the classics, as a simple adverb.
[182] Concerning the Talmudic name ñåëø , see Wieseler, Synopse, p. 256 ff.
[183] The LXX. in Gen_48:22 render ùÑÀáÆí by Σίκιμα , the error being that they took the Hebrew word directly as a name, whereas it is only an allusion to the town Sichem.