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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - John 4:12 - 4:12
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12. υὴ σὺ μείζ. Σύ is very emphatic; Surely Thou art not greater: comp. Joh 8:53, Joh 18:33. Her loquacity as contrasted with the sententiousness of Nicodemus is very natural, while she shews a similar perverseness in misunderstanding spiritual metaphors.
τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν. The Samaritans claimed to be descended from Joseph; with how much justice is a question very much debated. Some maintain that they were of purely heathen origin, although they were driven by calamity to unite the worship of Jehovah with their own idolatries: and this view seems to be in strict accordance with 2Ki 17:23-41. Renegade Jews took refuge among them from time to time; but such immigrants would not affect the texture of the nation more than French refugees among ourselves. Others hold that the Samaritans were from the first a mongrel nation, a mixture of heathen colonists with Jewish inhabitants, left behind by Shalmaneser. There is nothing to shew that he did leave any (2Ki 18:11); Josephus says (Ant. IX. xiv. 1) that ‘he transplanted all the people.’ When the Samaritans asked Alexander the Great to excuse them from tribute in the Sabbatical year, because as true sons of Joseph they did not till their land in the seventh year, he pronounced their claim an imposture, and destroyed Samaria. Our Lord calls a Samaritan ‘one of a different race,’ ἀλλογενής (Luk 17:18).
ἔδωκεν ἡμῖν. This has no foundation in Scripture, but no doubt was a Samaritan tradition. She means, ‘the well was good enough for him, his sons, and his cattle, and is good enough for us; hast Thou a better?’ The energetic diffuseness of her statement is very natural. Θρέμματα might mean ‘slaves.’