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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - John 4:5 - 4:5
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5–42. Doubt has been thrown on this narrative in four different ways. (1) On a priori grounds. How could the Samaritans, who rejected the prophetical books, and were such bitter enemies of the Jews, be expecting a Messiah? The narrative is based on a fundamental mistake. But it is notorious that the Samaritans did look for a Messiah, and are looking for one to the present day. Though they rejected the Prophets, they accepted the Pentateuch, with all its Messianic prophecies. (2) On account of Mat 10:5. Would Christ do what He forbad His disciples to do? But what He forbad them was to undertake a mission to the Samaritans until the lost sheep of Israel had been sought after; whereas, 1. He had already been seeking after Israel; 2. this was no mission to the Samaritans. He went thither, we are expressly told, because He could not help going, ἔδει. Was it to be expected that being there He should abstain from doing good? (3) On account of Act 8:5. How could Philip go and convert the Samaritans, if Christ had already done so? But is it to be supposed that in two days Christ perfected Christianity in Samaria (even supposing, what is not certain, that Christ and Philip went to the same town), so as to leave nothing for a preacher to do afterwards? Many acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah who afterwards, on finding Him to be very different from the Messiah they expected, fell away. This would be likely enough at Samaria. The seed had fallen on rocky ground. (4) On the supposition that the narrative is an allegory, of which the whole point lies in the words ‘thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband.’ The five husbands are the five religions from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, brought to Samaria by the colonists from Assyria (2Ki 17:24); and the sixth is the adulterated worship of Jehovah. If our interpreting Scripture depends upon our guessing such riddles as this, we may well give up the task in despair. But the allegory is a pure fiction. 1. When S. John gives us an allegory, he leaves no doubt that it is an allegory. There is not the faintest hint here. 2. It would be extraordinary that in a narrative of 38 verses the whole allegory should be contained in less than one verse, the rest being mere setting. This is like a frame a yard wide round a miniature. 3. Though there were five nations, there were seven or eight worships (2Ki 17:30-31), and the worships were simultaneous, not successive like the husbands. 4. There is a singular impropriety in making the heathen religions ‘husbands,’ while the worship of Jehovah is represented by a paramour.
The narrative is true to what we know of Jews and Samaritans at this time. The topography is well preserved. ‘The gradual development of the woman’s belief is psychologically true.’ These and other points to be noticed as they occur may convince us that this narrative cannot be a fiction. Far the easiest supposition is that it is a faithful record of actual facts.