John 4 Footnotes

4:4 Jesus didn’t have to go through Samaria. Jews in fact preferred to cross over and travel north on the eastern bank of the Jordan to avoid Samaria. But the compulsion was a theological one; it was God’s will that Jesus go this way to have his appointed encounter with the woman at the well.

4:26 How could Jesus reveal himself so plainly to this Samaritan woman when he was so coy with the Jewish leaders in Israel, especially as seen in the other three Gospels? Because the Samaritans were not looking for a militaristic ruler but expected a messiah who would be more like a prophet and a teacher.