John 4 Study Notes

4:27 The disciples’ amazement that Jesus was talking with a woman stemmed from the common Jewish teaching that talking too much to a woman, even one’s wife, was a waste of time, diverting one’s attention from the study of Scripture and reflection on God.

4:28 The woman’s water jar was probably a large earthenware pitcher carried on the shoulder or hip. She abandoned her original purpose for coming to the well in order to tell her townspeople about Jesus.

4:29 Who told me everything I ever did was an exaggeration—but understandable in light of her excitement. See note at v. 39.

4:30 It is interesting that the woman had such credibility that people left their work to see the man she spoke of.

4:31 Rabbi, eat something reflected the disciples’ customary concern for their Master’s well-being. Jesus had been worn out from his journey before his conversation with the Samaritan woman (see note at v. 6). He still had not had anything to eat.

4:32-34 The accomplishment of Jesus’s mission was more important to him than physical food (Mt 6:25; Mk 3:20-21). His statement may echo Dt 8:3 (cp. Mt 4:4; Lk 4:4). On Jesus’s work, see note at 17:4.

4:35 In agriculture there is always a considerable separation in time between sowing and harvesting. The disciples needed to realize that with the coming of Jesus, sowing (preaching) and reaping (conversions) coincided. The immediate reference may be to the approaching Samaritans (vv. 39-42).

4:36 This saying is reminiscent of Am 9:13, which depicted the prosperity of the new age. Hence Jesus claimed that he was ushering in the messianic age, a time of swift, abundant harvest.

4:37-38 This saying may allude to Mc 6:15, “You will sow but not reap.” Yet Jesus’s adaptation left judgment unmentioned. The others who had labored were Jesus and his predecessors, most recently John the Baptist, the final prophet associated with the OT era. Jesus’s followers were the beneficiaries of their work and would bring in the harvest.

4:39 That town refers to Sychar (see note at v. 5). Though people would naturally be skeptical about religious pronouncements made by an immoral woman such as this Samaritan, her sincerity (and perhaps a noticeable change in her morality) convinced her townspeople to take her seriously as she spoke about Jesus.

4:40 Jesus obviously did not share in the Jewish bias against Samaritans since he spent two days with them (see notes at vv. 4,9).

4:41-42 As others had done (1:40-41,45), the woman brought people to Jesus so they could see for themselves. Ultimately, it was on the basis of a personal encounter with Jesus that they believed. His large harvest among the Samaritans marked the first sign of the universal scope of his saving mission (10:16; 11:51-52). The early church also undertook a Samaritan mission (Ac 8:4-25; cp. Ac 1:8). In fact, the pattern of Jesus’s mission from Judea (Nicodemus, Jn 3), to Samaria (Jn 4), to the Gentiles (vv. 46-54; cp. 12:20-33), anticipated the post-Pentecost mission of the early church (Ac 1:8).

4:43-54 The healing of the royal official’s son completes the “Cana cycle” in John’s Gospel, which spans from 2:1 to 4:54 and begins and ends with a “sign” performed by Jesus in Cana of Galilee (2:11; 4:54; see note at 2:11). The present sign is a rare instance of a long-distance healing performed by Jesus. The story resembles that of the Gentile centurion in Mt 8:5-13 and Lk 7:2-10, but this is not the same incident. All three signs featured in the Cana cycle (the turning of water into wine, the temple clearing, and the healing of the royal official’s son) set forth Jesus as the Messiah, who showed convincing proofs of his divine commission.

4:43 Jesus left there (Sychar) and entered Galilee. From Sychar to Cana was about forty miles, a trip of two or three days.

4:44 On a prophet’s lack of honor in his own country, compare Mt 13:57; Lk 4:24.

4:45 Jesus’s Galilean welcome must be understood in light of vv. 44 and 48 (cp. 2:23-25).

4:46 The royal official was probably a Gentile centurion, possibly in service to Herod Antipas (Mk 6:14). His son’s illness involved fever (Jn 4:52) and appears to have been terminal (vv. 47,49).

4:47 The distance from Capernaum to Cana was about fifteen miles. The journey was mostly uphill (see note at 2:12). Conversely, from Cana Jesus would come down to Capernaum.

4:48 The expression signs and wonders probably harks back to the series of miracles performed by Moses at the exodus. Jesus rebuked people for their dependence on the miraculous; for John, miracles were “signs” pointing to Jesus’s messianic identity (see note at 2:11).

4:49-50 This is a rare instance of a long-distance miracle. A similar incident is described in Mt 8:5-13 and Lk 7:2-10. The words your son will live may recall Elijah’s statement in 1Kg 17:23. If so, Jesus’s messianic activity is compared with the healing ministry of Elijah (Lk 4:23-27).

4:54 The second sign refers to signs done in Cana (see note at 2:11); in the interim, Jesus had performed signs in Jerusalem (2:23; 3:2; 4:45). Thus John closed the cycle of Jesus’s first ministry circuit, starting and ending in Cana of Galilee (see note at vv. 43-54).