3.07. The Woman of Samaria — Thirst

CHAPTER VII The Woman of Samaria — Thirst

TT was the sultry noon of the Syrian day. The descent from the heights of Ephraim into the vale of Shechem was like entering an oven. The sun, now nearly overhead, allowed of no shadow from hill or rock, while it poured out the rays of an intolerable heat on the parched and baking ground. This was scarcely a time when people who considered their personal convenience would choose to be abroad in such a place. It would have been much more pleasant to take a siesta in a darkened chamber of one of the white houses that gleamed so brightly up against the slope of Mount Ebal on the farther side of the valley, or, if in hope of catching an afternoon breeze a little later, beneath the green shade of its vinoclad verandah. Yet the solitary traveller seated himself out in the open on the stone slab of the famous well, bearing the name of the patriarch Jacob, in token of its traditional origin. His friends had left Him while they crossed the valley to the town of Sychar to buy food. He was too tired to accompany them; besides, that was needless, as they were to return for the mid-day meal by the well. So He sat there, waiting for them, just as He was, with no opportunity of bathing His feet or changing His clothing, after the manner of travellers in a hot country when they arrive at their destination.

He was thirsty, and He watched for the chance of some one coming to draw water, that he might ask her for some.

It was not a very likely chance, for women choose the cool hours of morning or evening for their daily task; and then, as there were springs close to the town, it was hardly to be expected that anybody would pass them in order to obtain water from the more remote well, out in the middle of the valley. It was therefore a little surprising to see a woman coming down the deserted road, her pitcher on her head, evidently making for the well. Was it that she was dissatisfied with the nearer springs, and fancied that what she could get from this deeper source was cooler and sweeter? Her words a little later imply that she had a high opinion of the well, for she resented the suggestion that any other water could be better than what she was accustomed to fetch thence. Or was it that, with her shady reputation, she shrank from meeting her neighbours at the fountains they frequented, such an occasion corresponding in the East to the afternoon-tea among English ladies, as a centre of social gossip. For the same sad reason she may have deliberately avoided the hours at which other women would be in the streets, choosing the time when they were most deserted to creep out unobserved.

It somewhat startled her to see a man seated alone by the well, where at this time of the day at all events she might expect to be left to herself. She was more startled when He addressed her, begging the favour of a drink of water, for His dress showed Him to be a Jew. Now Jews would not object to buy and sell with Samaritans; they would trade with anybody to their own profit. At this very time the disciples had gone into the town to purchase provisions from the inhabitants, who, of course, were Samaritans. Shylock says, “ I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following, but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you.” The “ dealings “ which the Jews refused to have with the Samaritans were rather those that indicated friendly intercoui’se. It would offend their pride to ask the smallest favour of these despised people. We may be amazed at the power of a prejudice that would restrain a thirsty man from asking for a drop of water from a member of a race that his people had tabooed. But unhappily hatred will make people deny themselves almost as much as love; and when it is not personal, when it is racial, it can disguise its ugly features, by claiming the sacrifice as a duty, to deny which is mean and selfish. The tables are now turned, and the Jews are subject to a similar treatment in many parts of Christendom, the hidejihetz being cultivated as a sort of religion.

Thus the simple request that Jesus made to this woman was at once a revelation of His freedom from the narrow prejudices of His people. With people of an independent turn of mind the request for a favour sometimes meets with a more gracious reception than the offer of one. By asking her for some water, simple as His want was, Jesus threw Himself on this Samaritan woman’s kindness. It is likely she would have received some proposal for her own benefit with some suspicion. But now the humble approach of the Stranger disarms hers, and she is a little prepared for further communications. His next remark was one of profound significance, plunging at once into the heart of the most vital questions.

Yet it was enigmatic, and though apparently it rose out of the immediate situation of the two at the well, and did not strike the woman as irrelevant, it was not easy for her to see the drift of it. He was telling her about some gift of God; how if only she knew it she would come to Him for it; for then the circumstances would be reversed, and she would ask Him for drink. What could He be talking about? Jesus could not mean that He would give her water from- this well, in an act of courtesy like that of Moses when he assisted the daughters of Jethro in watering their flocks; for the well was deep — it has been ascertained that it Avent down at least seventy feet, and it needed a long rope. The grooves in the slab at the top worn by the ropes by which the water-pots were drawn up may be seen in the present day. Jesus had no rope, and no bucket. How then could He give her water? Besides He had mentioned “living water,” a phrase which commonly stood for a spring, or a flowing stream, in distinction from the stagnant water of a tank. Now it is a curious fact, ascertained by the Palestine Exploration Fund, that Jacob’s well, which can now be identified without the least doubt, does not tap any spring, and therefore must be regarded as only a very deep tank, a receptacle for surface water from rains and floods. This is even suggested by its local name among the Samaritans, Beer Jacub — not Ain, which means a well of spring water, but Beer, which stands for a tank to hold rain-water. Thus the words of Jesus would seem on the surface of them to be a reflection on the well and indirectly on the patriarch who was credited with having dug it. And this His hearer resented — faithful to her ancestor if not to her husband.

It is not at all fair to complain of the foolishness of the woman in taking the words of Jesus literally. We know Him and His manner of speech, and we read this narrative in the gospel of St. John, where many more of His figurative utterances are recorded. But to this woman from Sychar He was just a stranger, a Jew travelling through the country, who was asking her for water. It is likely enough that anybody similarly situated would make the same mistake. How rare is it to meet with a person so constantly in communion with the spiritual world that his conversation naturally turns that way without the slightest effort! For most people it requires a complete wrench of the mind when immersed in the affairs of everyday life to suddenly turn their thoughts to the unseen and eternal. Most of us under the same circumstances would have taken the words of Jesus as literally as this woman took them.

Still the words of Jesus had not been wholly thrown away on the Samaritan woman. They had roused her curiosity, and that was decidedly a point gained. The greatest barrier to the entrance of spiritual truth is sheer indifference. Like the earthworks that resist the bombardment of heavy artillery more effectually than granite walls, indifference buries and smothers the attack of ideas which would be strong enough to break through a very firm opposition. The wonder of this woman is now roused as to who the Stranger might be. There is just a little touch of scorn in her language as she asks Him whether He is greater than her father Jacob. Here she was back at the common ancestry of Jew and Samaritan, with a passing reminder that her people too had a claim on the patriarch in whom the Jews, with the narrowness of their pride, claimed exclusive ownership. Indeed, in this vale of Shechem the Samaritans seem to have had a prior claim.

Living on the very spot where Jacob had dwelt, they were the descendants to whom he had left that local inheritance, as she takes care to suggest to the Jew stranger, by speaking of “ our father Jacob which gave us the well.” But while there is this tone of contempt in the woman’s question, there is a louder note of surprise. He can be no ordinary man who speaks thus. His pretensions are preposterous, and yet in their very extravagance they excite a keen curiosity in the listener. This is a first step, the dawn of a new interest in one whose life had been a monotonous succession of disappointments. Although as yet we have had no opportunity of seeing any distance into the woman’s character, her answer prepares us to discover as the conversation proceeds that we have here brought before us the picture of a quick and vivacious mind. At the next stage, however, we meet with disappointment. Jesus proceeds to explain His words about the living water which He is prepared to give the woman if only she will ask Him for it. His water is quite different from that she is drawing up from the well, because it gives permanent satisfaction; and besides it is not to be found in any external well — it is in a well witbin; and in springing up it issues in eternal life. Words such as these carry us far beneath the surface of life into profound mysteries, where truths of infinite value are contained, like precious gems in deep mines. Even if they were not at all comprehended, it would be impossible to listen to them attentively without perceiving that their drift was away from material things, that a literal interpretation of them was quite out of the question. How then could the woman be so obtuse as to ask for this water that she might be saved the trouble of coming out all the way to Jacob’s well to draw? It has been pointed out that St. John is continually showing up the density of Christ’s hearers and the perverse literalism of their interpretation of His most spiritual utterances. In the fourth gospel the people generally misunderstand Jesus and take His words in a lower sense than He intends. Nicodemus, for example, persists in applying His teaching about the new birth to natural birth. But if even “ the Teacher of Israel “ could prove himself so dull and incapable of perceiving the spiritual meaning of the words of Jesus, we must not be hard on this Samaritan woman when we find her making a similar mistake. Still, though her stupidity may be not unpardonable, there was that in her reply that we cannot entirely excuse. The tone of it reveals petulance or flippancy. A well within indeed! By all means she will have this if the Stranger can give her such a boon; for it is a very tiresome thing to have to toil out there in the plain for eveiy drop of water. But surely it is nonsense to suppose anything of the kind to be possible. We do not live in fairy-land. The good genii are not so accommodating as to offer their services in these dull days. We find ourselves in a very prosaic world — especially when by our own gross conduct we have robbed it of all its poetry. But this petulance, or this flippancy, is only on the surface. Even when giving vent to it with the jauntiest air, the woman cannot entirely conceal her deeper feelings. A superficial pretence at frivolity is often only the flimsy veil people draw over restless emotions of a more serious nature. Jesus had promised a water that would effectually quench thirst. His hearer chose to take the offer quite literally; perhaps she did not at first detect the least gleam of any deeper meaning in it. Still the very mention of the word “thirst” was arresting. There is a certain awakening in the opening words of the woman’s reply —“Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not;” though it is disappointing to see how she falls off in the concluding phrase about being saved the trouble of coming to Jacob’s well. Perhaps that is just a bit of her provoking perverseness. She will not let it be seen that her heart is at all moved, though in spite of herself the respectful title she now uses for the first time is almost a hint that some impi’cssion is made. If only we could forget that unfortunate touch of flippancy at the end, we should certainly infer that some serious desire was aroused in this poor blighted soul. When we take the sentence in its entirety the effect is rather bewildering. What does the woman really mean 1 Most likely she scarcely knows herself. Her language is in confusion, because her thought is confused.

Still though her words are hasty and unreasonable, and therefore not to be pressed very far, the mood they reveal in her begins to open our eyes. The language of Jesus does so more effectually. If she did not know what she was saying, or how to take His remarks, He was quite clear in His purpose, and the offer He made her showed His perception of her real need. With that keen vision of His, penetrating all disguises and reading the deepest secrets of the heart, Jesus at once detected the sad unrest that was troubling the woman in spite of her flighty manners. Those foolish manners were but further proofs, if such were needed, that the soul within was not at peace. Her life, so wild and wayward, so scandalously lawless, so recklessly defiant of all social restraints, was not to be treated as the absolutely abandoned career of one who loved sin and deliberately chose it for its own sake. All this disgraceful conduct, bad as it was in the sight of God and man, must be regarded as the despairing refuge of a weary, disappointed soul. So at first Jesus said no word about her sin; He went straight for what jay behind Jt, the trouble of a soul that had not found its rest.

It was not easy for the woman to comprehend Christ’s meaning. He had brought a key to unlock a chamber that had long been closed and sealed, and was now almost forgotten. He was beginning to sound a chord that had been silent to her for years. As she listened, strange dim memories began to stir in hidden depths of her being where they had lain for many a long day unheeded. She could not deny that her soul was athirst; thougli this was the very truth she would never admit to herself while she was hurrying on from one excitement to another, never satisfied, never at peace, but never pausing to think. How dared she think? If one bade her do so she might well reply, “ That way madness lies.” She was one of those feverish souls who drown thought in excitement. But for this excitement she must have continuous change. A monotonous life, even though it started in a way that was to her mind, would soon pall and grow stale and unbearable. Novelties, new excitements, fresh adventures, these unwholesome experiences had become the very necessities of her being. She was like the victim of intoxication, who cannot endure the flat intervals when the cup is laid aside, and must be taking stronger and yet stronger doses of the poison that is eating his life away, simply as he thinks to keep himself alive. Morality is scorned, respectability flung to the winds, common decency trampled in the mire, and the soul hui’led down into folly and vice, from no original love of evil for its own sake, and not at all because it is thought to be desirable to abandon one’s self freely to a scandalous course of sin. The explanation is that having gone wrong once, and not possessing strength and courage to turn round and begin again a better life in the humility of contrition, the soiled soul now sees no alternative but to plunge deeper and deeper in the dark gulf of iniquity, with the vain hope that since conscience can never be pacified, it may be drowned. This is the secret of many a headlong career of wickedness. The voice of conscience is unendurable; therefore the troublesome mentor must be stifled, must be murdered. But conscience dies hard. It is not at all easy to commit the unpardonable sin. The Divine in the soul may be reduced to a mere spark and yet it will not be quickly quenched. There is so much of the image of God in all of us that the descent to the purely brutal or the absolutely diabolical is further than we imagine. Herein lies the hope for the redemption of the most abandoned.

Now, it is at once a sign of our Lord’s tact in dealing with souls, and an indication of the great kindness of His heart, that He did not approach this woman through her guilt, that He approached her through her need; for He had come not to condemn, but to save.

Then the awakening of need is followed by the awakening of conscience. Jesus makes a very simple suggestion. Will she go and fetch her husband? It is like a rapierthrust piercing her to the quick. There is a man who passes as her husband. It would be very easy to call him.

What would the Stranger know? But she cannot do it.

Half an hour ago this would have been the simplest thing in the world. It would have seemed quite comic to pose as a highly respectable matron before this grave Stranger. But not now. Already this woman is coming to a new way of looking at things. In spite of all her efforts at suppression conscience is awake. She dare not dissemble. All her old effrontery quails before the penetrating gaze of the Stranger. There is no holding on to a lie before those clear calm eyes. “I have no husband,” she falters. It is a simple enough statement. But it is not spoken in virginal innocency. The colour rushes to her cheeks, her eyes drop to the ground, she turns away her face, her voice is low and hesitating. Innocent words, but stained crimson with the tones of guilt. The very plain words with which Jesus meets this honest avowal tear the last rag of pretence from off her character.

She has had five husbands; then he whom she now has cannot be a husband. It was a terrible exposure — the ugly story of her life spread out before her as with a sudden flash of light. Five! Hideous arithmetic! She had scarcely paused to work the sum. But it was correct, she knew. And the revelation had come to her from the lips of this strange Jew. How had He discovered her secret? Or if it were no secret in her town, stUl how could He, a mere passing visitor, know it so exactly?

Attempts have been made to explain away these words of Jesus on the suggestion that they are allegorical, and refer to five religions successively adopted by the Samaritans.

Such fantastic devices of hypercriticism only declare the absolute blindness of their too ingenious inventors to the intense realism of the narrative. There is no story in the Bible that speaks for its own veracity by every feature of it with more certainty than St. John’s account of the woman of Samaria. If this is not history we have no history in the New Testament. Appalling as is the dissoluteness of morals that is here made manifest, it is not beyond what we are forced to believe even of provincial life in the corrupt Roman Empire of the first century.

Historians concur with satirists in describing the ominous slackening of the marriage tie and the everyday occurrence of divorce at Home. The mordant pen of Tacitus and the lashing wit of Juvenal bear out Seneca’s grave statement that there Were “ women who reckoned the years by the number of their husbands.” No doubt things were at their worst nearest to the court; but the poison was spreading through the provinces. The New Testament is not without evidence of the existence of this fatal solvent of society among the Jews. Jesus severely rebuked the rabbis for their oflBcial recognition of the now common freedom of divorce. But if such was the case in the land of Israel, is it at all surprising that the same breakdown of the first principles of orderly morality should be found among the laxer people of Samaria

Nevertheless, possible as such conduct as that of the woman of Samaria was in these corrupt times, we may I’easonably suppose that for a dweller in a remote country town, far away from the dissolute fashionable world, to behave in this manner was exceptionally scandalous. It is therefore the more remarkable that Jesus not only did not shrink from entering into conversation with her, but lavished on this one auditor some of the choicest of His utterances. We may be too fearful of the risk of casting our pearls before swine. It is a fatal defect for any speaker to despise his hearers. Every audience, however small — though it consist of but a single person, however low — though it be gathered from the gutter, since it is human, has a right to the very best that is in a man. That best may vary in form, and of course it should be adjusted to the listener’s capacities. But the example of Jesus teaches us that no truth is in itself too good for pi-esentation to the most unworthy character, if only it can be effectually presented. Those that have fallen lowest need all the more for that very fact the lifting power of what is highest. To the Samaritan woman the first thing of note was the amazing discernment of this Stranger. It might have been well if, for the moment, she had thought more of what He had said than of the mere marvel of His being able to say it. Here is her unfortunate inffi’mity. She can never stay long enough at one point to appreciate it and make the right use of what it suggests. She is quickwitted in a way, though seemingly so dense in the perception of metaphor and allusion. She seizes a point in a moment, and for that moment it interests her; but the next moment a fresh turn in the conversation carries her right away to some entirely different topic. This unfortunate habit may be the result of her restless, changeable life. Or shall we say that the temptation to that unhappy life sprang from her want of fixity in general 1 She is the type of the inconstant, and her inconstancy is seen in lesser passages of life as well as in its great movements and their vital crises.

Such an unhappy habit of mind renders it not at all easy for us to weigh and measure the character of which it is a trait. It is changeable as a chameleon, passing from grave to gay with the abruptness of an April day.

You cannot tell when it is serious. The demure sentence may be only a cloak for some frivolous fancy; but then the light phrase may veil the sudden flash of an earnest thought. Thus while this woman lives on the graphic page of the evangelist as though she were with us to-day, we are quite unable to tell how deeply her soul was moved in her conversation with Jesus by the well. He had made some impression; of that we may be sure. A startled consciousness of guilt and a vague soul thirst were roused in her as they had not been roused for years, but whether only in an impressionable moment to be soon smothered by a crowd of fresh interests and excitements we have no means of saying. The unhappy versatility of this woman’s mind is illustrated by the next turn of the conversation. The sudden revelation of His knowledge of her whole life story by the unknown Jew startles her greatly, as well it may. For the moment she thiuks no more of herself, her thirst and her guilt. She perceives that the Speaker is no ordinary man. He must be a prophet to read secrets in this way.

Then here is her opportunity. He shall settle the longstanding controversy between Jew and Samaritan as to which is the right hill for the worship of God. Is it Gerizim? or is it Moriah? The Samaritans had their temple on the one hill, the Jews theirs on the other. The question would seem to be suitable for the occasion, for they were met almost under the shadow of the Samaritan sacred hill — “ this mountain,” says the woman, looking up at it and pointing to its steep slopes. So stubborn was the controversy to which she thus suddenly refers that it has been preserved down to our own day, and at the present time the traveller through Palestine may see the remnant of the Samaritan sect at Nablous still sacrificing their Pasch.il lamb on this same sacred height. The woman had often heard of the Jewish heresy; but she was shrewd enough to suspect that the truth was not necessarily with her people. An emancipated woman as regards social custom and morals, she was prepared for a little daring freedom in theology, and quite open to conviction from the new light. Besides, this was a chance of another new sensation. It would be quite delicious to have a change from the old humdrum ways of her fathers authorised by a genuine prophet. At all events it would be something to get that tiresome controversy settled once for aU. In the case of such an erratic personage, ready to fly off at a tangent after some new interest every other minute, it is impossible to say how far she might be in earnest.

Perhaps she did not care a straw for the question, only raising it as a convenient method of turning the convei’sation which was becoming much too personal to please her. And yet the great and ever memorable answer of Jesus suggests that she did honestly seek light on a vexatious difficulty. In that case we must reckon her one who, though indifferent to practical morals, is interested in theological orthodoxy, one who, while outraging the first principles of right conduct, is anxious to be correct in the ritual of religion. That is a type of character not altogether unknown in Christian times. One would have thought that Jesus would have been indignant at such an attitude of mind, in the manner of Isaiah when he denounced the scrupulous observance of New Moons and Sabbaths and the trampling of the holy courts of the temple by men whose lives were vile.^ But He chose another method of reply, giving to this woman of all people the most sublime truth about spiritual worship that has ever been uttered. He must have seen that there was a hope of rescuing her by the presentation to her of the very choicest of His teachings. Whether she rose to her privilege we cannot say. It would seem that His great words went over her head and only perplexed hei”. With a little shrug of disappointment she resigns herself to the conclusion that, since her new prophet could not settle the question, she must wait for the coming of the Christ. To her amazement the stranger calmly declares that He is the Christ! and she believes Him. Then He has won her faith in some real way.

It is something in her favour that she immediately ran back to the town, leaving her pitcher at the well, forgetful of the very errand that had brought her there, in a characteristic absorption with a new idea. She effected a great work in bringing her neighbours to Jesus, and it is to her credit that she did not stay to think the report with which she roused them involved a subject by no means to her credit. Still we leave her with some misgivings when we see, of all the wonderful things Jesus has said to her, what most impresses her is still the marvel of His knowledga It is not “ Come and receive from One who will quench your thirst with the water of life; “ — not “ Come and listen to One who will teach you the greatest truth about God and His worship; “ — but just “ Come see a man which told me all things which ever I did.”

Yet there is the added inference, “Is not this the Christ 1”

She was convinced of that great truth, and she was the means of bringing her fellow-townspeople to hear Him for themselves. Seldom has the world seen a more unpromising evangelist, and seldom has it met with a more successful one. Truly the treasure is in earthen vessels; but the excellency of the power is not of man but of God. And after all, is not the best that any evangelist can do just what this woman accomplished so successfully — not to make any great impression on bis own account, nor to reckon on any weight in his own merits, but simply to show the way to Christ, from whom alone all truth and life can be received?