Flesh cannot be made into spirit. A person must experience a spiritual rebirth. For Jesus, the idea of coming to God through His saving work is about transitioning from the earthly kingdom to God’s kingdom as articulated in a transformed life lived out of love for God and other people. The Greek word, pneuma, can mean “wind,” “breath,” or “spirit.” John uses the metaphor of the wind as a power that is felt but unseen to explain the power of the Spirit of God.
John’s arrest anchors the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in historical time and demonstrates the connection between John and Jesus. John’s ministry was decreasing, but Jesus’ was increasing. As soon as John the Baptist is arrested, Jesus emerges from the wilderness to declare the arrival of God’s kingdom on earth. Mark begins his account of Christ’s ministry with events after John was put in prison, as do the other synoptic Gospel writers.
Jesus begins His mission in the most ethnically and culturally diverse portion of Israel. The rest of the Jewish people viewed Galilee as only moderately Jewish.
Jesus begins where He is most needed—among the marginalized.
The central region of Palestine between Judaea and Galilee had been the heart of the northern kingdom of Israel until the Assyrians deported many Israelites in 722 bc. The shortest route from Judea in the south to Galilee in the north went through Samaria. The journey took three days. Christ needed to go through Samaria if He wanted to travel the direct route. The Jews often avoided Samaria by going around it along the Jordan River. The hatred between the Jews and Samaritans went back to the days of the Exile. When the northern kingdom was exiled to Assyria, King Sargon of Assyria repopulated the area with captives from other lands. The intermarriage of these foreigners and the Jews who had been left in the land complicated the ancestry of the Samaritans. The Jews hated the Samaritans and considered them to be no longer “pure” Jews. Jesus, however, had no such bias.
The Greek word for time kairos, indicates a period of time predetermined by God. Since Jesus announces the advent of a new kingdom, belief in the gospel entails allegiance to the new king, Jesus.
The normal time to draw water was morning or evening during the cooler hours of the day. This woman is coming to draw water at a time when no one else would normally be at the well. An inhabitant of the region of Samaria who was of mixed Israelite and foreign descent. The Jews had no dealings with Samaritans. The woman was surprised that Jesus would speak to her, much less ask her for a drink. The woman misunderstands Jesus as speaking of literal water; this is reasonable based on the use of “living water” as an idiom for spring water. Misunderstanding often comes before spiritual insight in John’s Gospel. The woman’s identification of Jacob as her ancestor shows the Samaritans believed themselves to be the rightful descendants of Jacob and true Israelites. The Greek word for husband can mean “man” or “husband.” If the woman had five previous husbands who either died or divorced her, she would have exceeded the traditional limit of three husbands in Jewish law (according to the rabbinic text Babylonian Talmud Yebamot 64b; Niddah 64a). However, the ambiguity of the word suggests the possibility that none of the five was a legal husband just as the current man is not her husband. This comment also reveals a reason why Jesus chose to speak with her about her place before God. Jesus’ exceptional knowledge of her affairs yields the concession that He must be a prophet. The Samaritans expected a prophetic Messiah.
Jesus stays with the Samaritans for two days before continuing on to Galilee. The Jews of Jesus’ day taught that to approach God one first had to be a Jew. By including this incident in the Gospel, John demonstrates that Jesus is for all people of the world. Having no honor or reception in Nazareth, Jesus went elsewhere in Galilee. The feast refers to the Passover. The Galileans who had gone to the feast received Jesus when He came to Galilee.
NKJ Bible and Faithlife Bible commentary
John 3:1-8
3 There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”
3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
5 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Matthew 4:12
12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, He departed to Galilee.
Mark 1:14
14 Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,
Luke 4:14
14 Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region.
John 3:22
22 After these things Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judea, and there He remained with them and baptized.
John 4:1-4
4 Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John 2 (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples), 3 He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. 4 But He needed to go through Samaria.
Mark 1:15
15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”
Luke 4:15
15 And He taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.
John 4:4-26
4 But He needed to go through Samaria.
5 So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” 8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
9 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
11 The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? 12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
17 The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.”
Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”
19 The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”
21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”
26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”
John 4:43-45
43 Now after the two days He departed from there and went to Galilee. 44 For Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. 45 So when He came to Galilee, the Galileans received Him, having seen all the things He did in Jerusalem at the feast; for they also had gone to the feast.
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