Transcription
The woman at the well. She only appears in one passage in one of the gospels, and yet she is one of the most well-known figures in scripture. Hers is a story preached regularly in churches. She's a prominent figure in theatrical depictions of the gospels because she represents someone redeemed by Jesus, a sinner who sees the error of her ways and is among the first to believe in him.
But what if we're wrong about the Samaritan woman? What if some of the things that we believe about her aren't quite what they seem? What if there is more to her story than we've heard in churches? And what if it all can be found in just those few short verses where she appears?
Well, today I'm going to share with you four things you didn't know as we discover the truth about the woman at the well. Now, before we start, if you're interested in learning more insights that will help you to understand the Bible more clearly and see it with an entirely new set of eyes, then make sure to click the link above and in the description where you can download a free book I wrote called "10 Words That Will Change the Way You Read the Bible." It's a quick but powerful read that will teach you a whole lot in just a short period of time, just like this video. Speaking of, let's dive in.
The first thing that you might not know about the woman at the well is that when she met Jesus, her first reaction would have been one of fear. And that's because she was a Samaritan, and he was a Jew. And at that time, Jews and Samaritans despised one another. This is one of those realities that was so obvious to people hearing the story in the decades following Jesus, but often lost on most people today.
You see, the hatred between Jews and Samaritans went back centuries. Second Kings 17 tells the story of how Assyria conquered Israel. And when this happened, many people were forcibly removed from Israel and sent to live elsewhere in this Syrian Empire. Meanwhile, Assyria brought in other conquered people to replace the Israelites that they'd removed. And the Israelites who remained ended up marrying the people who moved in. The generations that those groups produced became the people called Samaritans.
For centuries, there was tension between this group and the Jewish people who hadn't intermarried. They considered the Samaritans to be outsiders, not fully Jewish. Samaritans had to build a temple at Mount Gerizim because they were prohibited from worshiping in the Jerusalem Temple. They were considered "am ha'aretz," which means "unclean." And to give you a sense of how derogatory this word was, this was actually the same word used to describe lepers.
But closer to the time of Jesus, the tension between these two groups grew even worse. A few hundred years before Jesus, a group named the Seleucids ruled over Israel. They demanded that all people embrace Greek culture, which included worshiping the Greek gods. And the consequences of refusing to do this were death. So, throughout this period, the Jewish people refused to compromise. But the Samaritan people did compromise. They embraced Greek culture, and a temple to Zeus was built on Mount Gerizim. And beyond that, they cut all ties with the Jewish people, going so far as to ally with the Seleucids in their war against the Jews.
So, if you were a Jewish person at the time of Jesus, there's a good chance that you would have been raised to hate Samaritans, and they would have been raised to hate you. And we know that the disciples felt this way because in one instance, when Jesus sends messengers ahead to Samaria and they're rejected, Luke tells us that James and John ask, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?" They just want to wipe them out.
And none of this would have been news to the Samaritan woman. She would have known all of this history. She would have heard the stories and seen the literal ruins of this hatred. So when she sees a Jewish man sitting at the well that she's approaching, one of her first emotions would have been fear.
But this long-standing tension isn't the only reason she'd have been uncomfortable approaching Jesus. You see, another thing you may not know about the woman at the well is that she shouldn't even be talking to Jesus.
The interaction between Jesus and the Samaritan woman had to have been incredibly awkward, at least it had to have started that way. Because when Jesus meets the woman at the well, the two of them are alone together, and this just wasn't okay. In fact, it would have been scandalous. At that time, men and women weren't supposed to be alone together if they weren't married or related, right? People would have assumed something inappropriate was going on. There was an accepted way by which a man would form a relationship with a woman, and meeting alone with a woman outside of town was not that.
But beyond that, Jesus is a rabbi. He's respected as a religious leader. He should know better than to put himself in this situation. Because this wasn't a well on her father's land where there are people around to observe them. This is a public well. And this actually reveals something else to us about this woman.
The fact that the woman is at the well at this moment reveals to us that she wasn't welcome among other women. You see, John's gospel tells us that the woman approaches the well in the middle of the day. But the truth is, this isn't when women typically gathered water from the well. The middle of the day would have been the hottest part of the day. So instead, women would come to gather water in the morning. They would collect it before the sun came up and the day got too hot, and they would do it together. Which highlights something else about this woman's situation. She's alone, right? She's not coming to the well with friends. She has no company. She's completely alone. This tells us that she wasn't welcome with the other women of the community. She comes at a time when she won't be faced with the shame, a time when she can quietly collect water and go on about her life.
Which leads us to the most common question about this woman: which is, what did she do wrong, right? Why is she an outcast? And the only clue to this comes from an awkward exchange between Jesus and this woman where Jesus says, "Go and get your husband," and she replies, "I don't have a husband." And then Jesus says, "You're right, you don't have a husband, for you have had five husbands, and you aren't even married to the man you're living with now. You certainly spoke the truth."
Now, there are generally two ways that people interpret this interaction. The first is that this woman is incredibly sinful, right? She's gone from man to man, getting divorced after divorce, and right now she's adding to her sins by being with the man who isn't her husband.
The other interpretation is that this woman is part of an elaborate tragedy, right? Somehow each of her husbands has died, and she's become the subject of the levirate marriage provision. This is a provision set forth in the Torah to protect a woman if her husband dies. You see, since a woman would be incredibly vulnerable without a husband, and so as to continue her husband's line, this law required that when a man died, his next youngest brother should marry his widow. And if this brother died, then the next youngest brother should marry her, and so on and so forth. So, if this were the case, this woman has lost many husbands, and now perhaps the last brother, like Onan in Genesis, refuses to truly be with her because of what has happened to all of his other brothers.
But you know, there's actually a third option here, something that is a mix between these two stories, that that actually ties it into one of Jesus's most relevant teachings at that time. And this actually leads us to our final insight about this woman at the well, which is that she may be a victim, not a sinner.
You see, one of the most hotly debated issues at the time of Jesus was the question about what constituted an acceptable reason for divorce. And there were two primary schools of Jewish thought on this subject: the school of Shammai and the school of Hillel. Shammai and Hillel were two prominent Jewish rabbis who guided much of Jewish thinking in that period. And on this particular issue, these two different schools definitely saw things differently.
Hillel took a more liberal approach. He interpreted Moses's teaching to suggest that a man could divorce his wife for any reason that was considered unseemly. He even said that a wife ruining a meal was sufficient grounds for divorce. On the other hand, Shammai was more conservative. His understanding of sufficient grounds for divorce was much more narrow. And throughout Judaism, people debated this issue. Some followed Shammai, others followed Hillel. Jesus is even asked his opinion on one occasion, and in his Sermon on the Mount, he addresses it head-on. He says, "It has been said, 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.' But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for sexual immorality makes her the victim of adultery. And anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery."
In other words, Jesus appears to be siding with Shammai and criticizing the approach of Hillel. He's saying that it's not okay to just divorce your wife for whatever reason you like. The only acceptable reason is infidelity. And if you divorce her for any other reason, you're actually forcing her into a position where she has to be unfaithful in God's eyes, that first marriage is still upheld. So if the husband casts her out, refuses to be her husband, she's left with few options. Women were incredibly vulnerable in the first century. Their protection and survival often depended on their father or their husband. So if a woman is simply divorced on a whim, and she needs to survive, her husband is basically forcing her into adultery.
Let me ask you, how does that verse change the way that you look at the woman at the well? The conversation between Jesus and this woman is so broad and so general. There are so many different things we can infer. She could be incredibly sinful. All of her husbands could have died. Or it could be that she's a tragic victim of divorce, of a system that has twisted God's intentions for marriage and left her with few options. A system that Jesus says has no place in his kingdom.
Whatever the case, in Jesus, this woman has found hope and healing. In Jesus, she has found what no one else can give her, what no one else will give her: grace. And through this brief interaction, her story is changed forever. Where in your life do you feel like this woman: unwelcomed by people around you, confronted with people that you believe hate you, placed in a situation with no good option? And where do you need to turn your heart to the Lord and accept the salvation and fresh start that Jesus is offering? To believe that he is the one who can offer you new life, and to experience the grace that only he can give?
Well, that's it for this week. Thank you so much for joining us. Now, if you haven't done so already, make sure to download my free book, "10 Words That Will Change the Way You Read the Bible." You can find the link up here or down in the description. And if you'd like to see another video that will change the way you see a familiar person in the Bible, then click this link right here. Thank you so much for watching. Have a great week, and we'll see you next time.