Some time has passed. Jesus has been attracting more disciples, and they have been baptizing people, more even than the disciples of John the Baptist. He has attracted the attention of the Pharisees, and so began the journey to return to Galilee, roughly 70 miles to the North. The route he took went through Samaria, and along the way he and his band grew tired, so they stopped by Jacob’s well for a rest. It was noon.
Jacob’s well is still there, now under the control of the Greek Catholics. It is near the base of Mt. Gerazim. For more than 23 centuries both Samaritans and Jews knew the well as that purchased by Jacob and later given to Joseph. It is dug into the limestone to a depth of 138 feet and was a major source of water for that area. We know how deep it is because for centuries tourists cast pebbles into the well, almost filling it up. In 1938 it was cleaned out and put under guard.
But, as I said, it was noon, and Jesus was tired. “Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Please give me a drink.’ He was alone at the time because his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food. She said to Jesus, ‘You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?” Let’s stop there for a bit of history. I’ll come back to the narrative in a bit, probably tomorrow.
Why does this encounter invite any attention at all, and what is a Samaritan?
First, a bit of history tremendously condensed. Under Solomon Israel reached its zenith of size, prosperity, and influence. When Solomon died, his son made an incredibly stupid decision that resulted in a division of the kingdom…10 tribes in the north and 2 in the south…making two different kingdoms at odds with each other. It was largely to these two kingdoms that the prophets spoke God’s wishes and warnings, but the northern kingdom slipped deeply into idolatry, injustice, and deceitfulness. It caught up with them. In 722 B.C. Assyria conquered the 10 tribes, scattered them throughout its empire, and imported Mesopotamians to the northern kingdom, where they intermarried with the remaining Jews, and combined the worship of Yahweh with worship of other gods and goddesses.
The Samaritans were the descendants of those peoples.
The southern kingdom didn’t fare much better. They too were unfaithful to God and ignored his prophets. So in 605 B.C. the Neo-Babylonian Empire under Nebuchadnezzar conquered them, and took their people into captivity. They did not, however, scatter them. When Cyrus the great conquered the Babylonians he decreed that the Jews could return to their land and rebuild their country. They did so in three main waves, under Zerubbabel, then Ezra, and then Nehemiah.
As they returned to rebuild their land they experienced growing opposition by the Samaritans, a relationship that grew more and more hostile and at times violent. Following the Maccabean revolt, the Hasmonean priest-king John Hyrcanus, in 128 B.C., attacked and destroyed the Samaritan temple, sealing permanent hostility and hatred between the two communities. In A.D. 6 Samaritans crept into the Jewish temple in the middle of the night during Passover and scattered the bones of dead people in its courts, rendering the temple ritually unclean. And in A.D. 52 Samaritans massacred a group of Galilean pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem.
By Jesus’ time the Jews considered the Samaritans unclean, subhuman, and inclined to the demonic. Calling someone a Samaritan had about the same force as calling someone a Nigger in the south before the civil rights movement. Terrible!!
Now, return to Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Do you see how unlikely his request is? When his disciples returned with food, they were scandalized. But he was just getting started. I’m out of time. To be continued tomorrow.