He comes therefore to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near to the land which Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
Jesus leaves Judea for Galilee, and the road takes Him into Samaria, a country the Jews avoided. The verse reads like a travel note, yet the route, the town and the field once given to Joseph each carry weight.
The map explains part of the journey, but not the stop.
The direct route to Galilee lay through the district of Samaria, so geography alone meant He "had to pass through". But there was a second necessity too, one connected with the grace of God. It set Him on a road that brought Him to one particular city of Samaria, called Sychar.
The town lay near Shechem, and one feature of it has outlasted everything around it.
He reached Sychar, now Askar, about a mile east of Shechem, which is now called Nablus. Close to that city was Jacob's well, and through all the country's changes it has remained to this day. Generations may come and go, dynasties rise and fall, but wells remain from generation to generation. Springs are plentiful in that district by Shechem, yet Jacob dug his own well. That would make him independent of the usual water supply in the country. It may also have marked out his ownership of that piece of land.
The field was bought land, and it ended up being Joseph's burial place. One writer draws out the irony of the setting.
We find the Lord now at Sychar, a name that means "purchased". The town took its name from the piece of land Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor and gave to Joseph, who was buried there. So all that Jacob had bought — though he meant it otherwise — and all that he could give to his best-loved son, was a grave. It was a good place to speak of another gift and another purchase, free to all who wanted it and looked for it: a spring of life instead of a place of death. Jacob's spring could be both a picture of that new spring and — as every picture must be — an instructive contrast to it.
That grave points forward:
Joshua 24:32 speaks of the piece of ground in verse 5. It was Joseph's burial place, and his father Jacob had bought it. Joseph's death is a picture of the death of the Lord Jesus, and that death is the very basis for giving the water of life to guilty sinners.
Why does this verse name Joseph? One writer traces the answer back to Genesis 49.
Joseph is a well-known picture of Christ… Take, for example, John 4:6. Why does it say that "Jacob's well was there"? Surely to catch our attention in some special way; and Genesis 49:22 uncovers the secret. Joseph, we read, is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall. So in this tired Man, who sat by the well of Sychar in the noonday heat, we see the true Joseph. Even while we look at Him, we see His branches running over the wall of Judaism, reaching this poor woman of Samaria with their good fruit.
The people living around Jacob's field were not simply foreigners; they were the product of a mixed settlement recorded in 2 Kings.
The Samaritans of the Lord's day were rightly seen as a corrupt race. 2 Kings 17:24-41 records the beginning of their history. After Assyria carried away the ten tribes, its king resettled the land with men from Babylon and other pagan cities… The result was a corrupt people who "feared the LORD but also served their own gods". So they had some dim knowledge of the Lord, and of the Messiah who was coming.
The Jews had a real reason for keeping clear of Samaritans. That is what makes the Lord's presence in this town so striking.
When the Jews refused all dealings with the Samaritans, they were acting in keeping with righteousness… They were to be God's witnesses against the world… But Jesus was now standing apart from Israel. He had left Judea, the place of righteousness. He stood in defiled Samaria as Son of God, the Saviour of sinners. He had already gone to Judea looking for righteousness, the proper fruit of that country, but had not found it. He is not now to look for it in Samaria. Here He must be in another way altogether, in the way of grace only.
- Necessity — Samaria was the direct road to Galilee. The stop at Sychar met a second necessity, one belonging to the grace of God.
- Purchase — Sychar means "purchased". Jacob bought this ground, and it became the grave of his best-loved son.
- Grave — All that Jacob's purchase could give his son in the end was a grave. That is the fitting place to speak of a free gift and a spring of life.
- Branches — Genesis 49 calls Joseph a fruitful bough by a well, with branches running over the wall. At this well the true Joseph reaches past Judaism to a Samaritan woman.
- Grace — Judea was the place of righteousness, and it produced none. In Samaria the Lord stands on wholly different ground, as Saviour of sinners.
Now a fountain of Jacob's was there; Jesus therefore, being wearied with the way he had come, sat just as he was at the fountain. It was about the sixth hour.
Jesus stops at Jacob's well in Samaria and sits down, worn out from the road. Two questions follow: what does His weariness say about who He is, and why does John note the hour?
The detail is not about travel. The One who made the world felt the world's tiredness in His own body.
The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, never faints and never grows weary. Yet here He is a Stranger in the land, wearied with His journey. The One who made every drop of water in the universe is Himself a thirsty Man in the world His hands had made. In heavenly glory, angelic hosts had always surrounded Him. On earth He appears as a lonely Man.
Older translations say He "sat thus" at the well. That small word has drawn careful attention.
Houtōs, "thus" — that is, just as He was (compare Mark 4:36). The "wearied," as Zahn says, emphasises His humanity.
His body had reached its limit. His love had not.
He sat just as He was — on the well, wearied, thirsty, hungry. How truly Man He was! In His spirit He felt the hatred and rejection of the Jews with perfect sensitivity. In His body He felt the hardships of life too — the heat of the midday sun, the roughness and the length of the way, the pangs of hunger and thirst. And yet He was God, the giver of living water. He was wearied in body but unwearied in His love. At that well side He found both rest and food in doing the will of Him who sent Him.
Sitting on the well, the Maker of the world had no way to reach the water Himself.
He was weary with His journey and sat alone in the world — what an astonishing place! This was the world He had created. More than that, it was the world He had come into in love. And here He is only a weary Man, feeling the rejection of His love. In the place He had taken, He depended for a drink of water on this poor sin-wearied woman — He who had made the water. Grace is in the humbled and obedient Man — that is where what God is shines out.
Commentators differ on the clock here. Some read it as midday, and find in that heat the reason a woman would come to draw water alone.
It is the sixth hour — twelve o'clock. The sun, at its height, was pouring its burning rays on the ground. That is the moment the Lord chooses to pass that way, to meet that soul. The Spirit records the fact. And why? Because that was not the time when women in the East went out to draw water. That was done in the morning, or in the evening, when the heat was not so great (Genesis 24:11). But this woman comes out in the middle of the day... Her sin had isolated her.
Others read the hour as six in the evening, and point to the rest of the chapter.
The time seems to have been six in the evening, for the disciples had gone away into the city to buy food, which might have been for the evening meal. After this the Lord went into the city, and many of the Samaritans believed. They asked Him to stay with them. That was a kindness often shown in the East when the day was far spent.
Why does John mention the well at all? One writer finds the answer in an old picture of Joseph.
Why is it mentioned, "Now Jacob's well was there"? Surely to catch our attention in some special way; and Genesis 49:22 uncovers the secret. Joseph, we read, is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall. So in this wearied Man who sat by the well of Sychar, we see the true Joseph. Even while we look at Him, we see His branches running over the wall of Judaism. They reach this poor woman of Samaria with their good fruit.
- Weary — and truly Man. Hunger, thirst and tiredness belong to a real human body. The Creator who never grows weary sat down worn out in the world He had made.
- Weary — just as He was. He sat down just as the journey had left Him.
- Weary — yet unwearied. His body gave out; His love did not. Rejected at Jerusalem, He found rest and food in doing His Father's will at a Samaritan well.
- Weary — and therefore asking. Sitting there, He depended on a sinful woman for a drink. Grace shines out through the humbled, obedient Man.
- Weary — and reaching over the wall. At Jacob's well we see the true Joseph. His branches run over the wall to reach a Samaritan woman.