Women and Wells
John tells us the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well near Samaria. It has been common for commentators to read the conclusion back into the introductory details of this story, to claim that this woman was obviously shunned as a woman of ill repute. However, those interpretations overlook some important points that say otherwise.
One point is the time of day that this took place. The text says it was the 6th hour. In Jewish reckoning the day begins at 6:00, so the 6th hour would be noon. So some say that the women of the city would have drawn their morning's water much earlier, and this woman was avoiding them by coming at mid-day. However, there is a big problem with this. In the first Century there were both Jewish and Roman methods of keeping time. Roman time started at 12:00 like ours. So if John used Roman time reference this would have been 6:00 PM. In fact, the time references used by John for the crucifixion - when compared to the other Gospels - show that John used Roman time for his Gospel.
The text also says Jesus was tired from the day's travel. This, and the distance traveled to get to this city, make the 6:00 PM time much more likely. Near this time women would have come to draw water for the evening uses.
Another point is the claim that it would be shameful for a woman to speak to a man. However, the Gospels include many cases of women speaking to Jesus, and they don't indicate a moral problem. There's another Biblical story that shows this more clearly.
Let's consider this other story of a woman at a well, that suggests how this would have been read by John's audience. Remember, this happened at Jacob's well. Jacob's mother, Rebekah, also had a meeting at a well in Genesis 24. Isaac had sent his servant to Nahor to find a bride for Jacob.
This servant arrived at Nahor's well at evening, or about 6:00 PM, just like Jesus in John's story. He was tired and waited at the well, just like Jesus did. Rebekah was the first woman to come to the well, like the Samaritan woman. The servant asked her for a drink, just as Jesus asked this woman. John's original readers would probably have seen these parallels, and would have known that Rebekah was subsequently shown to be a woman of good character; so they would have expected the same here.
But in their conversation, Jesus tells the woman, "call your husband" and she replies "I have no husband." Just as Isaac's servant knew when he saw Rebekah that she was an unmarried maiden, it was common in these cultures for there to be a visual indication in apparel that the woman was a maiden, so we should probably see this woman's response as surprise. She expected Jesus to know she had never been married.
Jesus tells her, "You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband'," which seems to indicate this is true. Yet He continues, "you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband."
This would not be what John's readers were expecting, and it clearly astonished the woman, who replied, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet." This sounds much like the earlier response of Nathaniel, when Jesus told him something he was sure no one else could know. A prophet was one who exposes sin known to God, and this woman thought only she and God knew about this.
How could this be? Well, we focus on a ceremony as the beginning of marriage, but that wasn't the case in older cultures. "Common law" marriages were normal, and even in the traditional Jewish ceremony the wedding party gathered at the house of the groom's father and waited while the bride and groom went to a private room and consummated the marriage physically. Then the party celebrated, because that act is what began the marriage.
Think also in Judges 21 when brides were needed for the tribe of Benjamin. They were told to just take women to be their wives. Once they consummated the relationship they would be their wives, and there was no going back.
I believe this conversation reveals that this woman had never been officially married, but had had five secret physical affairs with men, and was currently having an affair with a married man. ("is not your husband.") This explains why she was so astonished at Jesus' statement: He must be from God. This fits with John's purpose of this Gospel, to show Jesus' Deity.
It also shows us how seriously God considers sexual relationships. Our culture tries to say they have no meaning, but God says they should constitute marriage.
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1 Comments
Rose Anne on February 12, 2011 at 12:49pm
Wow! Thank you for pointing out a different view for Christ and the woman at the well. I liked the parallel between Rebekah and Nahor at the well to Christ and the woman at the well and how John's early audience would get the similarities. It was like John's gospel telling a good story with a twist to the ending. Also, I never understood the cutltural detail of how the woman "got" that Christ couldn't have known her secret of present and past relationships...which led her to believe in the diety of Christ. Thanks so much!