The woman, bewildered, and with excited curiosity, said, “Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.”
“Go, call thy husband,” said Jesus, “and come hither.”
The woman, conscience-smitten, and somewhat alarmed by the mysterious nature of the conversation, answered, “I have no husband.”
The startling response of Jesus was, “Thou hast well said, I have no husband: for thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband. In that saidst thou truly.”
The woman, alarmed, and anxious to withdraw the conversation from her own sins and personal duty, sought, as half-awakened sinners have ever endeavored to do from that day to this, to change the theme into a theological discussion.
“Sir,” she said, “I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.”
This question was a standing controversy between the Jews and the Samaritans. “Believe me,” Jesus replied, “the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship; for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
The Samaritans rejected the prophets, and received only the five books of Moses. Jesus therefore announced that the Jewish, not the Samaritan faith, was the true religion; while at the same time he declared that external forms were important only as they promoted and indicated holiness of heart.
The woman replied, “I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ. When he is come, he will tell us all things.”
Her astonishment must have been great when Jesus rejoined, “I that speak unto thee am he.”