John 4:12

“Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself, and his sons and his cattle?”

She was a little in awe and certainly felt that this man was something special. But surely not that special? So she asked Him whether He was claiming to be even greater than Jacob who first gave them the well. Jacob had had to dig the well to find water. Could this man obtain water in any other way? In both cases she uses ‘phrear' for well, which means any well, not necessarily one fed by a living spring. The reader would pick up the contrast as representing the attitude of mind, prosaic rather than inspirational.

‘Our father Jacob, who gave us the well.' The Samaritans too traced their ancestry back to Jacob and were proud of the fact. They also saw the well as given to them by Jacob. We can regard it as certain that this therefore resulted in a kind of veneration of the well. It was Jacob's gift to them and spoke of their religious past. This gift contrasts with the ‘gift of God' in John 4:10. Jesus is agreeing that He is greater than Jacob and is offering to turn the old into the new, to as it were turn water into wine, to replace all that they had looked to with something new, that is with Himself, a direct gift from God.