John 4:10

Ver. 10. “ Jesus answered and said unto her: If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is who says unto thee: Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him thyself, and he would have given thee living water. ”

To this observation of the woman Jesus replies, not by renewing His request, but by making her an offer by means of which He reassumes His position of superiority. To this end, it is enough to raise this woman's thoughts to the spiritual sphere, where there is no more anything for Him but to give, and for her but to receive. The expression: The gift of God, may be regarded as an abstract notion, whose concrete reality is indicated by the following words: who it is that says to thee (so in our first edition). The words of Jesus in John 3:16: “ God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son,” favor this sense, according to which Jesus is Himself the gift of God. But as Jesus distinguishes Himself from the living water, in the following words, it is better to see in the words: He who says to thee, the agent through whom God makes this gift to the human soul. God gives Jesus to the world, and Jesus gives to it the living water. Living water, in the literal sense, denotes spring- water, in contrast with water of a cistern, or stagnant water. Genesis 26:19: “ Israel's servants dug in the valley, and found there a well of living water,” that is, a subterranean spring of which they made a well; comp. Leviticus 14:5. In the figurative sense, living water is, therefore, a blessing which has the property of incessantly reproducing itself, like a gushing spring, like life itself, and which consequently is never exhausted. What does Jesus mean by this?

According to Justin and Cyprian, baptism; according to Lucke, faith; according to Olshausen, Jesus Himself; according to Calvin, Luthardt, Keil, the Holy Spirit; according to Grotius, the evangelical doctrine; according to Meyer, truth; according to Tholuck, Weiss, the word of salvation; according to Westcott, eternal life, consisting in the knowledge of God and of His Son Jesus Christ (John 17:3); this scholar cites as analogous the Rabbinical proverb: “When the prophets speak of water, they mean the law.” Lange, according to John 4:14: The interior life, especially with reference to peace in the heart. It seems to me that, according to Jesus Himself (John 4:13-14), it is, as Westcott thinks, eternal life, salvation, the full satisfaction of all the wants of the heart and the possession of all the holy energies of which the soul is susceptible. This state of soundness of the soul can only be the result of the dwelling of Jesus Himself in the heart, by means of His word made inwardly living by the Holy Spirit (chaps. 14-16). This explanation includes, therefore, all the others up to a certain point.

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

6. The living water of which Jesus speaks in John 4:10 is supposed by Godet to be the eternal life, and he refers to John 4:13-14, as showing this to be the correct view. The words of those verses, however, speak of this water as being a well of water springing up into eternal life. We find also, in the sixth chapter, that the living bread and the bread of life are presented as that which is the means and support of life in the believer. It would seem more probable, therefore, that, in this expression, that which forms the basis and principle of the new life is referred to, than the new life itself. That which Jesus gives to the world in one view, grace and truth, in another view, Himself as the source of life may be understood as that to which He refers.