John 4:39-42

“ Now many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him because of the word of the woman who testified: He told me all things that I have done. 40. When, therefore, the Samaritans came unto him, they besought him to abide with them; and he abode there two days. 41. And many more believed on him because of his word. 42. And they said to the woman: No longer because of thy saying do we believe; for we have heard him ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world. ”

Here now is the harvest-feast announced in John 4:36: The sower rejoices with the reapers. This time passed at Sychar leaves an ineffaceable impression on the hearts of the apostles, and the sweetness of this recollection betrays itself in the repetition of the words two days, in the fortieth and forty-third verses. Δέ, now, resumes the course of the narrative after the digression in John 4:31-38. What a difference between the Samaritans and the Jews! Here a miracle of knowledge, without eclat, is enough to dispose the hearts of the people to come to Jesus, while in Judea eight months of toil have not procured for him one hour of such refreshment.

The thirty-ninth verse has shown us the first degree of faith: The coming to Jesus, as the result of testimony. The fortieth and forty-first verses present the higher degree of faith, its development through personal contact with Jesus.

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

XXII.

1. The repetition of the statement of John 4:29 in John 4:39 is confirmatory of the view given in the preceding note of the character and source of the impression produced on the woman's mind. The “many” alluded to in John 4:41 believed because of His word. We have, accordingly, in this whole section from John 3:1 to John 4:42, cases of persons who had their faith awakened by personal communication with Jesus and by listening to what He said.

2. The expression referring to the matter of belief which is peculiar to this case of the many, is that they said they knew this man to be the Saviour of the world. The testimony of Jesus, as thus indicated, was to the end of the universality of His work. Weiss, in his edition of Meyer's Commentary, holds that this expression is put into the mouth of these Samaritans by the evangelist, opposing thus the view of Meyer who agrees with Godet.

But the natural pointing of the words of Jesus with respect to worship is towards the possibility of true worship in the case of any man, and independently of place, and this question of worship was the one which these people were most likely to have discussed with Jesus as the great question pertaining to their nation and the Jews. If in their communications with Him they become convinced of His wonderful character, and had even a glimpse of this independency of place belonging to the true worship, their thought must have gone out beyond national limitations to a universal worshiping of God. That they had a clear and full comprehension of this, as the writer had at the time of his writing, is not probable.

Such a supposition is not required by their use of the words. But that they should have expressed the thought, which they must have derived as intimated above, by these words, is not to be regarded as unnatural. Jesus taught His disciples by the suggestion of great thoughts. They had but a feeble grasp of them at the first. At a later time, they entered into deeper knowledge. But the story, as told from the standpoint of the later period, must be interpreted, oftentimes, not from the time of the recording of it, but from that of the events.

An illustrative example may be found in John 16:30. How true to the life are the words of the disciples which are there recorded: “Now we know that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any one should ask thee.” And yet, how evident it is that in relation to what His meaning was their minds had, at the most, only a glimmering of the light. Indeed, the very words of Jesus which follow seem to intimate this: “Do ye now believe? Behold the hour cometh, yea, is come, that ye shall be scattered every man to his own and shall leave me alone.” The word which He spoke to Peter at the end with reference to His departure to the unseen world, might, in a certain sense, be applied to His life with His disciples in the region of the truth: “Thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards.” So, in this case of the Samaritan believers, the words which were used were the expression of the first outgoing of their thought beyond the boundaries of their own nation and beyond the Jews. But the appreciation of what salvation for the world was this could only be gained many years afterwards. The story tells what they said, and they may well have said these words. The meaning of the words to their minds must be judged of, not by what we know, but by what they knew.