John 4:4-5

“ Now he must needs pass through Samaria. He cometh thus to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground which Jacob gave to his son Joseph. ”

῎Εδει, it was necessary: if one would not, like the very strict Jews, purposely avoid this polluted country (comp. p. 416); Jesus did not share this particularistic spirit. The name Sychar is surprising; for the only city known in this locality is that which bears the name of Shechem, and which is so frequently mentioned in the Old Testament. Can there be an error here of a writer who was a stranger to Palestine, as the adversaries of the authenticity of our Gospel claim? We think the solutions scarcely probable which make the name Sychar a popular and intentional corruption of that of Shechem, deriving it either from Scheker, falsehood (city of falsehood, that is to say, of heathenism), or from Schekar, liquor (city of drunkards; comp. Isaiah 28:1, the drunkards of Ephraim). We might rather hold an involuntary transformation through an interchange of liquid letters which was frequent (as e.g., that of bar for ben, son).

But the most natural solution is that which is offered by the passages of Eusebius and Jerome, in which two neighboring localities bearing these two distinct names are positively distinguished. Eusebius says in the Onomasticon: “Sychar before Neapolis.” Neapolis, indeed, is nothing else then the modern name of Shechem. The Talmud speaks also of a locality called Soukar, of a spring Soukar, of the plain of Soukar. At the present day also, a hamlet exists very near Jacob's well and situated at the foot of Mount Ebal, which bears the name El-Ascar, a name which very much resembles the one which we read in John and in the Talmud. Lieut. Conder and M. Socin also give their assent to this view. It seems certain, moreover, that the ancient Shechem was situated somewhat more to the east than the present city of Nablous. This is proved by the ruins which are discovered everywhere between Nablous and Jacob's well (see Felix Bovet, Voyage en Terre-Sainte, p. 363). Petermann (art. Samaria in Herzog's Encyclop. xiii. p. 362) says: “The emperor Vespasian considerably enlarged the city on the western side.” In any case, to see, with Furrer, in this name Sychar an indication of the purely ideal character of the account, one must be thoroughly preoccupied by a preconceived theory (Bibellex., iii., p. 375). It is at Nablous that the remnant of the Samaritan people who are reduced to the number of about one hundred and thirty persons live at the present day.

According to de Wette. Meyer, and others, the gift of Jacob to Joseph, mentioned in this fifth verse, rests on a false tradition, even arising from a misunderstanding of the LXX. Genesis 48:22, Jacob says to Joseph: “ I give thee one portion (Schekem), above thy brethren, which I took from the Amorites with my sword and my bow. ” As the patriarch has just adopted as his own the two children of Joseph, it is natural for him to assign to this son one portion above all his brethren. But the Hebrew word (Schekem) which denotes a portion of territory (strictly shoulder) is at the same time the name of the city, Shechem; and it is claimed that the LXX., taking this word in the geographical sense (as the name of a city), gave rise, through this false translation, to the popular legend which we find here, and according to which Jacob left Shechem as a legacy to Joseph. But it is incontestable that when Jacob speaks “of the portion of country which he had taken from the Amorites with his bow and his sword,” he alludes to the bloody exploit of his two sons, Simeon and Levi, against the city of Shechem (Gen 34:25-27): “ Having taken their sword, they entered the city of Shechem, and slew all its inhabitants and utterly spoiled it. ” This is the only martial act mentioned in the history of the patriarch.

Notwithstanding its reprehensible character, Jacob appropriates it to himself in these words, as a confirmation of the purchase which he had himself previously made (Gen 33:19) of a domain in this district of Shechem, and he sees therein, as it were, the pledge of the future conquest of this whole country by his descendants. Thus, then, by using in order to designate the portion which he gives to Joseph, the word schekem, it is the patriarch who makes a play upon words, such as is found so frequently in the Old Testament; he leaves to him a portion (Schekem) which is nothing else than Shechem. His sons so well understood his thought, that, when their descendants returned to Canaan, their first care was to lay the bones of Joseph in Jacob's field near to Shechem (Jos 24:32), then to assign, as a portion, to the larger of the two tribes descended from Joseph, that of Ephraim, the country in which Shechem was located. The LXX. not being able to render the play upon words in Greek, translated the word schekem in the geographical sense; for it was the one which had most significance. There is here, therefore, neither a false translation on their part, nor a false tradition taken up by the evangelist.