our Lord gave to the Samaritan woman was conviction of sin. That fact is a lesson for all who desire to benefit ignorant and careless sinners. The first thing to be taught to such persons, when once we have got their attention, is tlieir own sinfulness, and their cons(^quent need of a Saviour. No one values the physician until he feels his disease.
Augustine thinks that when our Lord said, " Call thy hus- band," He meant, " Cause thine understanding to be forthcom- ing. Thy understanding is not with thee. I am speaking after the spirit, and thou nearest after the flesh ! " I can see no wis- dom in this fanciful idea.
1 7. — [The woman answered.. .no husband.'] These words were an honest and truthful confession, so far as they went. Whether the woman wished it to be supposed that she was a widow, it would perhaps be hardly fair to inquire. Theophylact and Euthymius suggpst that she did wish to deceive our Lord. The way in which our Lord receives her declaration, makes it proba- ble that she did not profess to be a widow, and very likely her dress st.owed that she was not. In this point of view the ho- nesty of iier confession is noteworthy. There is always more hope of one who honestly and bluntly confesses sin, than of a smooth-tongued hypocrite.
[Jesus said.. .thou hast well said...hufihand.'] Our Lord's com- mendation of the woman's honest confession deserves notice. It teaches ns that we should make the best of an ignorant sin- ner's words. An unskilful physician of souls would probably have rebuked the woman sharply for her wickedness, if her words led him to suspect it. Our Lord on the contrary says, " Thou hast well said."
18. — [Thou hast had Jive husbands.] Many foolish and unseemly things have been written about this sentence, which it is not worth while to bring forward. Of course it is utterly improba- ble that the woman had lost five husbands by death, and had been five times a widow. The more likely explauiition is that she had been divorced and put away by several husbands in suc- cession. Divorces were notoriously common among the Jews, and in all probability among the Samaritans, for very trivial causes. In tiie case, however, of the woman before us, the second clause of the verse before us makes it hkely that she had been justly divorced for adultery.
Augustine regards these five husbands as significant of '' the five senses of the body," which are as five husbands by which the soul of the natural mar, is ruled 1 I cannot think oua-t our Lord m ant anything of the kind. — Euthymius mentioixr, another allegoricjil view, making the woman to typify human nature, and