nothingness of the things of the world ? Do we ever talk to others about God, and Christ, and eternity, and the soul, and heaven, and hell ? If not, what is the value of our faith ? Where is the reality of our Christianity ? Let us take heed lest we awake too late, and find that we are lost for ever, a wonder to angels and devils, and, above all, a wonder to ourselves, because of our own obstinate blind- ness and folly.
Notes. John IV. 27—30.
27. — [ Upon this^ The true idea contained in this expression seems to be, "At this point, at this critical juncture in the conversation between our Lord and the woman." — What the woman would have said next after our Lord's marvellous discovery of Himself, we are left to conjecture. But just as our Lord said, ''I am the Me-siah," the disciples retnrned from buying food, and their appearance stopped the conversation. The woman's heart v/"as probably too full, and her mind too much excited to say more in the presence of witnesses, and especially of strangers. Therefore no more was said, and she withdrew. The soul, in the beginning of a work of grace, shrinks from discovering its workings before strangers.
[Marvelled...talked with the woman.] I am inclined tt> think that these words would have been more correctly rendered, "Talked with a woman." There is no article in "the original Greek. The wonder of the disciples was excited, not so much by our Lord talking to this woman, as by His talking to a wonrian at a'l. It is clear from Rabbinical writings, that thero. was a common opinion among the Jews that both in understanding and religion women were an inferior order of beings to men. This ignorant prejudice had most likely leavened the minds of the discipL'S, and is probably referred to in this place. Of the woman's moral character it is not clear that the disciples could know anything at all.
Rupertus thinks that our Lord, by conversing openly with a Samaritan woman, wished to show His disciples by an example, that the wall between Jews and other people was to be broken down by the Gospel, just as He taught Peter the same lesson afrer His ascension, by the vision of tho sheet full of clean and unclean beasts. (Acts x. 11 — 15.) He thinks that, the wonder of the disciples arose from the same Jewish prejudice against intercourse with uncircumcised Gentiles which appeared so strongly in after times.