(1.) With regard to the first of these, we may ob- serve that the language in the original is remarkably descriptive of the spot. Had Jacob bought a ]iortion of the valley, we should have had eiurk, p w". but here it is a part of the xadeh, HTtiJil, the level cultivated land, the plain of iMukhna already doscrilicd ; and to no oth- er part of tlie country could tliis terin lie applied. This, in connection with the unbroken tradition of the spot, renders its genuineness beyond all doubt. The well is not an V«'«, "j^", a fountain of living water; but a beer, 1X3, a cistern to hold rain-water. Hence our Saviour's contrast, with the Samaritan woman, between the cis- tern ((ppi-ap) which Jacob gave them and tha fountain (Tnjyi'i) which he should give them (John iv, 12, 14). Faithful to the language of Scripture, the natives never call it '.I in Y'akiih. l)ut always /)'//■ Yaiiib, Jac<pi)'s Well. The native Christians r)f Nablus frequently call it /iir Sdmarii/eh, the Samaritan Well ; but the Samaritans themselves only call it liir Yaktih.
"A low spur projects from the base of Gerizim in a north-eastern direction, between the plain and the open- ing of the valley. On the point of this sjnir is a little
mound of shapeless ruins, with several fragments of granite columns. Beside these is the well. Formerly there was a square hole opening into a carefull\ built vaulted chamber, about ten feet square, in the floor of which was th(! true mouth of the well. Now a portion of the vault has fallen in and completely covered up the mouth, so that nothing can be seen above but a sludlow pit half filled with stones and rubbish. The well is deep — seventy-tivc feet when last measured, and there was probably a considerable accumulation of rubbish at the bottom. Sometimes it contains a few feet of water, but at others it is quite dry. It is entirely excavated in the solid rock, perfectly round, nine feet in diameter, with the sides hewn smooth and regular" (Porter, //awl- book, p. 340). The well is fast tilling up with the stones thrown in by travellers and others. At Maundrell's visit (1697) it was 105 feet deep, and the same measure- ment is given by Dr. IJobinson as having l)een taken in May, 1838. But, five years later, when Dr. Wilson re- covered Mr. A. Bonar's Bible from it, the depth had de- creased to " exactly seventy-tive" (Wilson, Lands, ii, 57). Maundrell (March 24) found fifteen feet of water stand- ing in the well. It appears now to be always dry.
"It has every claim to be considered the original well, sunk deep into the rocky ground by 'our father Jacob.'" This, at least, was the tradition of the place in the last days of the Jewish people (John iv, t>, 12). Its position adds |)robability to the conclusion, indicat- ing, as has been well observed, that it was there dug by one who could not trust to the springs .so near in the ailjacent vale — the springs of Ain Balata and 'Ain Dafna — which still belonged to the Canaanites. Of all the special localities of our Lord's life, this is almost the only one absolutely undisputed. "The tradition, in which, by a singular coincidence, Jews and Samari- tans, Christians and Mtiliammedans, all agree, goes back," says Dr. Robinson (Bib. Bes. ii, 284), "at least to the time of Eusebius, in the early part of the 4th cen- tury. That writer indeed speaks only of the sepul- chre; but the Bordeaux Pilgrim, in A.D. 333, men- tions also the well; and neither of these writers has any allusion to a church. But Jerome, in Epitaphium Pauhe, which is referred to A.D. 404, makes her visit the church erected at the side of Mount (ierizim around the Well of Jacob, where our Lord met the Samaritan woman. The church would seem, therefore, to have been built during the 4th century; though not by Helena, as is reported in modern times. It was vis- ited and is mentioned, as around the well, by Antoninus Martyr near the close of the (Sth century, by Arculfus a century later, who describes it as built in the form of a cross; and again by St. Willibald in the 8lh century. Yet Saewulf, al)out A.D. 1103, and Phocas in 1185, who speak of the well, make no mention of the church; whence we may conclude that the latter had been de- stroyed before the period of the Crusades. Brocardus speaks of ruins around the well, lilocks of marble and columns, which he held to be the ruins of a town, the ancient Thebez ; they were probalily those of the church, to which he makes no allusion. Other trav- ellers, both of that age and later, speak of the church only as destroyed, and the well as already deserted. Before the days of Eusebius there seems to be no his- torical testimony to show the identity of this well with that which our Saviour visited; and the ]iroof must therefore rest, so far as it can be made out at all. on circumstantial evidence. I am not aware of anything, in the nature of the case, that goes to contradict the common tradition; but, on the other hanil, I see much in the circumstances tending to confirm the supposition that this is actually the spot where our Lord held his conversation with the Samaritan woman. Jesus was journeying from Jerusalem to (ialilee, and rested at the well, while 'his disciples were gone away into the city to buy meat.' The well, therefore, lay apparently before the city, and at some distance from it. In pass- ing along the eastern [)lain, Jesus had halted at the