If the humble, ignorant Samaritaness had formerly not seen, though she had imperfectly guessed, that there was a higher meaning in the words of Him Who spake to her, a like mixture of ill-apprehension and rising faith seems to underlie her request for this water, that she might thirst no more, neither again come thither to draw. [1985] She now believes in the incredible; believes it, because of Him and in Him; believes, also, in a satisfaction through Him of outward wants, reaching up beyond this to the everlasting life. But all these elements are yet in strange confusion. Those who know how difficult it is to lodge any new idea in the mind of uneducated rustics in our own land, after all our advantages of civilising contact and education, will understand, how utterly at a loss this Samaritan countrywoman must have been to grasp the meaning of Jesus. But He taught, not as we teach. And thus He reached her heart in that dimly conscious longing which she expressed, though her intellect was incapable of distinguishing the new truth.
Surely, it is a strange mistake to find in her words [1986] a touch of irony,' while, on the other hand, it seems an exaggeration to regard them simply as the cry of realised spiritual need. Though reluctantly, a somewhat similar conclusion is forced upon us with reference to the question of Jesus about the woman's husband, her reply, and the Saviour's rejoinder. It is difficult to suppose, that Christ asked the woman to call her husband with the primary object of awakening in her a sense of sin. This might follow, but the text gives no hint of it. Nor does anything in the bearing of the woman indicate any such effect; indeed, her reply [1987] and her after-reference to it [1988] rather imply the contrary. We do not even know for certain, whether the five previous husbands had died or divorced her, and, if the latter, with whom the blame lay, although not only the peculiar mode in which our Lord refers to it, but the present condition of the woman, seem to point to a sinful life in the past. In Judæa a course like hers would have been almost impossible; but we know too little of the social and moral condition of Samaria to judge of what might there be tolerated. On the other hand, we have abundant evidence that, when the Saviour so unexpectedly laid open to her a past, which He could only supernaturally have known, the conviction at once arose in her that He was a Prophet, just as in similar circumstances it had been forced upon Nathanael. [1989] But to be a Prophet meant to a Samaritan that He was the Messiah, since they acknowledged none other after Moses. Whether or not the Messiah was known by the present Samaritan designation of Him as the Converter' and the Returner' (Restorer?), is of comparatively small importance, though, if we felt certain of this, the influence of the new conviction on the mind of the woman would appear even more clearly. In any case it was an immense, almost immeasurable, advance, when this Samaritan recognised in the stranger Jew, Who had first awakened within her higher thoughts, and pointed her to spiritual and eternal realities, the Messiah, and this on the strength of evidence the most powerfully convincing to a mind like hers: that of telling her, suddenly and startlingly, what He could not have known, except through higher than human means of information.
It is another, and much more difficult question, why Jesus should have asked for the presence of her husband. The objection, that to do so, knowing the while that she had no husband, seems unworthy of our Lord, may, indeed, be answered by the consideration, that such proving' of those who were in His training was in accordance with His mode of teaching, leading upwards by a series of moral questions. [1990] But perhaps a more simple explanation may offer even a better reply. It seems, as if the answer of verse 15 marked the utmost limit of the woman's comprehension. We can scarcely form an adequate notion of the narrowness of such a mental horizon as hers. This also explains, at least from one aspect, the reason of His speaking to her about His own Messiahship, and the worship of the future, in words far more plain than He used to His own disciples. None but the plainest statements could she grasp; and it is not unnatural to suppose that, having reached the utmost limits of which she was capable, the Saviour now asked for her husband, in order that, through the introduction of another so near to her, the horizon might be enlarged. This is also substantially the view of some of the Fathers. [1991] But, if Christ was in earnest in asking for the presence of her husband, it surely cannot be irreverent to add, that at that moment the peculiar relationship between the man and the woman did not stand out before His mind. Nor is there anything strange in this. The man was, and was not, her husband. Nor can we be sure that, although unmarried, the relationship involved anything absolutely contrary to the law; and to all intents the man might be known as her husband. The woman's answer at once drew the attention of the Christ to this aspect of her history, which immediately stood out fully before His Divine knowledge. At the same time her words seemed like a confession - perhaps we should say, a concession to the demands of her own conscience, rather than a confession. Here, then, was the required opportunity, both for carrying further truth to her mind, by proving to her that He Who spake to her was a Prophet, and at the same time for reaching her heart.