The Woman at the Well: Misunderstood

Most of us have heard this story from John chapter 4; it’s a popular sermon topic. I would call this woman one of the most mischaracterized people in the Bible. Because we tend to look at this and many other Scriptures through the lens of our culture, not theirs.

Jesus points out, she had been married five times and was living with a sixth man. Most preachers and teachers that I’ve heard label her as a promiscuous, fickle, unfaithful, sinful woman with no morals. In our culture, a woman today who has been married five times and is now living with a man would be viewed by many as immoral and having a serious commitment problem. Let’s take a closer look at her from a biblical, first century Jewish perspective, and from the text itself.

Who Were the Samaritans?

The Samaritans were of mixed race dating back to the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom (see 2 Kings 17). Pious Jews of Jesus’s day despised and shunned them, but Jesus felt differently. Remember the parable of the good Samaritan. The fact that Jesus went through that region was controversial. But the Samaritans were Jewish enough to follow the Jewish laws and traditions, also having added elements of local pagan religions over the years.

Divorce in Bible Times

Deuteronomy 24 talks about men divorcing their wives. In Jewish law and culture of that time, only men could divorce their wives; women had no right to initiate divorce themselves. This woman could have been widowed or divorced five times. Jesus didn’t say why she had had five husbands. Either way, she had very little control over her marital circumstances.

Some have hinted that her husbands divorced her for adultery, since their mindset is that she was a sinful woman. However, if that were the case, she would likely have been stoned according to the law long before Jesus met her.

The primary reason husbands divorced their wives in that culture was barrenness, the inability to have children. Children, especially sons, were considered evidence of God’s blessing on the marriage and the wife. Psalm 27:3-4 says “Sons are indeed a heritage from the Lord, offspring, a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons born in one’s youth.” Women who couldn’t have children were looked down upon. Remember Hannah from 1 Samuel 1, and the ridicule she suffered from her husband’s other wife because she was barren.

The Woman’s Reputation

Some have reasoned that the fact that this woman was at the well around noon, when most women went in the morning, indicates her sinfulness in the eyes of the community. Rather, she was more likely there at that time because of the same kind of ridicule that Hannah experienced. She was probably shunned by her fellow townspeople not because of sin, but because her barrenness indicated to them that she was under the curse of God. We don’t know for sure, but this seems more likely according to their culture.

Jesus was criticized often by the religious leaders for spending time with “sinners”. Jesus consistently forgave those who sinned, but didn’t overlook the sin. For example, the woman caught in adultery in John 8 was forgiven by Jesus, but he told her to “go and sin no more”. It is significant that Jesus never rebuked, or forgave the Samaritan woman. He didn’t tell her “go and sin no more”, or “leave your life of sin” as he did others he encountered.

This could indicate that she wasn’t a “sinner” like so many others Jesus met. For this woman, he was offering a new life, living water, pure worship, in effect, a relationship with the Father through him. There was no judgement, no reproach, no mention of any sin. In reviewing her marital history, he was letting her know that he knew her intimately. He wanted to give her living water, a relationship with him through the Holy Spirit, and heal the brokenness in her life.

Her Faith

When Jesus talked about worshiping God in spirit and in truth, she responded in John 4:25, “when Messiah comes…”. This means she was already a believer! Old Testament saints who believed in the promised Messiah were God’s children, and so was she. Jesus was graciously revealing himself to this woman of faith, who despite her difficult life, her despair, and her shame, was looking forward in hope to the Messiah. When he disclosed that “I, the one speaking to you, am He”, she ran back to town and testified about her encounter, “could this be Messiah?” Many of the people in her town believed in Jesus because of her testimony.

Summing It Up

This unnamed woman, so often portrayed as a loose woman in our modern terminology, was really a victim, a woman rejected or widowed by five husbands. Living in turmoil, anguish, and shame, she most likely took up with the sixth man to survive. Probably no one would marry her, and she needed the security that this new relationship offered.

She was at a very low point in life, and Jesus always showed compassion to people like her. I think Jesus chose to reveal himself to her because his grace to her would nullify any supposed “curse” in the eyes of her neighbors, and his work in her would be an amazing witness to the work he could do in all of their hearts.