Psalm 16:11 says: “You will make known to me the path of life In Your presence is fullness of joy In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” Psalm 145:16 tells us: “You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.” When I read the text, I can almost hear her surprise at His address, and then she goes so far as to tack on the obvious fact that she is not only a Samaritan but a woman to boot!Īs if, at that very moment her soul had indeed been so filled with Living Water, she didn’t need that water pot anymore! I wonder how many times we have thrown our “water jugs” into “wells” of success, love, better-this-more-of-that, only to stumble away all the more weakened from the dryness of our souls. Jews and Samaritans were not friends during these times. Historians tell us that women gathered at the town well to collect water in the morning and sunset hours, not in the middle of the day.īetween this interesting tidbit that is noted in John, and the fact that Jesus mentions she’s had five husbands and is now living with a man who is not (a fact, at the time, that would have definitely not been a cultural norm) we may conclude that she avoids the other townspeople by gathering her water at the most miserable time of the day.Īnother important part of the story is that she is surprised that Jesus, an Israelite man, is speaking to her, a Samaritan woman. The “woman by the well,” as we have come to know her, is fetching water around noon, at the hottest time of the day. This time, He has an appointment with one particular woman. In the New Testament, Jesus carries on with this same pattern of revealing a piece of His character with a name and an experience. In the Old Testament, we see the Lord tenderly meet Hagar and she calls Him, the “God who sees me…” ( Genesis 16:13).

Throughout Scripture, the Lord has a habit of revealing His character qualities with a name and a personal encounter with that part of His personality. Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water” ( John 4:10).

The living bible