Who Was that Woman at the Well?

Was the Samaritan Woman of "Bad Reputation"?

Early Sumer, AD 27

The Story: (John 4:7-42)

Jesus was returning to Galilee, having  recently put an end to the baptizing ministry that he and his disciples had been doing in the wilderness of Judea. Passing through Samaria, he sent his disciples into town to buy food, then he encountered a lone woman who had come to draw water from the well at which he was resting.

Jesus asks the woman for a drink--an unusual thing for a Jew to ask of a Samaritan--and they strike up a conversation, with Jesus leading her into the message of Salvation. With her interest increasing, Jesus tells her to go into town and bring back her husband.

"I don't have a husband." she says.

Jesus replies, "You're right in saying, "I don't have a husband," for you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. You have spoken the truth."

The woman then calls Jesus a prophet, for he knew things about her life that he shouldn't have known. She runs into town and tells the people what Jesus said, saying, "Could this be the Messiah?"

The townspeople invite Jesus to stay for a while, and many of them begin to believe in Jesus, saying, "We know that this man is really the Savior of the World."

The Woman:

Blogger Sue Edwards recently investigated this woman (link below). Sue had heard many of the same things that I have heard from the pulpit and from teachers, who paint the Samaritan as a woman of bad reputation, for instance:

She's at the well alone because she's shunned by other women.
She's been married five times.
She may have been divorced five times.
She has a secret past life.
She's not married to the man she's living with.
She must have led an immoral life.

While these are all possible, they are not necessarily true. One counter-indication is that Jesus does not tell her, "Go, and sin no more."

But this is a much-visited well, and may be in an area relatively safe to visit alone.
Five husbands is a lot. But she may have been widowed. Some women of that  time married early (13-14 yrs old) and were sometimes married to older men. The Sadducees bring a riddle to Jesus about a woman who was widowed seven times.
A woman of that time did not have the right to divorce her husband, except under extraordinary conditions. Only a husband could write a divorce decree. A divorce decree was for the protection of the woman, to prevent her from being charged with adultery should she remarry.
Do all of us tell all of the details of our past life? Even if the cause of having had five husbands was completely innocent on her part, she may still have wanted to hide it.

The man she's living with is a conundrum. If she was "living in sin" one would think Jesus would have made reference to it. Sue Edwards notes that she may have been a concubine (legal for Roman citizens), or she may have been waiting on a dowry before the marriage contract could be completed. Sue speculates that she may have been a second wife. Her community would accept this polygamy, but Jesus would not have considered it a valid marriage.

So, there are too many unknowns to make a "bad reputation" certain for this woman. What I notice is that she goes into town and the townspeople consider her story worth checking out. They didn't shun her; they listened to what she said and acted on it. After hearing Jesus himself, they were convinced that she was on the right track. The woman became the first Samaritan evangelist.

Try her shoes on for size:

Five husbands. This woman has led a tumultuous life. Regardless of the reasons, there had to be much sadness in her life, and probably much struggle to make a living. Single women had poor job prospects in the first century AD.

So, say it was me going to the well for water:

Jesus says, "Go home and bring your wife back here."
I say, "I don't have a wife."
Jesus says, "You're right in saying, "I don't have a wife," for you have had three wives, and now you do not have a wife. You have spoken the truth."

My first inclination is to argue: "But all three of them divorced me." "I needed a woman in my life." "The women that married me treated me bad." Etc., etc. But I have had time to reflect on my life, and to put my finger on things that I had done wrong, attitudes that I held wrongly, inadequacies in forming a more perfect marriage. No life is without mistakes; none is without sin.

Jesus doesn't want to hear all that just yet. He wants to tell me that he's here to save me. He wants to share with me the Gospel: "Repent, and believe in me."

Jesus comes to us just as we are, and loves us already, even though we sin.




Here is Sue Edward's post on this subject:
http://blogs.bible.org/engage/sue_edwards/was_the_woman_at_the_well_a_bad_girl