[ p. 64 ]
ON THE ROAD TO CAPERNAUM
Jo. iii. 22— iv. 2. Mt. xiv. 3-5 ; Mk. vi. 17-20; Lk. iii. 19, 20. Jo. iv. 3-54.
At the close of the sacred week Jesus and His disciples took their departure. They quitted the busy capital, but they did not meanwhile quit the Judaean territory; and it is hardly doubtful what their destination was. It was surely Bethabara down by the Jordan where Jesus had heard the heavenly call; and He returned thither that, ere beginning His Galilean ministry. He might revive the hallowed memory and renew His consecration. The place was no longer thronged by an eager multitude; for the Baptist had left it and was now prosecuting his ministry at Asnon, “The Springs,” near the village of Salim and, on the testimony of St. Jerome, fully seven miles south of Scythopolis.
He was denied the seclusion which He craved; for it soon transpired at Jerusalem where He was, and the citizens thronged after Him until He was surrounded by a larger crowd than had ever waited on the Baptist, (Cf. Jo. i. 35) He would preach to them; and to all who professed faith His disciples, who in at least two instances had been John’s disciples, naturally administered their former master’s rite of Baptism—an evidence that the place was indeed Bethabara, since nowhere else in that arid country was there a sufficiency of [ p. 65 ] water. Jesus permitted it, since He recognised the salutary significance of His forerunner’s Baptism of Repentance; but He took no part in the administration, since He intended a nobler sacrament and would ordain it so soon as He had revealed its richer grace.
For a full month He prosecuted this ministry, and He might have continued it longer but for two emergences. One was that His activities attracted the attention of the Pharisees (Cf. Jo. iv. 1), and He had no mind for a renewal of their vexatious interference. The other was the grievous intelligence of the Baptist’s arrest by Herod Antipas, that crafty, cruel, and licentious tyrant who since the division of the kingdom of his father Herod the Great had ruled under the title of Tetrarch over the districts of Galilee and Perasa. iEnon lay near the southern frontier of Galilee, and according to the Jewish historian the crowds which resorted thither had inspired him with the dread of a popular insurrection ; but this was neither his sole nor his main motive. He had recently divorced his wife, a daughter of the Arabian king Aretas, and espoused Herodias, the wife of his halfbrother Philip and a daughter of their half-brother Aristobulus; and John had confronted him and denounced the iniquity. He had quailed before the stem prophet, but Herodias was indignant. She urged the Baptist’s instant execution, and Antipas had compromised by conveying him to his castle of Machserus to the east of the Dead Sea and immuring him there.
There were two routes between Judsea and Galilee. One ran through Persea along the eastern side of the [ p. 66 ] Jordan, and not only was this the shorter route from Bethabara to Capernaum but it was safer. For the other lay through Samaria; and between the Jews and the Samaritans there was an ancient and bitter feud. After the Assyrian conquest of the northern Kingdom of Israel about the year 720 B.C. (Cf. 2 Ki. xvii) the devastated country was peopled by Assyrian settlers who intermarried with the Israelitish survivors, and the Samaritans were their descendants. At the Restoration in 536 B.C. they claimed kinship with the returned exiles and would have co-operated with them in rebuilding the Temple; but their overtures were scornfully rejected, and the quarrel persisted (Cf. Ezr. iv). The Samaritans built a rival Temple on Mount Gerizim ; and though they acknowledged the Pentateuch, practised the Mosaic ceremonial, and observed the sacred feasts, tracing their descent from Joseph (Cf. Jo. iv. 12) and calling Jacob their father, the Jews esteemed them heretics, more unclean than the Gentiles. A fierce and lawless race, they were swift to retaliate, insulting and maltreating Jewish travellers (Cf. Lk. ix. 51-56). It was unsafe for defenceless wayfarers to pass through Samaria; yet perilous and circuitous though it was, Jesus chose the western route inasmuch as it skirted AEnon and He would learn there what had befallen the Baptist and perhaps encounter some of his distressed followers.
He set out with His disciples early in the morning and, travelling hard, by 6 o’clock that evening [1] they had accomplished some thirty miles and were approaching Sychar, the modern ’ Askar. Less robust [ p. 67 ] than the others. He was sorely fatigued. Within a mile of the town there was a well reputed to have been dug by the patriarch Jacob and known to this day as “Jacob’s Well " ; and on reaching it He sank down exhausted on the low wall enclosing it, and His companions left Him resting there and proceeded to the town to purchase food. It was a peaceful spot on the bosom of that fertile upland now known as the Plain of Mukhna or “The Cornfields,” stretching westward as far as Shechem ( Nablus ) and enclosed on the south by Mount Gerizim and on the north by Mount Ebal. On the rich, warm Plain of Gennesaret, upwards of 600 feet below the level of the Mediterranean, the crops were ripe by the beginning of April, early enough, when the Passover fell late, for the unleavened bread to be baked with the new flour; but on that cool upland over 1500 feet above sea-level the harvest-time was toward the close of May, (Cf. Jo. iv. 35) and the surrounding fields were now clothed with golden grain ready for the sickle.
There was abundance of water at Sychar but, issuing from the calcareous base of Mount Ebal, it was hard, and then as now the folk would visit the distant Well and fetch home pitcherfuls of the sweet, cool, healthful water which its deep spring supplied. It was woman’s work, and it was done at eventide ; and as Jesus sat there, a woman approached with her pitcher. What would have happened had He been an ordinary Jew ? (Cf. Gen. xxiv. 11) It was accounted unseemly for a Jew to “multiply discourse” with a woman, even his own wife or sister or daughter; and this was not merely a woman but a Samaritan woman and, moreover, as her manner and her unbound hair [ p. 68 ] proclaimed, a sinful woman, though in truth “more sinn’d against than sinning.” For in those days the marriage-law bore cruelly upon women. It permitted a husband to divorce his wife “for any reason,” (Cf. Mt. xix. 3) were it only that he was tired of her or fancied another woman more. She might remarry and have several husbands in the course of her life, but too often in the long run she was driven to a life of shame. So it had happened with this poor soul. Five times she had been married and as often divorced, and now she was a concubine. An ordinary Jew would have shrunk aside at her approach ; but Jesus accosted her and conversed with her. They were all alone. None of the disciples heard what passed between them ; and if it be asked whence the Evangelist derived the story, surely the answer is that he heard it afterwards from her own lips.
On arriving she fastened the cord to her pitcher and let it down into the well, and as she drew it up brimming and dripping, the thirsty wayfarer eyed it longingly, and as she was lifting it to place it on her head, He begged a draught. Like Rebekah of old she would “let it down on her hand” (Cf. Gen. xxiv. 17,18) and raise it to His lips. It was kindly done, yet after the fashion of her sort she could not refrain from impudent banter: “How is it that you, though you be a Jew, ask a drink from me, though I be a woman, a Samaritan ?” Here was the opportunity which He desired. Water, so precious in the East, was called “the gift of God” ; and in it as in every earthly thing He recognised a heavenly parable. “If,” He answered, “you knew ‘ the gift of God’ and who it is that says to you ‘ Give Me a drink,’ you would [ p. 69 ] have asked Him and He would have given you living water.” In common speech “living water” was the running water of a spring or stream in contrast with the standing water of a pool or cistern. What could He mean ? “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep : whence then have you the “living water” ? Are you greater,” she laughed, “than our father Jacob who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle ?” Unheeding her ridicule, He made yet another attempt to convey the truth to her mind : “Every one that drinks of this water will thirst again; but one who drinks of the water which I will give him, shall never thirst. No, the water which I will give him will become within him a well of water springing to eternal life.” This is like the precept of the Philosophic Emperor: “Look within. Within is the well of good ; and evermore will it bubble up if evermore you dig.” Surely His meaning was plain, yet it was lost upon her. It seemed to her a sheer absurdity. “Sir,” she sneered,” give me this water, that I may not thirst or come all the way here to draw.”
Finding her thus inaccessible to gentle dealing, He took a sterner way. He assailed her conscience. “Go,” said He abruptly, “call your husband, and come here.” This checked her ridicule. She flushed and stammered out “I have no husband.” “Finely spoken ! ” He retorted. “Here you have told the truth”; [2] and beneath the scrutiny of His deep, searching gaze she “trembled like a guilty thing [ p. 70 ] surprised.” Her conscience took His part against her. Her shameful past rose up before her, and she realised that she had to do with One who knew the plague of her heart.
Still she would not yield, and cleverly essayed to evade the issue by raising the old religious quarrel. “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped at this mountain, and you say that at Jerusalem is the place where it is right to worship/’ He brushed the subterfuge aside. ” Believe Me, woman, that an hour is coming when neither at this mountain nor at Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is of the Jews. But an hour is coming, it is already here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for it is such that the Father is seeking for His worshippers. God is spirit, and His worshippers must worship in spirit and truth.” It was a personal appeal, a gracious invitation to the poor sinner to turn in penitence and faith to the Father whose wide mercy embraces all the children of men ; but she held back. Sychar was only some fifteen miles distant from AEnon, and of late all that district had been ringing with the Baptist’s announcement of the Messiah’s advent. Surely it would be time enough for decision when He appeared. “I know,” said she, “that Messiah is coming. When He comes, He will tell us all about it.” “I am He,” said Jesus—“I who am talking to you.”
Just then the disciples arrived on the scene. It surprised them to find the Master “talking with a woman,” and such a woman. They would look askance [ p. 71 ] at her, but ere they could utter a word she was gone. Forgetting her pitcher, she sped home across the fields to tell the tidings. His look refrained them from remonstrance, and they produced the food which they had purchased; but He would have none of it. “I have food to eat/’ said He, “which you know nothing of.” They whispered to each other, wondering if some one, perhaps the woman, had brought Him food, until He added : “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and accomplish His work.”
What was it that had so moved Him ? His recent experience at Jerusalem augured ill for the success of His ministry. Truly in sowing the good seed of the Kingdom He had need to emulate the husbandman who “waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it.” But His interview with that poor sinner at Jacob’s Well had cheered Him with the vision of a brighter prospect. “Have you not a saying, * Yet four months, and then the harvest’ ? Look, I tell you ! Lift up your eyes and behold the fields that they are white for harvest.” The wondering disciples looked, and what did they see ? Not merely the expanse of golden cornfields but an eager throng approaching from the town. The woman had published her discovery. “Come,” was her cry, “see a man who told me everything I had done ! Surely this is the Messiah.” At another time the idea might have been derided, but now it chimed with the Baptist’s message, and the townsfolk hastened forth to see the wonderful Stranger.
Doubtless His intention had been to continue His journey that evening to AEnon, but it would be late ere He had done discoursing to the eager throng, and, [ p. 72 ] yielding to their importunities, He not only spent the night at Sychar but remained there for two days, winning a rich harvest of faith. It was a cheering experience. After all it was no wonder that He had achieved so little at Jerusalem, for there, where they should have been welcomed, the prophets had always been evil entreated (Cf. Mt. xxxiii. 37; Lk. xiii. 33); and surely his success at Sychar was an augury of still greater success in Galilee.
He went forward on His journey with uplifted heart. There was now no need for Him to visit AEnon, since He had learned at Sychar what had befallen the Baptist; and He betook Himself to the nearest frontier of Galilee some fifteen miles distant. No sooner had He crossed it than He was enthusiastically greeted. The Galileans who had attended the Passover two months ago had carried home a report of His miracles in the Holy City; and as He passed on His way, the people thronged about Him in eager curiosity. Their acclamations pleased Him ill. For what did it mean ? It was His message that had won the faith of the Samaritans; but it was His miracles that appealed to those Galileans, and their enthusiasm bespoke no recognition of His spiritual purposes.
The direct route to Capernaum lay along the western shore of the Lake, but He kept to the uplands that He might pass by Cana, the home of Nathanael and the scene of His first miracle. It was nearly forty miles distant from Sychar; and, retarded by the popular enthusiasm, His progress would be slow. It would be the second day ere He arrived; and meanwhile tidings of His approach had been carried to [ p. 73 ] Capernaum and had reached the ears of a public official there. The Evangelist styles him “a nobleman” or “king’s officer,” meaning a superintendent RVmar of the state revenue ; and it is a reasonable surmise that he was Chuzas, the steward of Herod Antipas, whose wife Joanna afterwards gratefully “ministered of her substance ” to Jesus and His disciples (R. V. marg.). His little son was dying of the fever so prevalent about the Lake; and hope was kindled in his breast when he heard that the wonderworking Teacher was so near (Cf. Lk. viii. 3). He hurried to Cana, some fifteen miles off; and getting there at seven o’clock, he begged Him to return with him and heal his child.
Weary as He was of the unspirituality of the multitudes that had beset His progress through Galilee, so intent on His miracles, so heedless of His grace, the request jarred upon Jesus. “Unless,” said He, ignoring the suppliant and addressing the curious bystanders, “you see signs and wonders, you will never believe.” What cared the anxious father for signs and wonders ? His child was dying, and Jesus could save him. There was no time to lose. “Sir,” he cried, “come down ere my child die ! ” It was a cry of human anguish, and it gained a response beyond his hope. “Go,” said Jesus ; “your son lives.” He accepted the assurance and hastened homeward. On the way some of his people met him with the joyful tidings of the child’s recovery. “When did he take the turn ? ” he inquired. “Yesterday at seven o’clock ” was the answer. So the promise of Jesus had been fulfilled, and His mercy won that whole household— the first-fruits of His ministry at Capernaum.