John 4:13

Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(13, 14) Whosoever drinketh of this water.—Jesus does not answer her question, but asserts the universal recurrence of thirst, after even the water of Jacob’s well, to lead her to the thought that His “living water” is something widely different.

Benson Commentary

John 4:13-15. Jesus said, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again — How much soever this water may be esteemed, and though it may refresh the body, and allay its thirst for a little while, yet the appetite will soon return, even if it be drunk ever so plentifully. But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him — Will find it so reviving and satisfying to his soul; that he will never thirst — Be without refreshment, dissatisfied, or unhappy; that is, provided he continue to drink thereof. If ever his thirst, or his dissatisfaction and uneasiness return, it will be the fault of the man, not of the water. But the water that I shall give him — The Spirit of faith and love, hope and joy, of holiness and happiness; shall be in him — An inward, living principle; a well of water — A fountain, as πηγη signifies. A well is soon exhausted. Springing — Αλλομενου, bubbling up, and flowing on into everlasting life, which is a continence, or rather an ocean of streams arising from this fountain. “Some would render the original expression, ου μη διψηση εις τον αιωνα, (instead of shall never thirst,) shall not thirst for ever: but not to urge how much this spoils the antithesis, the expression used, John 6:35, ου μη διψηση πωποτε, is not liable to any such ambiguity. The force and truth of our Lord’s assertion seems to lie in this, that the most impatient and restless desires of the soul being satisfied, when it is fixed on God as its supreme happiness, other thirst was not worth being mentioned.” — Doddridge. The woman — Still ignorant of our Lord’s meaning, and understanding him as speaking only of natural water; saith unto him, Sir, give me this water — Extraordinary as it is, according to thy declaration; that I thirst not — Any more for ever, and may be saved the trouble of coming every day so far for water. She seems to have had a mind to turn Christ’s words into ridicule. It therefore became necessary that he should open to her a new scene, and, by bringing her besetting sin to remembrance, touch her in a tender part, as he does in the next words.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

4:4-26 There was great hatred between the Samaritans and the Jews. Christ's road from Judea to Galilee lay through Samaria. We should not go into places of temptation but when we needs must; and then must not dwell in them, but hasten through them. We have here our Lord Jesus under the common fatigue of travellers. Thus we see that he was truly a man. Toil came in with sin; therefore Christ, having made himself a curse for us, submitted to it. Also, he was a poor man, and went all his journeys on foot. Being wearied, he sat thus on the well; he had no couch to rest upon. He sat thus, as people wearied with travelling sit. Surely, we ought readily to submit to be like the Son of God in such things as these. Christ asked a woman for water. She was surprised because he did not show the anger of his own nation against the Samaritans. Moderate men of all sides are men wondered at. Christ took the occasion to teach her Divine things: he converted this woman, by showing her ignorance and sinfulness, and her need of a Saviour. By this living water is meant the Spirit. Under this comparison the blessing of the Messiah had been promised in the Old Testament. The graces of the Spirit, and his comforts, satisfy the thirsting soul, that knows its own nature and necessity. What Jesus spake figuratively, she took literally. Christ shows that the water of Jacob's well yielded a very short satisfaction. Of whatever waters of comfort we drink, we shall thirst again. But whoever partakes of the Spirit of grace, and the comforts of the gospel, shall never want that which will abundantly satisfy his soul. Carnal hearts look no higher than carnal ends. Give it me, saith she, not that I may have everlasting life, which Christ proposed, but that I come not hither to draw. The carnal mind is very ingenious in shifting off convictions, and keeping them from fastening. But how closely our Lord Jesus brings home the conviction to her conscience! He severely reproved her present state of life. The woman acknowledged Christ to be a prophet. The power of his word in searching the heart, and convincing the conscience of secret things, is a proof of Divine authority. It should cool our contests, to think that the things we are striving about are passing away. The object of worship will continue still the same, God, as a Father; but an end shall be put to all differences about the place of worship. Reason teaches us to consult decency and convenience in the places of our worship; but religion gives no preference to one place above another, in respect of holiness and approval with God. The Jews were certainly in the right. Those who by the Scriptures have obtained some knowledge of God, know whom they worship. The word of salvation was of the Jews. It came to other nations through them. Christ justly preferred the Jewish worship before the Samaritan, yet here he speaks of the former as soon to be done away. God was about to be revealed as the Father of all believers in every nation. The spirit or the soul of man, as influenced by the Holy Spirit, must worship God, and have communion with him. Spiritual affections, as shown in fervent prayers, supplications, and thanksgivings, form the worship of an upright heart, in which God delights and is glorified. The woman was disposed to leave the matter undecided, till the coming of the Messiah. But Christ told her, I that speak to thee, am He. She was an alien and a hostile Samaritan, merely speaking to her was thought to disgrace our Lord Jesus. Yet to this woman did our Lord reveal himself more fully than as yet he had done to any of his disciples. No past sins can bar our acceptance with him, if we humble ourselves before him, believing in him as the Christ, the Saviour of the world.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Shall thirst again - Jesus did not directly answer her question, or say that he was greater than Jacob, but he gave her an answer by which she might infer that he was. He did not despise or undervalue Jacob or his gifts; but, however great might be the value of that well, the water could not altogether remove thirst.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13, 14. thirst again … never thirst, &c.—The contrast here is fundamental and all comprehensive. "This water" plainly means "this natural water and all satisfactions of a like earthly and perishable nature." Coming to us from without, and reaching only the superficial parts of our nature, they are soon spent, and need to be anew supplied as much as if we had never experienced them before, while the deeper wants of our being are not reached by them at all; whereas the "water" that Christ gives—spiritual life—is struck out of the very depths of our being, making the soul not a cistern, for holding water poured into it from without, but a fountain (the word had been better so rendered, to distinguish it from the word rendered "well" in Joh 4:11), springing, gushing, bubbling up and flowing forth within us, ever fresh, ever living. The indwelling of the Holy Ghost as the Spirit of Christ is the secret of this life with all its enduring energies and satisfactions, as is expressly said (Joh 7:37-39). "Never thirsting," then, means simply that such souls have the supplies at home.

into everlasting life—carrying the thoughts up from the eternal freshness and vitality of these waters to the great ocean in which they have their confluence. "Thither may I arrive!" [Bengel].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Our Saviour in his reply justifieth the excellency of that living water, which he had before declared to be in his power to give, and his readiness to have given to this woman, if she had asked it of him, from the perishing virtue of the water of this well, and the continuing virtue of his grace, which he compared to this living water: no man so assuaged his thirst by drinking of the water of Jacob’s well, but he was subject to thirst again.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Jesus answered and said unto her,.... In a mild and gentle manner, patiently bearing all her scoffs and flouts, and continuing to instruct and inform her, concerning this living water, showing the preferableness of it to all others:

whosoever drinketh of this water; meaning in that well called Jacob's well, or any other common water:

shall thirst again; as this woman had often done, and would again, as she herself knew, John 4:15, and as Jesus did, who very likely afterwards drank of it, John 19:28. For though water allays heat, quenches thirst, and refreshes and revives the spirits for a while, yet in process of time, natural heat increases, and thirst returns, and there is a necessity of drinking water again.

Geneva Study Bible

Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

John 4:13-14. Not an explanation, but (comp. John 3:5) a carrying out of the metaphor, to lead the woman nearer to its higher import.

τούτου] referring to the well.

οὐ μὴ διψ. εἰς τ. αἰῶνα] “will certainly not thirst for ever,” antithesis to fleeting bodily refreshment, John 4:13. Comp. John 6:34. That heavenly grace and truth which Christ communicates, when received by faith into the inner life, for ever supplies what we need in order to salvation, so that the lack of this satisfaction is never felt, because the supply is always there. Bengel admirably remarks: “Sane aqua illa, quantum in se est, perennem habet virtutem; et ubi sitis recurrit, hominis non aquae defectus est.” The expression in Sir 24:20 : οἱ πίνοντές με (Wisdom) ἔτι διψήσουσι, rests upon a different view of the continuity of enjoyment, namely, that of the individual moments passing in the continual alternation of desire and satisfaction, and not of the unity which they make up, and of their condition as a whole.

γενήσεται ἐν αὐτῷ, κ.τ.λ.] the positive effect following the negative (and hence τὸ ὕδωρ ὃ δώσω αὐτῷ is emphatically repeated): divine grace and truth appropriated by faith will so energetically develope their life in him in inexhaustible fulness, that its full impelling power endures unto eternal Messianic life. Upon his entrance into the Messiah’s kingdom (comp. John 3:3; John 3:5), the man takes along with him this inner living power of divine χάρις καὶ ἀλήθεια, John 6:27.

ἅλλεσθαι εἰς, to spring up into, often also in the classics (Hom. Il. a. 537; Xen. Mem. i. 3. 9), but with reference to water here only. A Greek would say προρεῖν εἰς; still the word in the text is stronger and more vivid. The ζωὴ αἰων. is conceived of locally, in keeping with the comparison of a widespreading spring; to render εἰς “reaching to everlasting life” (B. Crusius, Luthardt, Brückner, Ewald), arbitrarily lets go the concrete comparison, one of the main features in which is endless power of springing up. This description of the well springing up into everlasting life is the finishing touch of the picture. On εἰς ζ. αἰ., see John 4:36.

Expositor's Greek Testament

John 4:13-14. Jesus in reply, though He does not quite break through the veil of figure, leads her on to think of a more satisfying gift than even Jacob had given in this well.—πᾶς ὁ πίνων … ζωὴν αἰώνιον. He contrasts the water of the well with the water He can give; and the two characteristic qualities of His living water are suggested by this contrast. The water of Jacob’s well had two defects: it quenched thirst only for a time, and it lay outside the town a weary distance, and subject to various accidents. Christ offers water which will quench thirst lastingly, and which will be “in” the person drinking, ἐν αὐτῷ πηγὴ ὕδατος ἁλλομένου εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον. For this figure put to another though similar use, see Marcus Aurelius, vii. 59, and viii. 51, with Gataker’s notes. The living water lastingly quenches human cravings and is within the man, inseparable from him, and always energetically and afresh shooting up.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13, 14. Christ leaves her question unanswered, like that of Nicodemus (John 3:4-5), and passes on to develop the metaphor rather than explain it, contrasting the literal with the figurative sense. Comp. John 3:6.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 13. - Jesus answered and said to her - leaving the question of his superiority to "our father Jacob" to be settled when she should understand him better - Every one who drinketh (is in the habit of drinking) from this water, or any similar fountain, will thirst again. Earthly desires obtain temporary satisfaction, and then resume their sway. Our whole life is made up of intermittent desires and partial satisfaction, of passion and satiation, of ennui and then of some new longing. This flow and ebb, ebb and flow, of desire belong to the very nature of human appetite. More than that, human desire is never really satiated. Our souls can never be at rest till they find rest in God. This water, even from the well of Jacob, is no exception to the rule. John 4:13

Vincent's Word Studies

Whosoever drinketh (πᾶς ὁ πίῃ)

Literally, every one that drinketh. So Rev.