Yeshua Meets the Women at the Well ~ Part 2

We continue our story of Yeshua’s ministry in Shomron as He Meets the Women at the Well.

¹⁵ “Sir, give me this water,” the woman said to Him, “so that I won’t have to be thirsty and keep coming here to draw water.” ¹⁶ He said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” ¹⁷ She answered, “I don’t have a husband.” Yeshua said to her, “You’re right; you don’t have a husband! ¹⁸ You’ve had five husbands in the past, and you’re not married to the man you’re living with now! You’ve spoken the truth!”

If the woman had five previous husbands who either died or divorced her, she would have exceeded the traditional limit of three husbands in Jewish law.

¹⁹ “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet,” the woman replied.

I can see that you are a prophet because you supernaturally knew about my sin. The Tanakh prophets spoke forth God’sWord concerning the sins of Isra’el and other nations; the prophecy was a secondary aspect of their ministry.

²⁰ “Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you people say that the place where one has to worship is in Yerushalayim.”

This mountain refers to Mount Gerizim, the holy mountain for the Samaritan community. The mountain was visible from the well where Yeshua and the woman were speaking.

²¹ Yeshua said, “Lady, believe me, the time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Yerushalayim. ²² You people don’t know what you are worshipping; we worship what we do know because salvation comes from the Jews.

Yeshua does not take up the debate over legitimate holy places. Instead, He points to a future time of salvation when worship will not be limited to any local sacred site, neither Mount Gerizim nor Jerusalem. How one worships is more important than where one worships.

Salvation comes from the Jews. Messianic Believers should acknowledge the Jewish roots of their faith and present close involvement with the Jewish people (Ephesians 2:13). Jews should acknowledge more specifically that only through Yeshua comes yeshu’ah, “salvation.”

 ²³ But the time is coming – indeed, it’s here now – when the true worshippers will worship the Father spiritually and truly, for these are the kind of people the Father wants worshipping Him. ²⁴ God is spirit, and worshippers must worship Him spiritually and truly.”

Verse 24 is sometimes misappropriated to support the mistaken idea that the Torah is inferior or is no longer in force, having been replaced by worship “in spirit and in truth” (the literal rendering of spiritually and truly). But spiritual and genuine worship is not to be set alongside or compared with the Torah. Instead, authentic, spiritual worship is God’s universal standard, which He also commands in the Torah itself. The Torah opposes legalism and the mere performance of acts and routines without genuine, spiritual involvement.

²⁵ The woman replied, “I know that Mashiach (Messiah) is coming” (that is, “the one who has been anointed”). “When he comes, he will tell us everything.” ²⁶ Yeshua said to her, “I, the person speaking to you, am He.”  ~ Yochanan 4:15-25

I, the person speaking to you, am He, literally, “I am, the one speaking to you.” Thus, He answers everyone who questions whether Yeshua proclaimed his own Messiahship. The declaration, “I am,” echoes Adonai’s self-revelation, “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14). Yeshua says this “I am” nine times in Yochanan’s Gospel (here; 6:20; 8:24, 28, 58; 13:9; 18:5, 6, 8), implying a claim even more significant than being the Messiah.

Our next post will continue to examine that YeshuaMeets the Women at the Well ~ Part 3.

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