Yeshua Meets the Women at the Well ~ Part 3

We conclude the story of Yeshua’s ministry in Shomron.

²⁷ Just then, His talmidim arrived. They were amazed that He was talking with a woman, but none of them said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you talking with her?”

It would have been unusual for a rabbi (like Yeshua) or any Jewish man to converse publicly with a woman. Jewish teaching warned against spending too much time talking with women because of temptation and the appearance of impropriety. Through this interaction, Yeshua is showing care for the lowliest of people in the eyes of Jews.

²⁸ So the woman left her water-jar, went back to the town and said to the people there, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done. Could it be that this is the Messiah?” 

The woman’s question implies hesitation and doubt. The Greek text indicates that a negative response is expected: “This cannot be the Messiah, can it?”

³⁰ They left the town and began coming toward Him. ³¹ Meanwhile, the talmidim were urging Yeshua, “Rabbi, eat something.” ³² But He answered, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”

Just as with the Samaritan woman and the metaphor of living water, Yeshua uses tangible physical things to teach intangible spiritual truths.

³³ At this, the talmidim asked one another, “Could someone have brought Him food?” ³⁴ Yeshua said to them, “My food is to do what the one who sent me wants and to bring His work to completion. ³⁵ Don’t you have a saying, ‘Four more months and then the harvest’? Well, what I say to you is: open your eyes and look at the fields! They’re already ripe for harvest!

Harvest imagery has overtones of end-time abundance (compare Joel 2:18–27). Yeshua draws on a common proverb about a lack of urgency to emphasize the immediacy of His work. (See Matthew 9:37–38).

³⁶ The one who reaps receives his wages and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that the reaper and the sower may be glad together –

The sowing was the expectation of the prophet laid out in Deuteronomy 18:18. The reaping will be the belief of the Samaritans. Yeshua emphasizes that it’s not always the one who first tells someone about salvation (as the prophets had done for the Samaritans) who brings them to believe, but often it’s those who come later. No matter who reaps, God alone deserves the credit.

³⁷ for in this matter, the proverb, ‘One sows and another reaps,’ holds true. ³⁸ I sent you to reap what you haven’t worked for. Others have done the hard labor, and you have benefited from their work…” ⁴³ After the two days he departed for Galilee. ~ Yochanan 4:27-43

Our next post will begin to examine that Yeshua’s Great Galilean Ministry.

Click here for the PDF version.