You may remember last fall when I posted a paper I had written on Hebrews on the blog. This past spring I had another opportunity to do a paper very similar to the one I wrote on Hebrews 12:1-4. This time the passage I chose came from selected verses in John 4 and 6. I looked at Jesus' encounters with the woman at the well and some of the people from the 5,000 that Jesus fed. The reactions and questions from the people along with Jesus' reactions in these two encounters parallel one another. I am just now getting around to uploading this paper. I must warn you in advance that this was a longer paper, but I have cut out much of the introduction material in an attempt to shorten somewhat. So here is part one, the historical background of this passage:
To better understand the text, it is important to first look at the historical significance of some of the images used and objects that are referenced. For instance, Jesus brings up the image of living water, prodding the woman at the well to mention the patriarch Jacob. Then, when Jesus discusses the bread of life with the crowd that follows Him, they draw a reference to Moses and the manna that fell from Heaven when the Israelites were in the wilderness. Jesus makes use of these Old Testament references to guide His listeners to understanding that the Living Water and Bread of Life refer to eternal life. So first, the historical background must be understood in order to see where the woman and the crowd would have been coming from in the passage.
The idea of water carries many different meanings for the common Jew. It can be a reference to wisdom or teaching, the Spirit, a purification method, bringing healing powers, or a promise leading to salvation.[1] In fact, water is an important necessity for the Jewish citizen. “Water [is] scarce in the hot climates [in] the East” of Israel, forcing people to visit the wells each day.[2] And in the inner cities of Israel, where people are not situated near a main body of water, living water is non-existent. To the Jew, living water flows from a stream or a river and is not found situated “in a well, cistern, or pond.”[3] This fact casts light on why the woman expresses confusion about Jesus’ claim to give her living water. In her town of Sychar, no river or stream provides the city with living water. Instead, the citizens must daily go to the well to receive their water. Finally, in Zechariah 4:18 and Ezekiel 47:9, “living waters…flow from Jerusalem in the end time.”[4] Living water carries the Jewish idea of water one step further, making living water the source of life that will flow from the New Jerusalem.
Since the city of Sychar, did not have a source of living water, the woman’s confusion becomes understandable. She comes to draw water each day from a well that she claims was dug by the patriarch Jacob. The typical well “would have had a short perimeter wall around its mouth, a stone lid, a stone trough nearby for animals to be watered, and perhaps a tripod for attaching a rope/container for drawing water.”[5] But there is some confusion over her claims to Jacob’s presence in Sychar. In Genesis 33:18-20 it is recorded that Jacob moved to the “Shechem area,” so a tradition states that Jacob built a well in the region, possibly at Sychar.[6] Amidst the confusion over Jacob’s presence in Sychar, the text uses this example to illustrate Jesus’ superiority to Jacob. Jesus’ superiority is seen over “most of the cultic or historic symbols in Israel’s faith.”[7] These instances create an important theme seen throughout the Gospel of John.
Similar to the water, Jesus also presents the idea of bread, another vital necessity of life. This image stretches across the Bible as it looks at the manna from the time of the wilderness wanderings and appears to point to the Eucharist, which is still to come at this point in the text. The crowd that follows Jesus after the feeding of the five thousand desire to see more signs from Jesus, thinking that He may be the coming Messiah who would reopen the treasury of manna.[8] But it also appears to point toward a Eucharistic image when Jesus alludes to the fact that those who come to the Bread, which is Jesus, will not hunger. Some of the words that Jesus uses “suggest a specifically Eucharistic meaning.”[9] Like the water, this image may also hold some sort of eschatological significance, stretching even further into the future. It is possible that this image “prefigures God’s eschatological provision for His people.”[10] It is important to realize that this one image that Jesus uses carries so many different ideas, associated with the wilderness wandering of the Israelites, the Lord’s Supper, and events that are yet to come.
If the image of the bread can be drawn back to the manna, which verse thirty-one suggests, then the allusion to Moses must also be considered. Jesus shows His superiority to Jacob when speaking with the woman at the well, and in this passage He explains how He is also superior to the great Israelite leader, Moses. Jesus continuously expresses how He is one with the Father in the Gospel of John, and in verse thirty-two, Jesus shows how the Father provided the manna for the Israelites, not Moses. Augustine suggests that this “is the first passage in which Christ declares Himself to be greater than Moses.”[11] Once again, Jesus places Himself above the historical figures of the Jewish faith, expressing His superiority.
[1] Dale C. Allison Jr., “The Living Water (John 4:10-14; 6:35c; 7:37-39),” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 30, no. 2 (1986), http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=12&hid=13&sid=3b853655-aa23-46f3-a021-81533080f2ec%40SRCSM2 (accessed February 15, 2009) 144-45.
[2] J. Allen Blair, Living Eternally: The Gospel of John (Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers Inc., 1978) 65.
[3] Gary Burge, The NIV Application Commentary: John (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000) 143.
[4] Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary Volume One (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003) 604.
[5] Burge, The NIV Application Commentary: John, 142.
[6] D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991) 219.
[7] Gerald L. Borchert, The New American Commentary: John 1-11 (Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996) 204.
[8] Burge, The NIV Application Commentary: John, 197.
[9] James W. Voelz, “The Discourse on the Bread of Life in John 6: Is It Eucharistic?,” Concordia Journal 15, no. 1(January 1989), http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=20&hid=12& sid=ea7de7e7-af56-4283-9fff6d3a1 b9c32695%40sessionmgr8 (accessed February 17, 2009) 29.
[10] Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary Volume One, 681.
[11] Mark Edwards, John: Blackwell Bible Commentaries (Maiden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing, 2004) 76.
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