r course, through
Samaria; and doubtless His choice was guided by purpose, for we read
that "He must needs go" that way.[381] The road led through or by the
town called Sychar,[382] "near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave
to his son Joseph."[383] There was Jacob's well, which was held in high
esteem, not only for its intrinsic worth as an unfailing source of
water, but also because of its association with the great patriarch's
life. Jesus, travel-warn and weary, rested at the well, while His
disciples went to the town to buy food. A woman came to fill her
water-jar, and Jesus said to her: "Give me to drink." By the rules of
oriental hospitality then prevailing, a request for water was one that
should never be denied if possible to grant; yet the woman hesitated,
for she was amazed that a Jew should ask a favor of a Samaritan,
however, great the need. She expressed her surprize in the question "How
is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of
Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans." Jesus,
seemingly forgetful of thirst in His desire to teach, answered her by
saving: "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to
thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would
have given thee living water." The woman reminded Him that He had no
bucket or cord with which to draw from the deep well, and inquired
further as to His meaning, adding: "Art thou greater than our father
Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his
children, and his cattle?"

Jesus found in the woman's words a spirit similar to that with which the
scholarly Nicodemus had received His teachings; each failed alike to
perceive the spiritual lesson He would impart. He explained to her that
water from the well would be of but temporary benefit; to one who drank
of it thirst would return. "But," he added, "whosoever drinketh of the
water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I
shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into
everlasting life." The woman's interest was keenly aroused, either from
curiosity or as an emotion of deeper concern, for she now became the
petitioner, and, addressing Him by a title of respect, said: "Sir, give
me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw." She
could see nothing beyond the material advantage attaching to water that
would once and for all quench thirst. The result of the