Near Mount Ebal in Samaria, close to Shechem, a woman was tilling the soil on the slope of a hill in a village called Sychar. Her field was filled with valuable crops. As she worked, she repeatedly wiped the sweat from her brow, for the sun, now high as noon approached, beat down on her back.
After finishing one end of the furrow, she could bear the heat no longer. She set down her plow and walked away. Her sweat-soaked clothes clung tightly to her body, revealing every curve of her robust, labor-hardened frame. As the eye followed those curves upward, it met her face—plain and unremarkable, but with a striking feature: her eyes. One looked straight ahead, while the other gazed slightly to the side.
Her eyes had brought her much hardship. Since childhood, she had endured teasing and, when tired, her condition would worsen—her eyes would redden, objects would double, and headaches would follow. Judging distances was a daily struggle. Her father often told her, “A girl like you needs money to be loved by a man,” and she had come to believe it. The more she was ridiculed, the harder she worked, and her extensive fields were the fruit of her labor.
Her gaze fell on a small, unremarkable tree. Mount Ebal was so barren that even this plain little tree was considered a treasure here. She entered its precious shade and rested her weary body.
After catching her breath, she turned her gaze toward her house at the foot of the mountain. Inside, the man she lived with was still asleep. He had no intention of rising, even as the day wore on. He had gone out the night before and returned at dawn, his face flushed with drink. She wondered whose house he had slept in last night—which woman’s bed he had found his way to this time. Outwardly, he seemed fine, but he had never earned a living by his own efforts. With his good looks and smooth words, he charmed and lived off women. She, too, had been deceived by his sweet talk and let him stay, not knowing his true nature. Why did she always end up with men like this? She felt suddenly suffocated.
She had had five husbands. Her first was chosen by her parents and was the best of them all. He never really looked at her face, but he was kind and devout, often traveling to Mount Gerizim to pray. He had a disability from a childhood accident, which left him with a limp. This made him obsessed with earning money, believing it would protect him from scorn. He pushed himself too hard and eventually died of illness, not long after.
Her second husband was of Assyrian descent, from a once-prominent family that had recently fallen into poverty and now had nothing left. She married him for his health, thinking he would not die young like her first. But after the wedding, he showed his true colors, beating her from the start. She resisted at first, but his strength overwhelmed her. In time, she grew used to the violence. He died in a fight with a Babylonian—which, in a way, was almost laughable, given their history.
Seeking escape, she met her third husband, a Macedonian—healthy, intelligent, and rational. She, with little education, was drawn to his knowledge and pursued him. At first, he ignored her, but when he learned she had money, his attitude changed. She saw his intentions but ignored them, marrying him anyway. Once he had her money, he left for Greece to study, promising to return, but never did.
By then, she doubted whether to keep seeking men, yet still longed to find a good one. Determined, she endured gossip and met many, eventually marrying her fourth husband.
He was a Roman, or more precisely, a former Roman slave who had gained his freedom. He was as intelligent and strong as her previous husbands. Walking through the village with him, she sensed the envy and admiration of others. Yet he treated her with utter disregard, snapping at her to be silent. Unable to speak, she poured herself into farm work—it was all she had left. Eventually, she paid him more than half her property to leave, and he accepted.
Her fifth husband was an Idumean who disliked Jews. He had moved from Judea to Samaria and constantly criticized Jews, reminding her of her late father. This familiarity opened her heart. Their marriage was smoother than the others, though he spent money freely. She worked harder to make up for it. But it ended in disaster when he was arrested for killing a Jew in Judea and fleeing to Samaria.
After that, she lost all interest in marriage. Too many failures had left her numb. She closed her heart and focused on work for years.
Early this year, she met the man now sleeping in her house. From the start, he was persistent. No one had ever said “I love you” to her before, and when he did, it felt so awkward she tried to avoid him. But he kept coming, repeating his declaration.
In the end, she accepted him. After they began living together, his true nature became clear—but she had no other choice.
She thought to herself: “Yes, he loves me. He may not have much ability and he may be unfaithful, but he’s the only one who’s ever told me he loves me, despite my disability and my parents’ rejection. Even if he came for my money, what does it matter? If love can be bought, so be it. I’ll just have to work even harder.”
For a woman shunned since childhood, even by those she had grown up with, and called dirty for her many marriages, there was no other choice. If even this man left, she would be utterly alone. That fear numbed her. She tried to ignore the pain of being deceived, but deep inside, an unquenchable thirst remained—a longing for genuine love and acceptance, not for her money or circumstances, but for herself. She knew even the man beside her could not fill that need.
She picked up the water jug and brought it to her lips, but it was dry, just like her hopes. Tears welled up, her heart aching for the love she had never received. The thirst within her remained unresolved. To understand what she truly needed, she had to face that thirst, but she refused, swallowing her tears. She stood, took the jug, and descended the mountain toward Jacob’s ancient well, seeking water.
* * *
“Give me a drink.”
A man sitting by the well said to her. It was astonishing—a Jew, who would usually avoid Samaritans, speaking to her.
“How is it that you, being a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?”
“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From where then have you that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself, as did his children, and his livestock?”
As if pouring out all the bitterness that had welled up inside her to this unfamiliar Jew, her voice rose with agitation. But his expression remained calm as he looked at her. No matter how fiercely she vented her anger, his steady eyes met hers with an unwavering determination—he would never give up on her.
“Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
She realized he was looking directly into her eyes—eyes that not even her husbands had met, eyes that had brought her only rejection from her parents and her own people. Now, he looked at her sincerely, just as she was.
“Sir, give me this water, so that I don’t get thirsty, neither come all the way here to draw.”
She still believed that love could be earned by effort, money, and hard work—if she wasn’t thirsty, she could work even harder and deserve more. She was still stuck in her own way of seeing things.
But he spoke of the deeper thirst in her heart—a love that only God could give, the love that comes from knowing the true God as revealed in Scripture.
“Go, call your husband, and come here.”
“I have no husband.”
“You said well, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands; and he whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly.”
“Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”
“Woman, believe me, the hour comes, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, will you worship the Father. You worship that which you don’t know. We worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to be his worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
“I know that Messiah comes, he who is called Christ. When he has come, he will declare to us all things.”
“I am he, the one who speaks to you.”
As he spoke, his face shone brighter than the noonday sun.
The passages from John 4:9-26 quoted in this narrative are taken directly from the World English Bible (WEB) translation.
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