Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

(although it was not Jesus who baptized, but His disciples),

“Jesus baptized not--John being a servant baptized with his own hand; Christ as the Master, "baptizing with the Holy Ghost," administered the outward symbol only through His disciples.”

Since Jacob’s well was there, Jesus, weary from His journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

“But with all that is human, how much also of the divine have we here, both blended in one glorious manifestation of the majesty, grace, pity, patience with which "the Lord" imparts light and life to this unlikeliest of strangers, standing midway between Jews and…”

“You are a Jew,” said the woman. “How can You ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

“How is it that thou--not altogether refusing, yet wondering at so unusual a request from a Jew, as His dress and dialect would at once discover Him to be, to a Samaritan.”

Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God and who is asking you for a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

“If thou knewest, &c.--that is, "In Me thou seest only a petitioner to thee; but if thou knewest who that Petitioner is, and the Gift that God is giving to men, thou wouldst have changed places with Him, gladly suing of Him living water--nor shouldst…”

You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.

“But the most glorious thing here is the reason assigned, for salvation is of the Jews--intimating to her that Salvation was not a thing left to be reached by any one who might vaguely desire it of a God of mercy, but something that had…”

Jesus answered, “I who speak to you am He.”

“He had magnified them to the woman, and yet to themselves He is to the last far more reserved than to her--proving rather than plainly telling them He was the Christ.”

Jesus explained, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work.

“My meat is, &c.--"A Servant here to fulfil a prescribed work, to do and to finish, that is 'meat' to Me; and of this, while you were away, I have had My fill." And of what does He speak thus?”

Already the reaper draws his wages and gathers a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together.

“The joy, therefore, of the great harvest festivity will be the common joy of all who have taken any part in the work from the first operation to the last.”

I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the hard work, and now you have taken up their labor.”

“"Christ represents Himself as the Husbandman [rather the Lord of the laborers], who has the direction both of the sowing and of the harvest, who commissions all the agents--those of the Old Testament as well as of the New--and therefore does not stand on a…”

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”

“These Samaritans were the foundation of the Church afterwards built up there. No miracle appears to have been wrought there (but unparalleled supernatural knowledge displayed): "we have heard Him ourselves" (Joh 4:42) sufficed to raise their faith to a point never attained by the Jews…”

Now He Himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.

“For Jesus testified, &c.--This verse had occasioned much discussion. For it seems strange, if "His own country" here means Nazareth, which was in Galilee, that it should be said He came to Galilee because in one of its towns He expected no good reception.”

Yet when He arrived, the Galileans welcomed Him. They had seen all the great things He had done in Jerusalem at the feast, for they had gone there as well.

“46, 47. nobleman--courtier, king's servant, or one connected with a royal household; such as Chuza (Lu 8:3), or Manaen (Ac 13:1). heard that Jesus was come out of Judea--"where he had doubtless seen or heard what things Jesus had done at Jerusalem" (Joh 4:45), [BENGEL].”

Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will never believe.” “Sir,” the official said, “come down before my child dies.” “Go,” said Jesus.

“Except ye see signs, &c.--He did believe, both as his coming and his urgent entreaty show; but how imperfectly we shall see; and our Lord would deepen his faith by such a blunt and seemingly rough answer as He made to Nicodemus.”

Some time later there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

“In our judgment the evidence is in favor of its being a Passover, but the reasons cannot be stated here. 2, 3. sheep market--The supplement should be (as in Margin) "sheep [gate]," mentioned in Ne 3:1, 32.”

“We have heard of many waters having a medicinal virtue; but what water was ever known to cure instantaneously a single disease? And who ever heard of any water curing all, even the most diverse diseases--"blind, halt, withered"--alike?”

When Jesus saw him lying there and realized that he had spent a long time in this condition, He asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

“(1) To fasten attention upon Himself; (2) By making him detail his case to deepen in him the feeling of entire helplessness; (3) By so singular a question to beget in his desponding heart the hope of a cure.”

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred.

“Wait therefore he will, wait he does, and when Christ comes to heal him, lo! he is waiting his turn. What an attitude for a sinner at Mercy's gate! The man's hopes seemed low enough ere Christ came to him.”

Then Jesus told him, “Get up, pick up your mat, and walk.”

“Rise, take up thy bed, &c.--"Immediately" he did so. "He spake and it was done." The slinging of his portable couch over his shoulders was designed to show the perfection of the cure.”

so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “This is the Sabbath! It is unlawful for you to carry your mat.”

“The Jews--that is, those in authority. (See on Joh 1:19.) it is not lawful to carry thy bed--a glorious testimony to the cure, as instantaneous and complete, from the lips of the most prejudiced!”

Afterward, Jesus found the man at the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you.”

“Jesus, there Himself for His own ends, "findeth him there"--not all accidentally, be assured. sin no more, &c.--a glimpse this of the reckless life he had probably led before his thirty-eight years' infirmity had come upon him, and which not improbably had brought on, in…”

And the man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

“The man departed, and told, &c.--little thinking how unwelcome his grateful and eager testimony would be. "The darkness received not the light which was pouring its rays upon it" (Joh 1:5, 11) [OLSHAUSEN].”

Because of this, the Jews tried all the harder to kill Him. Not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His own Father, making Himself…

“And as, instead of instantly disclaiming any such meaning--as He must have done if it was false--He positively sets His seal to it in the following verses, merely explaining how consistent such claim was with the prerogatives of His Father, it is beyond all doubt…”

For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He wishes.

“This statement is of immense importance in relation to the miracles of Christ, distinguishing them from similar miracles of prophets and apostles, who as human instruments were employed to perform supernatural actions, while Christ did all as the Father's commissioned Servant indeed, but in the…”

Truly, truly, I tell you, the hour is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will…

“Here He rises from the calmer phrase "hearing his word" (Joh 5:24), to the grander expression, "hearing the voice of the Son of God," to signify that as it finds men in a dead condition, so it carries with it a resurrection-power.”

For as the Father has life in Himself, so also He has granted the Son to have life in Himself.

“But as all that Christ says of His essential relation to the Father is intended to explain and exalt His mediatorial functions, so the one seems in our Lord's own mind and language mainly the starting-point of the other.”