Genesis 24:15

Hebrew Bible

14 I will say to a young woman, ‘Please lower your jar so I may drink.’ May the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac reply, ‘Drink, and I’ll give your camels water too.’ In this way I will know that you have been faithful to my master.” 15 Before he had finished praying, there came Rebekah with her water jug on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah (Milcah was the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor). 16 Now the young woman was very beautiful. She was a virgin; no man had ever been physically intimate with her. She went down to the spring, filled her jug, and came back up. 17 Abraham’s servant ran to meet her and said, “Please give me a sip of water from your jug.” 18 “Drink, my lord,” she replied, and quickly lowering her jug to her hands, she gave him a drink. 19 When she had done so, she said, “I’ll draw water for your camels too, until they have drunk as much as they want.”

John 4:7

New Testament

5 Now he came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, so Jesus, since he was tired from the journey, sat right down beside the well. It was about noon. 7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me some water to drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone off into the town to buy supplies.) 9 So the Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you—a Jew—ask me, a Samaritan woman, for water to drink?” (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you had known the gift of God and who it is who said to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

 Notes and References

"... The anonymous Samaritan woman with an ambiguous past enters in the unfolding narrative after the named, privileged man in Jewish religious life, Nicodemus (3:1-21). As indicated previously, the narrative follows the lines of a well-established biblical type. The bridegroom-to-be or his representative sojourns to a distant territory, meets a woman or a cluster of womenpeople at a well, drawing some water. A drink is either sought or offered to the travelling party, and the woman returns to her household with information about the stranger and an invitation to hospitality is then issued and offered by her kinspeople. In these terms, what unfolds next is a celebratory meal followed by a betrothal. Now the PR who is familiar with the biblical narratives immediately recalls similar scenes like those of servant of Abraham who was sent by him to seek out a potential spouse for his son Isaac, and encountering Rebekah at the well of Nahor; similarly, Jacob seeing and falling in love with Rachel at the well of Haran and later, Moses encountering the daughters of Reuel (Jethro) when they were harassed by shepherds at the well of Midian and subsequently married one of his daughters, namely Zipporah (Genesis 24:15-67; 29:9-14; Exodus 2:15-22). The significance of these encounters, leading to matchmaking, betrothal and marriage, must be seen against the background of the continuation of the line of descendants who inherit the divine promise to Abraham. As such, these people are the agents of the divine plan of continuing salvation ..."

Smuts, Ricardo Jesus and the Samaritan Woman (John 4:1-42): A Paradigmatic Encounter for Discipleship [μαθητής] and Witness [μαρτυρία] (p. 71) Stellenbosch University, 2019

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