When the woman at the well realized Jesus hears from God.
John 4.16-24.
John 4.16-19 KWL - 16 Jesus told the Samaritan, “Go call your man and come back here.”
- 17 In reply the woman told him, “I don’t have a man.”
- Jesus told her, “Well said, ‘I don’t have a man’—
- 18 You had five men, and the one you now have isn’t your man. You spoke the truth.”
- 19 The woman told Jesus, “Master, I see you’re a prophet.”
Well duh he’s a prophet.
Notice when Jesus replied to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well, he commended her twice for telling him the truth. Probably ’cause she’d never told anyone the truth before. For all we know, no one in her town, Sychár, knew her whole story. But clearly Jesus did. Yet he was in absolutely no position to know anything, so the Samaritan naturally concluded he’s a prophet. ’Cause he is.
This woman previously had five ándras/“men.” Most bibles translate it “husbands,” ’cause in Hebrew custom, ishí/“my man” (or Aramaic enáshi) meant a woman’s husband. (The Hebrews used to use the word baal/“mister” for husbands, but God told ’em to stop it,
Most cultures, Samaritans included, figured if you lived together and had sex, you were married. Our culture doesn’t—we call it “living together,” and more conservative folks call it “living in sin.” That’s because we define marriage by wedding contracts and vows. Comes from Christian custom. It’s not universal. The ancients, including the Hebrews, defined it by sexual activity and living arrangement. Like Genesis describes it, a man leaves his parents, bonds to his woman, and the two become “one flesh.”
This woman didn’t currently have this arrangement. She had something with a man—but he wasn’t her man. Shtupping him, likely; but didn’t live with him. They didn’t wanna turn it into a marriage.
Previously she had five husbands. We don’t know why those relationships ended. A lot of preachers judge, and assume divorce. We don’t know that. Maybe she had a thing for older men and outlived them all. Maybe they were criminals, and the Romans crucified them one after the other. Let’s not leap to the conclusion she was defective in some way.
Because that was her problem. That’s why she was going to an out-of-town well at noon: She was isolated. Either because she was unwelcome, or because she didn’t feel welcome; she was sick of the town’s gossip about her. Either way she kept to herself. Possibly shared nothing with no one—meaning there was no way some wandering Galilean prophet could know about her man. Except he did.