Lynn Cohick writes in Women in the World of Earliest Christians:
The Samaritan woman has been harshly treated by centuries of commentators who have labeled her a promiscuous vixen bent on seducing unsuspecting men, and who therefore becomes the village pariah.
This interpretation is incredibly wrong. It's wrong exegetically, wrong historically, and honestly, it's misogynistic. The fact that this woman has had five husbands is an indictment - not on her - but on a society that treated women as property and made them economically dependent on men. In that culture, women couldn't divorce men. Men divorced women. She's likely been abandoned, widowed, or passed around between brothers in levirate marriage arrangements. And now she's with a man who won't even marry her, which means she has zero legal protection or economic security.
The conversation Jesus has with her is incredibly redemptive. Jesus begins with the typical male narrative she's used to: "Give me something." Men always want something from her. But it quickly transforms into: "I have something to give you." Jesus grants this woman agency. He engages her as a theological equal. And she becomes the first evangelist of the Messiah in Samaria.
Notice what Jesus never says: He never tells her to repent of anything. He doesn't condemn her sexual history. He doesn't shame her. He just sees her, knows her, and offers her living water.
The image of God as living water shows up in Jeremiah 2:13 and 17:13. It's also echoed in John 7:37-39, where Jesus stands up and says, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, 'Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water.'" John tells us Jesus was speaking about the Spirit.
While it's often preached that this woman (traditionally called Photine) came to the well at noon to avoid other women who would typically come in the cooler morning or evening hours, that assumes she's a social outcast. If we don't assume she's a villain of some sort, we could instead contrast her with Nicodemus, who comes to Jesus in the dark of night. She comes in the brightness of day - in full light, nothing hidden.
Water is a dominant theme throughout John's Gospel. We've already seen water turned into wine in chapter 2. Water will continue to show up in chapters 5, 6, 7, 9, 13, and 19. It's one of John's key symbols for the life Jesus brings.
There's about a thousand things to say about the Samaritans, but here's the essential background: Imagine an umbrella term called "Yahwism" - the worship of Yahweh - of which there were probably many different varieties in ancient Israel. The Yahwism we see primarily represented in Scripture is Jerusalem or Davidic Yahwism, which really solidified around the time of King Josiah and even more during the Babylonian exile when the scriptures were being canonized.
But there were other expressions of Yahwism as well, including that practiced by the northern kingdom of Israel, which centered their worship on Mount Gerizim instead of Jerusalem. When Assyria conquered the northern kingdom in 722 BCE, they did take many people into exile, but they also left the majority of the population on the land. Some of those who remained abandoned Yahweh worship, but others continued.
Those who continued became the Samaritans we encounter in the New Testament. The Judeans looked down on them for intermarrying with Gentiles and for rejecting Jerusalem as the proper place of worship. The Samaritans, for their part, rejected the Jerusalem temple and most of the Hebrew scriptures, accepting only the Torah. By Jesus' time, Judeans and Samaritans had been in a religious feud for centuries.
For John's audience, it's important to see that part of Jesus' mission is the reunification of Judeans and Samaritans as one worshiping people, one people of God. Jesus crosses boundaries that were considered uncrossable.
The Samaritan Woman as New Eve
There's a reading of this story as an undoing of the curse of Genesis 3:
- Eve is kicked out of the garden of life; this woman is offered eternal life
- Eve is the vehicle of humanity's fall; this woman is sent out to evangelize and bring others to Jesus
- In Genesis 3, the relationship between man and woman becomes corrupted - "he will rule over you." Here, Jesus and the woman interact as partners, equals, co-laborers. There's no blame, no domination, no using.
- In the Orthodox tradition, she's called Photine - "the luminous one" - and is considered equal to the apostles.