Woman of Samaria (twice). — Better, Samaritan woman. In both cases the Greek has the adjective. It is the religious and national position as a Samaritan which is prominent in this verse.
Being a Jew. — This she would know from dress and language. It has been noted that the Hebrew for “Give me to drink,” “Teni lishekoth,” contains the letter Sin, or Shin, which was one of the distinctive points in the Ephraimite pronunciation. They did not say Shibboleth, but Sibboleth (Judges 12:5-6). They would not say “Teni lishekoth,” but “Teni lisekoth.”
For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. — The original has not the articles, For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. This is a remark made by the writer to explain the point of the woman’s question. She wondered that a Jew, weary and thirsty though he might be, should speak to her. For the origin of the Samaritans, see 2 Kings 17:24-41, and Note on Luke 9:52. The later Jewish authors abound in terms of reproach for them — e.g., “He who eats the bread of a Samaritan is as he who eats swine’s flesh;” “No Samaritan shall be made a proselyte;” “They have no share in the resurrection of the dead” (Pirke, Rabbi Elieser, 38; comp. Farrar, Life of Christ, i. 209, note). Jesus Himself speaks of a Samaritan as an alien (Luke 17:16; Luke 17:18; comp. Luke 10:33), and is called a Samaritan and possessed of a devil (comp. John 8:48). But the strictest Jews allowed exceptions to the forbidden intercourse. If bread was interdicted, fruit and vegetables were not; if boiled eggs were forbidden, fresh ones were not. At no time probably did the Galileans follow the practice of the Judæans in this matter, and hence they go to the city to buy food, while the woman asks this question of a Jew whom she met on the road from Jerusalem. Later, it was only “because His face was as though He would go to Jerusalem “that the Samaritan village did not receive Him; and it is the Evangelist of the Jerusalem ministry, who would have called down fire from heaven then, who adds this note of explanation for his Greek readers now (Luke 9:52-53).