John 4: 4 Commentary

1. Jesus NEEDED to go through Samaria
a. Because as the Great Shepherd
b. He had many sheep
c. To bring into the Kingdom
2. The shortest and most popular route from Judea to Galilee
a. Was through Samaria
b. Although pious Jews avoided it
c. For they had no dealings with the Samaritans
3. Jews saw Samaritans
a. As a half-breed race of Jews/Assyrians
b. With a mongrel faith of Judaism and paganism
4. A short history of the Samaritans (indebted to Thomas Constable)
a. The Assyrians captured Jerusalem
i. Ending the kingdom of Israel in 722 BC
b. They deported the substantial citizens and imported foreigners
i. Who intermarried with the remaining Israelites
ii. (Remember Longshanks’ comment in ‘Braveheart’:
iii. “If we can’t weed them out, we’ll breed them out”)
c. Most of these foreigners continued
i. To worship their pagan gods (2 Kings 17—18)
d. The Jews who returned to Jerusalem after the Exile
i. Regarded the residents of Samaria
ii. As racial half-breeds and religious compromisers
e. The Samaritans resisted Nehemiah’s attempts
i. To rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (Neh. 4:1-2)
f. They built a rival temple on Mt. Gerizim
i. Opposite Shechem about 400 BC
ii. Which they dedicated to Zeus Xenios
g. John Hyrcanus, the Hasmonean ruler of Judea
i. Destroyed it and Shechem about 128 BC
h. These actions all resulted
i. In continued hostility between Jew and Samaritan
i. The Samaritans continued to worship on Mt. Gerizim
i. And accepted only the Pentateuch as canonical

By Tractorman (wrote 3584 Bible Commentaries - permalink to this Commentary)
Posted on: 5/16/2012 12:02 pm

In the King James Version pronouns are not capitalized, only names. So “God” will be capitalized, but “he” (even when the he referred to is God) will not be. This is nothing strange, nor blasphemous. It is, in fact, quite prudent, especially considering that modern translators often botch up their capitalizations, lowercasing when the he is God and uppercasing when it is not, and they delude poor unlearned souls into thinking something in the original Greek or Hebrew required the lowercase or uppercase, when in reality it is context and context alone that determines whether the pronoun refers to God or not. So, use your God-given intelligence to determine it. One example of bad capitalization is Daniel 9:27 of the NEW King James Version “Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; But in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering…” Both occurrences of the word “he” refer to the same person, to Jesus Christ, and therefore they ought to have capitalized both. But since they capitalize only one, the deceive the people so that they think two different he’s are spoken of here. In that the KJV capitalizes no pronouns, it is more faithful and forces us to use our wits which God indeed would have, since he gave this revelation originally by a language (Hebrew) that doesn’t have letter case, no capitals and no lowercase, just letters. And concerning the New Testament, Greek was written in ancient times in all caps or all lowercase, the mixture of uppercase and lowercase being a modern invention.

By rey (wrote 36 Bible Commentaries - permalink to this Commentary)
Posted on: 4/18/2008 22:46 pm

That’s a very good question, Bud. All pronouns referring to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit should be written in capitals. Our writers today have let us, and God down. Further, Let’s give our Lord Jesus Christ His full title. It erks me to hear our Lord being referred to as simply “Jesus”. There were probable many people of His era who have the first name ‘Jesus’. Is he not our LORD JESUS CHRIST?

By BJ Charles (wrote 3 Bible Commentaries - permalink to this Commentary)
Posted on: 4/16/2008 19:53 pm

Why id the word he in small letters.

By Bud Jones (wrote 1 Bible Commentary - permalink to this Commentary)
Posted on: 2/26/2008 03:52 am