Woman of Samaria

“ Invenit pariter dogmata quisque sua.” His interpretation of the narrative of the interview of the Saviour with the woman of Samaria will illustrate his method of dealing with the sacred text.
Heracleon saw in the woman of Samaria a type of all spiritual natures attracted by that which is heavenly, godlike; and the history represents the dealings of the Supreme God through Christ with these spiritual natures (πνευματικοί) . ”

“ Thus, when he had a mission of mercy in view for Samaria, he called to the work a woman; not such as we should suppose a divine teacher would choose,—not a preëminently intellectual or a very good woman,—but, on the contrary, one of a careless life, and loose morals, and little culture. ”

“ A professional man, brought up in an atmosphere of fervent Evangelicalism, and deeply interested in Christian work, once expressed to me his opinion that the episode of the Woman of Samaria would be found in St. ”

“ And when very strong hunger was in Samaria, that women ate their own children, one woman asked judgement from the king against another woman, that would not by covenant bring forth her child to be eaten, when they had eaten the child of the first woman. ”

“ JESUS AND THE SAMARITAN WOMAN. The direct route from Judea to Galilee lay through Samaria; but many Jews, particularly Galileans, chose to follow an indirect though longer way rather than traverse the country of a people so despized by them as were the Samaritans. The ill-feeling between Jews and Samaritans had been growing for centuries, and at the time of our Lord's earthly ministry had developed into most intense hatred. [1] The inhabitants of Samaria were a mixed people, in whom the blood of Israel was mingled with that of the Assyrians and other nations ”

“ This prostitute woman, and the children who were to be born of her, were a figure and a kind of real prophecy which described the idolatry and infidelity of Samaria and the ten tribes, formerly the Lord's spouse, but who afterwards became idolatrous and corrupt.
The children of this faithless woman are children of prostitution, since they imitate the idolatry of their mother. God gives these children the names of Jezreel, God will disperse; Lo-rechamah, or Without mercy ”

“ Thy calf, O Samaria! has cast thee off; it cannot give thee any help in thy distress, and the pleasure thou now takest in it will vanish, and be no pleasure to thee." Those that were justly sent to the gods whom they had chosen found them miserable comforters, Judg. x. 14. If men will not quit the love and service of sin, yet they shall certainly lose all the delights and profits of it. If Samaria had continued firm and faithful to the God of Israel, he would have been a present powerful help to her ”

“ And as for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah.
5 And Oholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians [her] neighbors,
6 who were clothed with blue, governors and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding upon horses.
7 And she bestowed her whoredoms upon them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them; and on whomsoever she doted, with all their idols she defiled herself.
8 Neither hath she left her whoredoms since [the days of] Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her, and they handled the bosom of her virginity ”

“ I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven; I will chastise them, as their congregation hath heard. Woe unto them! for they have fled from me; destruction unto them! because they have transgressed against me, though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me" (Hosea vii:11-13) . The judgment of Samaria is also mentioned. The Lord delivered the people into the hands of the nation with which they had become enamored, to discover their nakedness. ”

“ The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear; they shall be in pain for their gods and afraid of losing them; or, rather, they shall be in pain for themselves and their children and families, when they see the judgments of God breaking in upon them and beginning with their idols, as he executed judgment against the gods of Egypt, Exod. ”

“ The prophet showed him Samaria spread out before him like one of those wreaths of flowers which the guests at a banquet bind round their brows, and which gradually fade as their wearers drink deeper and deeper. “Woe to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley of them that are overcome with wine. Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one; as a tempest of hail, a destroying storm, as a tempest of mighty waters overflowing, shall be cast down to the earth with violence. ”

“ He—himself, not the Assyrian, but Menahem, who had to send gold to the Assyrian—shall strip the treasury of all its precious jewels. Samaria must bear her guilt: for she hath rebelled against her God. To this simple issue has the impenitence of the people finally reduced the many possibilities of those momentous years; and their last prophet leaves them looking forward to the crash which came some dozen years later in the invasion and captivity of the land. They shall fall by the sword; their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child ripped up. ”

“ The view from Samaria is one of the most picturesque and attractive in all Palestine. Isaiah well describes this city as "the splendid ornament which crowns the fertile valley." Green fields, olive and vine-clad hills delight the eye on every side. Between the hills may be seen glimpses of green, peaceful valleys. Plenty and prosperity are in evidence at every turn. Samaria itself lies one thousand four hundred and fifty-four feet above the sea-level and is surrounded by higher hills on nearly every side. ”

“ THE SITE OF SHILOH.
The subsequent history of this favoured spot is very mournful. Partaking in the wickedness and idolatry of Samaria, and then deserted by the apostate people for more favoured shrines, it soon sank down into ruin and desolation, so that in the time of the later kings it became a conspicuous instance of the fate which awaits all who forsake God. ”

“ Now such abundance is found almost in the heart of Samaria. The traveller who rides across from the town of Samaria, passing behind Ebal, or who follows the stony road in the magnificent gorge east of the same mountain, finds himself gradually descending to the springs which lie at the head of the great Far’ah valley, the open highway from Shechem to the Damieh ford of the Jordan. It was up this valley that Jacob drove his flocks and herds from Succoth to Shalem near Shechem. ”

“ Not only for that daughter of Samaria’s hot clime—
Child of an ancient people, of a by-gone faith and time—
Was meant the exhortation that from His lips then fell,
But for His Christian children, for us, to-day, as well.
For us, still pure and sparkling, those living waters flow
Of which He told Samaria’s child long centuries ago:
Forgetting thoughts of earthly pride, and hopes of worldly gain,
Seek we but once of them to drink—we’ll never thirst again. ”

“ On the contrary, the law which He imposed on His disciples: ‘And into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not’ (Matt. x. 5) , this, during the days of His flesh, He imposed also on Himself. He was not sent ‘but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Matt. xv. 24; Acts xiii. 46) ; and if any grace reached Samaritan or heathen, it was, so to speak, but by accident, a crumb falling from the children's table.”38 Samaria had been the portion of the tribe of Ephraim and of half the tribe of Manasses. ”

“ Isn't Samaria like Damascus?" 10 As my hand has found the kingdoms of the idols, whose engraved images exceeded those of Jerusalem and of Samaria; 11 shall I not, as I have done to Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols? 12 Therefore it will happen that, when the Lord has performed his whole work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the willful proud heart of the king of Assyria, and the insolence of his haughty looks. ”

“ Ben-hadad proudly swears the ruin of Samaria. The threatening waves of his wrath, meeting with this check, rage and foam, and make a noise. In his fury, he imprecates the impotent revenge of his gods, if the dust of Samaria serve for handfuls for his army (v. 10) , so numerous, so resolute, an army will be bring into the field against Samaria, and so confident is he of their success; it will be done as easily as the taking up of a handful of dust; all shall be carried away, even the ground on which the city stands. Thus confident is his pride, thus cruel is his malice ”

“ Upon the hills around, flocks and herds are seen feeding as of old; nor in the simple garb of the shepherds of Samaria, at this day, is there any thing repugnant to the notions we may entertain of the appearance formerly presented by the sons of Jacob. In the time of Alexander the Great, Sichem, or Napolose, as it is now called, was considered as the capital of Samaria. Its inhabitants were called Samaritans, not merely as people of Samaria, but as a sect at variance with the Jews; and they have continued to maintain their peculiar tenets to this day. ”

“ Philip had no special divine command either to flee to, or to preach in, Samaria, but 'an angel of the Lord' and afterwards 'the Spirit,' directed him to the Ethiopian statesman. God rewards faithful work with more work. Samaria was a borderland between Jew and Gentile, but in preaching to the eunuch Philip was on entirely Gentile ground. ”

“ The Jewish hatred of the Samaritans rose in the early Christian period to so great a pitch that the Mishnic doctors avoided even mentioning the name of Samaria. Thus, in the Talmud only some half-dozen Samaritan towns are noticed. In describing Palestine the Mishna divides it into Judea, Galilee, and Peræa, leaving out all mention of Samaria. It is just possible that long before this an omission may have been purposely made by the early transcribers of the Biblical book of Joshua in regard to Samaria. ”

“ And it came to pass after this, that Ben-hadad king of Syria gathered all his host, and went up, and besieged Samaria. And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver.
Then said the king, God do so and more also to me, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat shall stand on him this day. But Elisha sat in his house, and the elders sat with him; and the king sent a man from before him: but ere the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, See ye how this son of a murderer hath sent to take away mine head? ”

“ The anarchy that followed on the murder of Zachariah appears to the prophet as the natural decadence of a realm not founded on divine ordinance. The nation had rejected Yahweh, the only helper. And now the avenging Assyrian [9] is at hand. Samaria’s king shall pass away as foam on the water. Fortress and city shall fall before the ruthless invader, who spares neither age nor sex, and thistles shall cover the desolate altars of Ephraim. ”

“ These censors assert that it is not likely that while King Benhadad was besieging Samaria, King Joram passed quietly by the wall, or upon the wall, to settle differences between Samaritan women. It is still less likely that one child should not have satisfied two women for two days. ”

“ Then followed the aggressions of Benhadad which had been frustrated by the insight of Elisha, and which owed their temporary cessation to his generosity. [153] The reappearance of the Syrians in the field had reduced Samaria to the lowest depths of ghastly famine. But the day of the guilty city had not yet come, and a sudden panic, caused among the invaders by a rumoured assault of Hittites and Egyptians, had saved her from destruction. ”

“ And he led them away to Samaria.και είπε Ελισεαί προς αυτούς ουχι αύτη η πόλις και ουχ αύτη η οδός δεύτε οπίσω μου και άξω υμάς προς τον άνδρα ον ζητείτε και απήγαγεν αυτούς εις Σαμάρειαν 20And it came to pass when they entered into Samaria, that Elisaie said, Open, I pray thee, O Lord, their eyes, and let them see. And the Lord opened their eyes, and they saw ”

“ It was not until the time of the last king that Samaria was destroyed as an independent kingdom. On former occasions only the inhabitants of the surrounding towns and villages seem to have been taken as captives. Such we find to have been the case with many other nations who were subdued or punished for rebellion by the Assyrians. The conquerors, too, as we also learn from the inscriptions, established the worship of their own gods in the conquered cities, raising altars and temples, and appointing priests for their service. ”

“ Shomeron, or, as it is corruptly written, Samaria, is situated in the midst of the tribe of Ephraim, not very far from the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and about midway between Dan and Beer-sheba: thus Samaria became the capital of the ten tribes, the metropolis of the kingdom of Israel, and the residence of its kings. The kings of Israel adorned and fortified it; Ahab built a house of ivory in it, [403] ”

“ The place, however, was quite unknown even in the third century, and the nearest locality which could be indicated as possible was in the north of Samaria and, therefore, differing from the statements in iii. 22, iv. 3. ”

“ And Samaria, she hath not sinned to the half of thy sins; thou hast increased thine abominations more than they, and hast made thy sisters righteous by all thine abominations which thou hast done. Eze 16:52. Bear, then, also thy shame, which thou hast adjudged to thy sisters. Through thy sins, which thou hast committed more abominably than they, they become more righteous than thou. ”