4:39 Now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the report of the woman who testified, 10 “He told me everything I ever did.” 4:40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they began asking 11 him to stay with them. 12 He stayed there two days, 4:41 and because of his word many more 13 believed. 4:42 They said to the woman, “No longer do we believe because of your words, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this one 14 really is the Savior of the world.” 15
1 tn Or “a Judean.” Here BDAG 478 s.v. ᾿Ιουδαίος 2.a states, “Judean (with respect to birth, nationality, or cult).” The same term occurs in the plural later in this verse. In one sense “Judean” would work very well in the translation here, since the contrast is between residents of the two geographical regions. However, since in the context of this chapter the discussion soon becomes a religious rather than a territorial one (cf. vv. 19-26), the translation “Jew” has been retained here and in v. 22.
2 tn “Water” is supplied as the understood direct object of the infinitive πεῖν (pein).
3 tn D. Daube (“Jesus and the Samaritan Woman: the Meaning of συγχράομαι [Jn 4:7ff],” JBL 69 [1950]: 137-47) suggests this meaning.
sn The background to the statement use nothing in common is the general assumption among Jews that the Samaritans were ritually impure or unclean. Thus a Jew who used a drinking vessel after a Samaritan had touched it would become ceremonially unclean.
4 sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.
5 sn Woman was a polite form of address (see BDAG 208-9 s.v. γυνή 1), similar to “Madam” or “Ma’am” used in English in different regions.
6 tn Grk “an hour.”
7 tn The verb is plural.
8 tn The word “people” is not in the Greek text, but is supplied to indicate that the Greek verb translated “worship” is second person plural and thus refers to more than the woman alone.
9 tn Or “from the Judeans.” See the note on “Jew” in v. 9.
10 tn Grk “when she testified.”
11 tn Following the arrival of the Samaritans, the imperfect verb has been translated as ingressive.
12 tn Because of the length of the Greek sentence and the sequencing with the following verse, the conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated here. Instead a new English sentence is begun.
13 tn Or “and they believed much more.”
14 tn Or “this.” The Greek pronoun can mean either “this one” or “this” (BDAG 740 s.v. οὗτος 1).
15 sn There is irony in the Samaritans’ declaration that Jesus was really the Savior of the world, an irony foreshadowed in the prologue to the Fourth Gospel (1:11): “He came to his own, and his own did not receive him.” Yet the Samaritans welcomed Jesus and proclaimed him to be not the Jewish Messiah only, but the Savior of the world.