Unlike today, when all we need to do is open a tap, all the water that this woman used for daily life had to be carried from its source to her home.
Jacob’s Well was different than the nearby springs (ten-minute walk). Jacob had purchased the plot of land (Genesis 33:18-19) near Shechem, but that would not have included one of those precious springs.
The well was hand dug to be independent of those surface level springs and the people that used them to water their animals. Because it was hand dug and deep, it was special. It was very good water very suitable for drinking, but every bucket meant hauling it up 100-150ft.
The idea of having such water welling up (v. 14) more than caught her attention!
As a youth we hiked the 100-mile trail between Mt. Katahdin and the little town of Monson in Maine. Along that trail, we reached the Potaywadjo spring in full flood. Water gushed from the spring, and we filled every container we had with its delicious water. It was large enough for two of us to relax in its waters after a hot day of hiking, and from it ran what would be called a river.
Our Lord Jesus Christ offered this woman (and us) such a spring welling up inside us.
Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
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