Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - John 4:20
(20) Our fathers worshipped.—She gives a sudden turn to the conversation. It is not that the question of worship is the all-engrossing problem of her mind, for which she seeks solution at this prophet’s hands. Such questions hardly came then within the circle of a Samaritan woman’s thoughts, and this woman’s life had not been such as to make her an exception to the rule; but the heart, quivering before the eye that reads it as it never before had read itself, shrinks from the light that is let... read more
John Dummelow's Commentary on the Bible - John 4:1-54
The Samaritan Woman1-42. Christ in Samaria. The ministry in Samaria is recorded because it is the author’s design to exhibit Christ as the Saviour, not only of Israel, but of the world (John 4:42).The Samaritans were mainly an alien race, descended from the colonists planted in the land by the Assyrians (2 Kings 17:6, 2 Kings 17:24, 2 Kings 17:26, 2 Kings 17:29; Ezra 4:1, Ezra 4:9-10). They boasted, however, of being Israelites, and with some degree of justification, for there was probably a... read more