John 4:5

5. Sychar Some think that the Jews, after their custom, (see note on Matthew 10:25,) changed the name Shechem into Sychar, derived from sheker, a lie, in contemptuous allusion to the falsity of Samaritanism. Others derive it from s hikkor, drunken. At the time of John’s using the word it may have lost the vulgarity of its original meaning. A third more respectable derivation makes it signify a town of the sepulchre, referring to Joseph’s tomb. When, in the time of Adrian, Shechem was rebuilt, it received the name Neapolis or New-city; whence the modern corruption Nablous.

Shechem stands in a vale between the mountain ranges of Ebal on the north, and Gerizim on the south. On Gerizim was the Samaritan temple. It was on these two mountains that the tribes, after their entrance into Canaan, (six tribes on one mountain and six on the other,) pronounced, responsively, the twelve solemn blessings and curses of Deuteronomy 27:11-26. That the two parties could hear and respond to each other from the opposite mountains, has, indeed, been hastily pronounced impossible. Yet such is the acoustic quality of the place that it could easily be done. Mr. Tristam, in his Palestine, (p. 150,) says: “In the early morning we could not only see from Gerizim a man driving his ass down a path on Mount Ebal, but could hear every word he uttered as he urged it on.” To fully test the matter his “party stationed themselves on opposite sides of the valley, and with perfect ease recited the commandments responsively.” Shechem is striking for both its position and history. It is the centre of Palestine; it is the pass through which the central thoroughfare, like an artery, runs between north and south. It was the spot where Abraham fixed when he first came from Chaldea. It was the first capital of the tribes, when Jerusalem was but Salem, a Jebusite stronghold. It is now, compared with other towns of Palestine, a flourishing and beautiful place. It is singular for its manufacture of cotton; and in fact its growth in this respect was for a time stimulated by our late American civil war.

Ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph This is traditional. Jacob bought the ground of Shechem, (Genesis 33:18-20;) and the bones of Joseph were brought by the tribes and buried there, (Joshua 24:32;) and the whole region was included in the tribal inheritance of Ephraim son of Joseph. The structure shown, within sight of the well, as Joseph’s tomb, if not really that patriarch’s, is of unknown antiquity.