There came a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus said unto her,
Give me to drink.
All Commentaries on John 4:7 Go To John 4
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
The woman here is the type of the Church, not yet justified, but just about to be. And it is a part of the resemblance, that she comes from a foreign people. The Samaritans were foreigners, though they were neighbors and in like manner the Church was to come from the Gentiles, and to be alien from the Jewish race.
Jesus also thirsted after that woman’s faith? As He thirsts for their faith, for whom He shed His blood.
The Jews would not even use their vessels. So it would astonish the woman to hear a Jew ask to drink out of her vessel; a thing so contrary to Jewish rule.
He who asked to drink, however, out of the woman’s vessel, thirsted for the woman's faith: Jesus answered and said unto her, If you knew the gift of God, or Who it is that says to you, Give Me to drink, you would have asked of Him, and He would have given you living water.
He lets her know that it was not the water, which she meant, that He asked for; but that knowing her faith, He wished to satisfy her thirst, by giving her the Holy Spirit. For so must we interpret the living water, which is the gift of God; as He says, If you knew the gift of God.
Living water is that which comes out of a spring, in distinction to what is collected in ponds and cisterns from therain. If spring water too becomes stagnant, i.e. collects into some spot, where it is quite separated from its fountain head, it ceases to be living water.
She understands the living water to be the water in the well; and therefore says, You wish to give me living water; but You have nothing to draw with as I have: You can not then give me this living water; Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?
