EXPLORE IT! - The Samaritans

A long time ago, the nation of Israel split into two separate nations – Judah in the South and Israel in the North.

The capital of the southern kingdom of Judah was in Jerusalem.

And the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel was in a place called Samaria.

But the kings of Israel and Judah were evil and both kingdoms eventually fell – Israel to the Assyrian Empire, and Judah to the Babylonian Empire.

Later, the king of Assyria brought different groups of people from places like Babylon and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites.

The king of Assyria also sent back one of the captive Israelite priests to teach the new people in the land how to worship the God of that land.

The people, who came to be known as Samaritans, worshiped Yahweh, but they also worshiped other gods, and they sacrificed their children in the fire.

Now eventually, the Persian King Cyrus, let the Jews go back to their home land and rebuild their temple, and when they got back they discovered their cousins, the Samaritans, still living in the north between Judea and Galilee. 

Back when the Jews overthrew the Seleucid rulers and were independent for about 100 years, they destroyed the Samaritan temple erected on Mount Gerizim – not a very neighborly thing to do! This campaign was led by the Hasmonean king John Hyrcanus who invaded Samaria in 108 BC.

And so, when the Samaritan woman started up a conversation with Jesus about the proper place to worship — this question would have been a hot topic to most Jewish rabbis, many of whom believed that God should only be worshiped in Jerusalem! 

But Jesus declares that in the new age, it will no longer be about worshiping in a particular place. Worship won’t be a matter of geography. Rather, the true test of worship will be whether it’s “in spirit and truth.”

Like the story of Nathanael sitting beneath the fig tree, this story also brings to mind the life of Jacob. This story takes place at Jacob's Well, and like Jacob, Jesus offers the young woman he finds there water... though not of the same variety.