22 You give worship, but without knowledge of what you are worshipping: we give worship to what we have knowledge of: for salvation comes from the Jews.
Who are Israelites: who have the place of sons, and the glory, and the agreements with God, and the giving of the law, and the worship, and the hope offered by God: Whose are the fathers, and of whom came Christ in the flesh, who is over all, God, to whom be blessing for ever. So be it.
How then is the Jew better off? or what profit is there in circumcision? Much in every way: first of all because the words of God were given to them.
In that day it will be said to Jerusalem, Have no fear: O Zion, let not your hands be feeble. The Lord your God is among you, as a strong saviour: he will be glad over you with joy, he will make his love new again, he will make a song of joy over you as in the time of a holy feast.
Then the king of Assyria gave orders, saying, Send there one of the priests whom you took away, and let him be living there and teaching the people the way of the god of the land. So one of the priests whom they had taken away as a prisoner from Samaria came back, and, living in Beth-el, became their teacher in the worship of the Lord. And every nation made gods for themselves, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in the towns where they were living. The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima, The Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites gave their children to be burned in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. So they went on worshipping the Lord, and made for themselves, from among all the people, priests for the high places, to make offerings for them in the houses of the high places. They gave worship to the Lord, but they gave honour to their gods like the nations did from whom they had been taken as prisoners. So to this day they go on in their old ways, not worshipping the Lord or keeping his orders or his ways or the law and the rule which the Lord gave to the children of Jacob, to whom he gave the name Israel; And the Lord made an agreement with them and gave them orders, saying, You are to have no other gods; you are not to give worship to them or be their servants or make them offerings: But the Lord, who took you out of the land of Egypt with his great power and his outstretched arm, he is your God, to whom you are to give worship and make offerings: And the rules and the orders and the law which he put in writing for you, you are to keep and do for ever; you are to have no other gods. And you are to keep in memory the agreement which I have made with you; and you are to have no other gods. And you are to give worship to the Lord your God; for it is he who will give you salvation from the hands of all who are against you. But they gave no attention, but went on in their old way. So these nations, worshipping the Lord, still were servants to the images they had made; their children and their children's children did the same; as their fathers did, so do they, to this day.
But as for us, the Lord is our God, and we have not been turned away from him; we have priests who do the work of the Lord, even the sons of Aaron and the Levites in their places; By whom burned offerings and perfumes are sent up in smoke before the Lord every morning and every evening; and they put out the holy bread on its table and the gold support for the lights with its lights burning every evening; for we keep the orders given to us by the Lord our God, but you have gone away from him. And now God is with us at our head, and his priests with their loud horns sounding against you. O children of Israel, do not make war on the Lord, the God of your fathers, for it will not go well for you.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on John 4
Commentary on John 4 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 4
It was, more than any thing else, the glory of the land of Israel, that it was Emmanuel's land (Isa. 8:8), not only the place of his birth, but the scene of his preaching and miracles. This land in our Saviour's time was divided into three parts: Judea in the south, Galilee in the north, and Samaria lying between them. Now, in this chapter, we have Christ in each of these three parts of that land.
Jhn 4:1-3
We read of Christ's coming into Judea (ch. 3:22), after he had kept the feast at Jerusalem; and now he left Judea four months before harvest, as is said here (v. 35); so that it is computed that he staid in Judea about six months, to build upon the foundation John had laid there. We have no particular account of his sermons and miracles there, only in general, v. 1.
Jhn 4:4-26
We have here an account of the good Christ did in Samaria, when he passed through that country in his way to Galilee. The Samaritans, both in blood and religion, were mongrel Jews, the posterity of those colonies which the king of Assyria planted there after the captivity of the ten tribes, with whom the poor of the land that were left behind, and many other Jews afterwards, incorporated themselves. They worshipped the God of Israel only, to whom they erected a temple on mount Gerizim, in competition with that at Jerusalem. There was great enmity between them and the Jews; the Samaritans would not admit Christ, when they saw he was going to Jerusalem (Lu. 9:53); the Jews thought they could not give him a worse name than to say, He is a Samaritan. When the Jews were in prosperity, the Samaritans claimed kindred to them (Ezra 4:2), but, when the Jews were in distress, they were Medes and Persians; see Joseph. Antiq. 11.340-341; 12.257. Now observe,
Observe,
Jhn 4:27-42
We have here the remainder of the story of what happened when Christ was in Samaria, after the long conference he had with the woman.
Jhn 4:43-54
In these verses we have,
Observe,