1. Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981).
2. See Danna Nolan Fewell and Gary A. Phillips, “Drawn to Excess, or Reading beyond Betrothal,” Semeia 77 (1995): 23–58; Teresa Okure, The Johannine Approach to Mission: A Contextual Study of John 4:1–42, WUNT 2.31 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1988), 87–88. Cf. Moloney, John, 121.
3. Andrew E. Arterbury, “Breaking the Betrothal Bonds: Hospitality in John 4,” CBQ 72 (2010): 63–83.
4. Ibid., 76. There are several instances where the offer of a daughter in marriage was a show of hospitality to the guest on the part of the host.
5. See Kasper Bro Larsen, Recognizing the Stranger: Recognition Scenes in the Gospel of John, BIS 93 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 124–41.
6. For example, McHugh, John 1–4, 262.
7. Michaels, John, 231–34.
8. Cf. Morris, John, 224.
9. Okure, Johannine Approach to Mission, 84.
10. See Gerard S. Sloyan, “The Samaritans in the New Testament,” Horizons 10 (1983): 7–21. Cf. Keener, John, 1:591–601.
11. Brown, John, 1:170.
12. J. Eugene Botha, Jesus and the Samaritan Woman: A Speech Act Reading of John 4:1–42, NovTSup 65 (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 103.
13. Cf. Calvin, John 1–10, 89.
14. Barrett, John, 231–32.
15. Wallace, Greek Grammar, 487–88.
16. Okure, Johannine Approach to Mission, 95.
17. According to one Jewish dictum, “The daughters of the Samaritans are [deemed unclean as] menstruants from the cradle” (m. Nid. 4:1).
18. Cf. David Daube, “Jesus and the Samaritan Woman: The Meaning of συγχράομαι,” JBL 69 (1950): 137–47.
19. McHugh, John 1–4, 269.
20. Cf. Okure, Johannine Approach to Mission, 97–98.
21. Dale C. Allison Jr., “The Living Water (John 4:10–14; 6:35c; 7:37–39),” SVTQ 30 (1986): 143–57.
22. McHugh, John 1–4, 275.
23. Calvin, John 1–10, 92.
24. McHugh, John 1–4, 271.
25. BDAG 32. Cf. Bultmann, John, 186.
26. Cf. Okure, Johannine Approach to Mission, 103.
27. Calvin, John 1–10, 94.
28. See Okure, Johannine Approach to Mission, 110–13; cf. Ridderbos, John, 160–61.
29. Okure, Johannine Approach to Mission, 111.
30. Barrett, John, 236.
31. Mt. Gerizim was the scene of the blessing of the people of God when they came into the promised land (Deut 11:29; 27:12). The Samaritans believed that an altar was commanded to be set up on this mountain (Deut 27:4–7), though the MT more correctly reads in Deuteronomy 27: 4 “Mount Ebal.” They also believed that Abraham’s offering of Isaac took place on this Mt. Gerizim as well as the encounter between Abraham and Melchizedek. Since the patriarchs were so linked with Gerizim, the Samaritans argued the same should be so for the faithful people of God—the Samaritans. The disagreement is rooted in the portions of Scripture each party considers valid. While the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament as a whole refers strongly to Jerusalem, the Samaritans hold as valid only the Torah—the first five books of Moses—which does not mention Jerusalem as the explicit place where worship (in the temple) is to be located.
32. Cf. Calvin, John 1–10, 100.
33. McHugh, John 1–4, 315. Cf. Wallace, Greek Grammar, 171–73.
34. McHugh, John 1–4, 121.
35. Brown, John, 1:180. “Spirit and truth” is probably a hendiadys, a single complex idea expressed by two words, similar to “grace and truth” in 1:17.
36. Mark W. G. Stibbe, John, Readings: A New Biblical Commentary (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 64.
37. Schnackenburg, John, 1:439; cf. BDAG 428.
38. Barrett, John, 238.
39. See Keener, John, 1:619–20.
40. See the connection between this statement and the motif of hospitality in Arterbury, “Breaking the Betrothal Bonds,” 81–82.
41. Cf. BDF § 235.5.
42. Morris, John, 241.
43. According to BDF § 427.2, the negative particle expresses the sense as “that must be the Messiah at last, perhaps this is the Messiah.”
44. Michaels, John, 259.
45. Bultmann, John, 193, suggests the woman formulated the question from the point of view of the townspeople.
46. Hoskyns, Fourth Gospel, 246.
47. BDAG 184, gives the meaning, “Nourishment of a transcendent nature.”
48. Cf. Brown, John, 1:182; McHugh, John 1–4, 292.
49. Cf. Moloney, John, 144; Schnackenburg, John, 1:451; McHugh, John 1–4, 293.
50. Barrett, John, 243.
51. BDAG 583.
52. See Bultmann, John, 201.
53. See Craig R. Koester, “ ‘The Savior of the World’ (John 4:42),” JBL 109 (1990): 665–80.
54. Hendrikus Boers, Neither on This Mountain nor in Jerusalem: A Study of John 4, SBLMS 35 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 199. Cf. Lesslie Newbigin, The Light Has Come: An Exposition of the Fourth Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 56.
55. Calvin, John 1–10, 92.
56. Cf. Stibbe, John, 64.
57. Helpful here is Jim Samra, The Gift of Church: How God Designed the Local Church to Meet Our Needs as Christians (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010).