§10 Jesus and the Official’s Son (John 4:43–54)
Once again the narrator provides an explanation for Jesus’ itinerary. After two days at Sychar (cf v. 4:40), Jesus leaves Samaria and continues his journey to Galilee (v. 43; cf. vv. 3–4). The reason given is Jesus’ own remark (probably made on a different occasion), A prophet has no honor in his own country. A great deal of speculation has centered on whether Jesus’ own country (Gr: patris) refers to Galilee or Judea. If it refers to Galilee, the principle seems to be contradicted right away by the welcome Jesus receives there (v. 45), even though he is suspicious of the Galileans’ motives (v. 48). But if it refers to Judea or Jerusalem, why was the saying not quoted earlier, when Jesus “would not entrust himself” to people in Jerusalem (2:24) or when he decided to leave Judea (4:3)? Curiously, it is quoted in connection with his departure from Samaria after a two-day visit. Is Samaria then Jesus’ patris? Obviously not. Even though his enemies will later denounce him as a Samaritan (8:48), the clear assumption of his encounter with the woman is that she is a Samaritan and he is a Jew (4:9, 19, 22).
That none of the proposed identifications of the patris makes sense suggests that the point of the saying does not depend on such an identification. The purpose of the statement is simply to explain why Jesus left Sychar after only two days. The principle corresponds to that of the “ordinance of the gospel” laid down in the second-century church manual known as the Didache: “Let every apostle who comes to you be received as the Lord, but he shall stay only one day or if necessary a second as well; but if he stays three days, he is a false prophet” (11:4–5). This is part of what the writer calls the “behavior of the Lord” (11:8) and is probably based on Jesus’ own practice. Certainly Jesus’ ministry was an itinerant one (cf. Matt. 8:20/Luke 9:58), and the point of verse 44 is that he must not wear out his welcome by remaining too long at Sychar. To stay in a place more than two days is to make it his patris and to have no honor there. His patris in this sense turns out finally to be Jerusalem, the place where prophets traditionally are dishonored and killed (cf. Luke 13:33!), but this application is outside the scope of the present passage.
In Galilee, Jesus is welcomed by people who had seen the things he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover feast (v. 45; cf. 2:23; 3:2). The apparent reason for mentioning this is to help explain Jesus’ abrupt reply to the government official’s plea in verse 48: Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders … you will never believe. The reply puts the Galileans in the same class with those in Jerusalem who had challenged Jesus to prove his authority by performing a miracle (2:18) or with those who “believed” on the basis of his miracles but whose faith he would not accept as genuine (2:23–25). The narrator implies at the outset that because these Galileans had actually been present on the earlier occasion, Jesus’ suspicions of them were well founded. Yet the story that unfolds (vv. 46–54) has to do with a Galilean who did not fit this stereotype or fall under this indictment.
It is uncertain whether the royal official (Gr.: basilikos, lit., “royal”) was a Gentile or a Jew. The theme of healing at a distance (therefore without physical contact) recalls two synoptic narratives in which Jesus, as an observant Jew, heals Gentiles without touching them or going to their homes (i.e., the daughter of the Syro-Phoenician woman, Mark 7:24–30/Matt. 15:21–28; the Roman centurion’s servant, Matt. 8:5–13/Luke 7:1–10). But in each of these cases, part of the point of the story is that the victim is a non-Jew, whereas in the Johannine account nothing is made of whether he is or not. Jesus’ apparent reluctance to respond to the official’s plea (v. 48) has nothing to do with the man’s race or with the laws of uncleanness that separated Jew from Gentile (cf. 4:9) but is based on a general suspicion of those who either request or delight in miracles. The similarity with the two synoptic incidents makes it likely that the official was a Gentile, but the Gospel writer has already established the universal scope of Jesus’ ministry in 4:1–42 (esp. v. 42) and now moves on to other (though not unrelated) concerns.
The story of the healing is framed by references linking it to the story of the wedding at Cana (2:1–12). Jesus meets the government official and performs the healing at the same village of Cana (v. 46) even though the official’s son lies sick at nearby Capernaum. When the story is over and the miracle has been verified, the narrator calls it Jesus’ second miraculous sign (v. 54), corresponding to the “first” that took place at Cana (2:11). What do these two miracles have in common that allows the Gospel writer simply to pass over others that are assumed to have taken place in Jerusalem at the Passover (cf. 2:23; 3:2)? And why does the enumerated sequence stop at two, even though five more miracles (two of them in Galilee) are recorded during Jesus’ public ministry, and one other (also in Galilee) after his resurrection?
Clearly, more is involved here than simply a pious geographical interest in Cana as a place of miracles. The two stories have in common a direct connection between a miracle and a decisive act of faith. When Jesus “revealed his glory” by turning a great amount of water into wine, “his disciples put their faith in him” (2:11). After his resurrection, their faith was deepened and perfected as “they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken” (2:22). In the case of the government official, the two stages merge into one. As soon as Jesus told him his son would live, he took Jesus at his word and departed (v. 50). Right from the beginning he demonstrated faith in the words of Jesus, a faith that is attributed to the disciples only after Jesus’ words are verified by his resurrection (2:22). If the disciples typify those who believed because of what they saw, the government official typifies “those who have not seen and yet have believed” (20:29). He is therefore a figure with whom the readers of this Gospel can identify, for they too have “believed the word” without seeing. He functions in the narrative as a postresurrection, or even second-generation, Christian portrayed in advance, like those mentioned in Jesus’ last prayer who would come to believe in him through the message proclaimed by the original disciples (17:20). Just as there was a miracle for those first disciples (2:11), so there is one for this later group as well (4:54). The distinction is not between Jew and Gentile but is simply a distinction of time and circumstances.
For the most part, the distinction is not pressed in the ensuing narratives. The disciples as a group are the ones with whom the readers are expected to identify. They too (even before the resurrection) come to believe Jesus’ words (e.g., 6:68–69; 15:3, 7; 17:8, 14), and what Jesus says to them is obviously intended for the readers of the Gospel as well. The point is not that the official’s faith is “superior” to that of the first disciples but only that his story defines in a more compressed manner than theirs what faith entails: a total, unqualified trust in Jesus and in all that he promises. To believe is to take him at his word, regardless of how much or how little of his “glory” (2:11) one has been privileged to see.
The story is not quite over. The faith of the royal official must yet become sight. He who demanded no verification is given verification nonetheless (vv. 51–53). On his way back to Capernaum, his servants come out to meet him with the good news that his child will live. On inquiring at what time the fever had broken, he learns it was at the very time when Jesus said to him, “Your son will live.” The repetition of these exact words in verses 50 and 53 (cf. also v. 51) both verifies the miracle and makes the point that Jesus’ words are life-giving words. The restoration of the physical life and health of the government official’s son illustrates and reinforces Jesus’ promises made earlier at Jerusalem (3:15–16) and in Samaria (4:14, 36). To some degree it also anticipates his self-revelation as giver of life in the following chapter (5:19–29).
For the moment, these deeper implications are left unexplored. The royal official, his faith confirmed, becomes a convert. Like several converts in the book of Acts, he and all his household believed (cf. Acts 11:14; 16:15, 31–33; 18:8). Once more the reader is reminded that Jesus is on a mission (from Judea through Samaria to Galilee). Like the townspeople of Sychar, the official and his family (including at least his son and his servants) are part of the “harvest” from that mission.
The first cycle of Jesus’ ministry is now complete. He has established a new “Israel” at Cana and completed a circle back to Cana again. The converts of Sychar and Capernaum represent both a widening and a deepening of the first disciples’ faith. Their stories mark a modest beginning to that universal mission which, for the Gospel writer, is still going on. They typify the people to whom the disciples will be sent (cf. 17:18; 20:21) and to whom the Gospel itself is written (20:30–31).
4:44 / A prophet has no honor in his own country. Slightly different forms of this proverbial saying are found in Mark 6:4/Matt. 13:57 and in Luke 4:24. In each case the reference is to Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth rather than to a whole region such as Galilee or Samaria. Because of this and because of the difference in context, these passages should not be allowed to determine the meaning here.
4:46 / There was a certain royal official whose son lay sick. The story that follows cannot be identified (as some have tried to do) with the synoptic account of the healing of a Roman centurion’s servant (Matt. 8:5–13/Luke 7:1–10). Basilikos is not a term normally applied to Roman soldiers, and in our passage it is the man’s son who is ill, not a servant (it is definitely a servant in Luke, and probably so in Matthew). The major similarity is that in each case the healing is accomplished from a distance, but this is a feature also shared with the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman and her daughter (Mark 7:24–30/Matt. 15:21–28). The latter story is actually more similar to the story in John’s Gospel, in that the woman, like the government official, overcomes an initial hesitation on Jesus’ part and, by her persistent faith, gains deliverance for her loved one. (The same is not true of the centurion unless Matt. 8:7 is taken as a question: “Am I to come and make him well?”) The parallels among the three stories suggest, not that they are all based on the same incident, but that they reflect a characteristic way of describing Jesus’ encounters with Gentiles. This remains true even though the writer of John’s Gospel no longer has any particular interest in whether the royal official was a Gentile or a Jew.
4:50, 53 / Your son will live is lit., “Your son lives.” The point, of course, was not that the son still held on to life as to a slender thread, but that he would recover—and was even then recovering—from his illness. Death, which had seemed inevitable (v. 47), was now turned away. The present tense also conveys the notion that Jesus gives eternal life now, and not just at the last day (cf. 5:24–25).
4:52 / Yesterday at the seventh hour. See note on 1:39. The official may have begun the seventeen-mile trip from Cana to Capernaum immediately and stopped overnight on the way, perhaps at Magdala. The servants would probably not have gone out with the good news until the next day, when the boy was safely out of danger.
4:54 / Second miraculous sign: This reference, along with 2:11, has been made the basis of theories that John’s Gospel drew on a “signs source,” a collection of miracle stories told to bring people to faith in Christ. It is argued that at one time 20:30–31 or 12:37 (or both) belonged to this source. Later, 20:30–31 was used as an epilogue to the finished Gospel, whereas 12:37 served to summarize the first half of it. Such theories are not impossible, but they fail to explain on what basis the miracles in chapters 5–11 can legitimately be incorporated into the sequence. None of these is referred to individually as a “miracle” or “sign.” Moreover, the general references in this Gospel to signs or miracles (2:18, 23; 3:2; 4:48; 6:2, 30) display a considerable variety of meaning, so there is no real basis for assuming that the general references in 12:37 and 20:30–31 have in mind a particular set of miracle stories.