John 4:22

Joh_4:22-23

Ye worship ye know not what

The true worship

I.

THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE SAMARITANS AND THE JEWS.

1. Samaritan worship was offered in ignorance. They were little better qualified than the Athenians. Rejecting the prophets, their faith rested on tradition, and was given up to superstition. As they were ignorant of the object so they were of the form of worship which God had appointed. Will worship, however costly and apparently honouring, is rejected. So the Saviour brought home to the woman the sad fact that she had never worshipped. This is just the case of those who only repeat the words of prayer taught them in childhood.

2. The true worshippers worship with knowledge.

(1) The Spiritual Israel. Christ was a worshipper of God not only as Mediator but as man. As High Priest He gives to His people His informing Spirit, through whom they have an intelligent knowledge of Gods character and will, and the form by which to approach Him.

(2) The literal Israel to whom were committed the oracles of God, and such worshippers as Zacharias and Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna.

3. A special relation existed between the Jews and the great Salvation.

(1) Its author was a Jew.

(2) Its first messengers were Jews.

(3) And as Salvation so the true worship was of the Jews. To that all the Old Testament worship pointed.

II. THE TRUE WORSHIP.

1. Who are the true worshippers? Those

(1) Who have Spiritual knowledge of God;

(2) Who worship with grace in the appointed way;

(3) Who are opposed to all false worship;

(4) Who apprehend the true medium of worship and so have admission into the holiest.

2. What is it to worship the Father?

(1) Not as the judge and avenger.

(2) With the fellowship of children, not the penance of bond servants.

3. What is worship in Spirit?

(1) Not mere outward worship.

(2) Not mere intellectual worship.

(3) But praying in the Holy Ghost in that new nature He has given and with-the help He has promised.

4. What is worship in truth?

(1) That which corresponds with the nature of the God of truth.

(2) Through Him who is full of grace and truth, by whom alone we have access to God.

5. What is the hour?

(1) As coming it is the object of Divine appointment.

(2) As come, the era foretold, the dispensation of the Spirit had actually arrived.

(3) Is there not a personal hint of that supreme moment which the woman made the crisis of her spiritual history! Only then can true and Spiritual worship begin.

III. ONLY THE TRUE WORSHIP IS PLEASING TO GOD. The Father has a right to determine this and has done so. (A. Beith, D. D.)

Christs revelation of God

I. THIS REVELATION INCLUDES THREE THINGS.

1. God is real--not a dream or picture, a thought or an abstraction. The living God is. Thou art born of Him, and thy power to think of Him is proof of His existence.

2. God is Spiritual--not a material substance or a physical force. These cannot create thought, feeling, and free will. I am greater than mountains, rivers, gravitation, electricity; I reason, love, hope, will. The object of my worship must be like me and far above me.

3. God is personal

(1) Positivism tells us that He is abstract and general. A Being immense and eternal--Humanity (Comte)

. But adoration fixes itself on a single person.

(2) Pantheism tell us that He is everything, the Eternal substance which appears as conscious in our thought and unconscious in nature (Hegel)

. But we can no more worship this than a leaf can a tree, or a wave the ocean.

(3) Agnosticism tells us that He is unknowable, the Power not ourselves which makes for righteousness (M. Arnold)

. But behind the power we seek the Will, behind the law the Giver.

(4) From these vague abstractions the soul flies to God the Father with an eye to pity and an arm to save.

II. THE INFERENCE is swift and inevitable.

1. Our worship must correspond to the reality of Gods nature.

2. The text does not condemn outward forms. Christ used and instituted them. But all forms are dead and meaningless without reality.

3. In the temple there must be a spiritual altar; on the altar a living fire--the motion of the heart towards God. As fire is manifest in light and heat so is worship in praise and prayer. Without the intercourse of the two spirits it is only a painted fire.

Lessons:

1. When you are bewildered in your religion remember that the most adorable attributes are not metaphysical but spiritual. Our Father brings Him near to us.

2. True worship is no light thing. It is not found in a careless sleepy hour; not possible to a divided frivolous mind.

3. This text does not unconsecrate the Church; it consecrates the world. (H. J. Van Dyke, D. D.)

We know what we worship

Can we be sure of God?

I. CHRIST SPEAKS OF GOD the Father, the God of salvation, God the Spirit, IN A TONE OF INTENSE AND UNFALTERING CONVICTION. We know--not guess, dream, desire. He knows Him not as an empty name, or a key to interpret creation, or as a central sun of the philosophy of Providence. At least, then, Jesus is not an agnostic, but knew God as God knew Him. Christ is our example as thinker and knower. Can we then climb to the height of His full assurance of understanding?

II. THIS QUESTION, ALWAYS INTERESTING, IS JUST NOW CHARGED WITH EXTRAORDINARY URGENCY. These are days of the revision and reconstruction of religious knowledge.

1. The word God is so overwhelming and vast that some thoughtful souls shrink from declaring their belief in Him. Atheism has done us this service: that it has forced on us what a great thing it is to maintain the existence of God.

2. Others occupying a different standpoint infer that we have not the faculties requisite for grasping this revelation.

3. It is essential to manhood, conduct and character that we do not trifle with this question. Either God can be known or He cannot, and we ought to settle what the facts really are and be sure that there is no chance of knowing God, or else search for Him with all the heart; for what a man knows and is sure of is the measure of His peace, power and growth. For the worlds regeneration God must be more than an enigma, He must be known.

III. THE ANSWER TO THIS INQUIRY IS NOT SO DIFFICULT AS IT SEEMS. It is not dependent upon the range of our information, but upon the use of the right organs and methods of verification. Though we know little we need not be less positive and assured about it. We may rejoice in the boundless expanse and be sure of the patch of blue above us, and of the ray of truth that shines through it: though we cannot embrace its illimitable sketches of beauty and glory. A real agnosticism is for ever being married to a practical and life-enriching positivism. Though we cannot be sure of anything, it does not follow that we can be sure of nothing. We cannot by searching find out God. Even Moses could only catch a glimpse of the glory of His goodness. Who of us knows his friend in his totality, much less God. Christs knowledge was limited and yet He knew the Father so well that He took the plan of His life from Him as a boy of twelve, and never lost it till He said, Father, into Thy hands I commend my Spirit. This is the secret of human progress. Men built in certitute have been creators of new epochs and saviours of men. Pauls I know was the inspiration of His One thing I do.

IV. If God then cannot be fully known, WHAT IS THE KNOWLEDGE WE MAY HAVE, HOW MAY WE GET IT AND TEST ITS VALIDITY? Christ gives the answer, for salvation is of the Jews. We Jews know God because we are the depositaries of salvation for ourselves and for all men. Salvation is life, character, ethical stability, enthusiasm for righteousness, God. We are gloriously and divinely saved, and therefore divinely and surely taught.

1. This tells us that nothing assures like life and fortifies like experience. Truth is set in the clear radiance of our deliverance from false thoughts, base passions, wrong aims, and mean deeds.

2. The case cited by Christ proves His principle. From the Jews salvation has gone forth. They were a people saved of the Lord and knew Him through their salvations.

(1) Where will you find a people so completely freed from mental perplexity about God?

(2) To what people will you go for evidence of a more persistent ethical stability?

(3) Nor is there a literature of hope so rich as the Old Testament.

3. It follows that our assurance of God does not depend upon our speculative faculties, but on our practical powers which every marl can and must use.

(1) Intuition, the direct gaze of the soul on creation and life, compelling the recognition of a presence and power as the clearest and most real of all facts. Life sees life, and in life sees law, order, mind and heart.

(2) Science shows that this idea of God is the deepest and most essential of all that get a place in human thought. The total results of human inquiry is to prove

(a) The existence of an energy, infinite and omnipresent, underlying and comprehending all the phenomena of the universe.

(b) That it works for righteousness.

(c) That it is personal, a living and holy will.

(3) History is a revelation of God. Salvation of the Jews is only part of Gods redeeming work. Redemption is the pivot on which the entire human story turns.

(4) Life. You will derive your largest aids from personal devotion to Christ, acceptance of His discipline, and effort to do all His will. (J. Clifford, D. D.)

How we may know God

The writer asked an aged negress if she had known Washington. She answered by asking, Do you know God? I hope I know something of Him, maam. How, then, may one know God, sir? We may learn something about His goodness and handiwork from what we see in yonder garden, and in these beautiful trees. You are right, massa; but is there no other way of knowing him? Yes, maam, we may also learn something of Him from His dealings with the sons of men, the history of nations, and the lives of individuals. Can we? But in no other way? From the Bible we gain more knowledge of God than from all the other sources put together. Yes, indeed! and is there no other way? By experience. Laying her hand upon her heart, and lifting her bleared eyes to heaven, she exclaimed, Ah, now you have it, massa! (New Cyclopaedia.)

Ignorant worshippers

The Dowager-Duchess of Richmond went one Sunday with her daughter to the Chapel-Royal, at St. Jamess, but being late, they could find no places. After looking about some time, and seeing the case was hopeless, she said to her daughter, Come away, Louisa; at any rate, we have done the civil thing. (Raikes Diary.)

Ignorant worship affects the life for evil

A Thug at Meirut, who had been guilty of many murders; was arrested, and cast, heavily ironed, into prison. There a missionary visited him, and preached Christ to him with such success, that he professed conversion. As he was brought before the judge, and confronted by many witnesses, he said, pointing to them, No need of these; I am ready to avow the crimes of my dreadful life. He then proceeded to declare, that, having been brought up among the Thugs, he fully believed, that, by the shedding of the blood of each victim, he had not only pleased the dreadful goddess Kali, but procured her favour for himself. And he recounted murder after murder in which he had been engaged, some of them attended with such cruelty, that those present who had begun to feel some pity for him again shrunk back; the judge himself lifting up his bands, and exclaiming, How could you be guilty of enormities like these! The only reply the poor man made to the judge was to place his hand in the bosom of his linen vest to take forth a little book; then, holding it up in his hand, he said, Had I but received this book sooner, the book of Jesus, my Saviour and my God, I should not have done it.

God may be worshipped anywhere

Isaacs closet was a field. He went out to meditate in the field at the eventide. Davids closet was his bedchamber. Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Our Lords closet was a mountain. When he had sent the multitude away, He went up into a mountain apart to pray, and when the evening was come, He was there alone. Peters closet was upon the house-top. Peter went upon the house-top to pray, about the sixth hour. Hezekiahs closet was turning his face towards the wall, and praying unto the Lord. (E. Bakersteth.)

Salvation is of the Jews

One nation and all nations

I. THE WHOLE PRIDE OF MODERN WISDOM IS THIS: SALVATION OF MAN IS FROM MAN. This has been differently understood.

1. Human nature formerly was each individual man.

2. Latterly human nature has been considered one person or society.

3. However, at no time could man have regarded himself merely as an individual being, for society is to man what the soil is to the plant.

4. Between the two man found a resting place in nationality, a beneficent idea when we place it in the line where individuality and humanity meet. But so far from this individuality lost its finest character. Personal religion, by being made national property, was merged in the community and humanity was almost entirely effaced.

II. HISTORY IS FROM ONE POINT OF VIEW THE CHRONOLOGY OF NATIONALITIES, AND GOD HAS RECTIFIED AND CONSECRATED THE IDEA OF NATIONALITY TO THE TRIUMPH OF THE PRINCIPLES OF INDIVIDUALITY AND HUMANITY.

1. Thus the Christian can accept Christs statement that Christianity is of the Jews. Non-Christians, however, object.

(1) One would not deny that salvation in a sense is of, say, the French.

(2) Others refuse to allow a particular people to be the dispenser of common felicity. But none but a Christian wishes it to come from the Jews.

2. About the term salvation there is no dispute. It is the welfare of human nature and the fulfilment of its destinies. Christ came to save humanity as well as man.

3. In what sense, then, can it come from the Jews? No one will, of course, mistake the channel for the source (Rev_7:10). In its ignorance ancient poetry represented certain countries as the abode of the sun. This is false in physics but true in morals. In the world of grace the rising sun has a home. Salvation is of the Jews. How? Not because Christ was born and lived in Palestine, spoke its language, chose Jews as disciples, or was crucified by Jews. Salvation is of the Jews as the water of stream comes from the basin in the rock at the top of the mountain. There the water is collected and from thence it flows, but the water is from heaven.

4. This being established, let us avail ourselves of the doctrine that each people is the bearer and representative of an idea, and that each idea in order to fix itself in the world has need of a people. This truth is invariably cultivated at the expense of other truths, and thus becomes exaggerated, and is never more than part of the truth. Now if this be the case, might not a whole people in conformity with this great law be the apostle of the truth which contains all truth! Now God has dealt with a certain people in a manner favourable to the discharge of this function. The Jews were a Theocracy, a people amongst whom God lived, whom God governed, to whom He spake, and whose law was His worship, a people elected for this very purpose.

5. But why confine this truth to the Jews? Was it the whole truth? How is this national deposit reconciliable with the doctrine that salvation is personal acceptance of Christ? Let us see. Christ and your soul have met! But at what cost? You are dying with thirst; a drop of water from the river revives you. It was only a drop, not the river, but the whole volume of water was necessary to carry along the drop. The river therefore saved you. In the same way the Church saved you because it gave you the knowledge of Christ whom you savingly received. The Church by its volume and might carries forward that element by which you are renewed. How has that current been formed? Look well at those waves red with human blood and dark with martyr ashes. Your Christianity, however individual it may be, is extracted from the Christianity of sixty generations.

6. Why, then, since each of us proceeds from the Church, should not the Church proceed from the Jews. As everything ends with the individual, so everything begins. The Church was within the Jewish nation, this whole nation was in the loins of Abraham the father of us all. So the ancient posterity of Jacob find a place in the work of individual salvation.

III. OUR PROPOSITION WOULD BE TOO EASILY DEFENDED IF WE COULD SAY THAT CHRIST IS ONLY THE LAST DEVELOPMENT OF THE WISDOM OF THE JEWS. It is not because He is a Jew, but because He is God manifest in the flesh, that He is our salvation. Yet

1. The Jewish race from which He came fulfilled an important function in preparing for His advent. The Old Testament is a progressive instruction that leads us gradually up to Him. The law in the letter is succeeded by the law in the Spirit, a ritual worship by the worship of the heart, legislation by prophecy, Abraham by Moses, Moses by Isaiah, so that when the King arrives there is a people ready to receive Him.

2. This people, which will be the first fruits of a universal Father, could only be drawn from the Jewish people.

3. But apart from the spiritual Israel, the Jewish people as a whole received from God the education necessary to be the forerunner of Christ among the nations, and when Christianity, after having collected in Judaea all that belonged to it, finds Jewish colonies which Divine Providence had scattered which became the first Christian churches.

4. The Jews also carried their history with them which became an immortal lesson for the human race, viz., the manner in which God interposes in human affairs, just as a specimen of a plant explains the whole species.

5. Here we must turn to Rom_11:12. As a political society and race, the Jews had to fall away, because the new economy appealed to individuals. But the falling away is not to be for ever. It must, is, and will be gathered anew according to the principle of individuality and the law of liberty. The world will yet see its fulness, and what will that fulness be? Isa_49:16-19). (A. Vinet, D. D.)

The spiritual ignorance of the Samaritans

The assertion of this, as the great calamity of the Samaritan--that he knew not what he worshipped--is abundantly borne out by history. It was in all times a country ofsuperstition, the early home of Baal worshippers, the later home of enchanters and fanatics, and of sects putting forward pretensions to all kind of spiritual powers. The Jew, on the contrary, clung to a distinct object of adoration. He was a protestant against the worship of spiritual fantasies. This poor shadow showed what the substance was which the Jew had inherited, and which was his distinction among all nations. Salvation was to go forth from his land. And salvation, so our Lord teaches us, consists in knowing what we worship; for that knowledge saves men from slavery to the worlds idols, and to the idols of their own hearts, which is their great curse and misery. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.)

The straightforwardness of Jesus

In speaking here to a Samaritan, He indicates some points in which the Jews were superior, and in which her nation might well follow them: while to the Jews, on the other hand (as in the case of the parable of the good Samaritan, and in His remark after the miracle of healing ten lepers), He takes occasion to notice some superiority in the conduct of Samaritans, wherein their nation might well follow them. Thus He corrects the failings of each by pointing out some superiority in the other: reproving each to their own face, but commending them to others: exactly the converse of that conduct which is too common among those who profess to be His disciples, who, on the contrary, are often in the unchristian habit of flattering people in their presence and slandering them behind their back: keeping their faults from themselves, but making them known to others. (G. J. Brown, M. A.)

Aptness of Christ

Our Saviour always had in view the posture of mind of the persons whom He addressed. He did not entertain the Pharisees with invectives against the open impiety of their Sadducean rivals; nor, on the other hand, did He soothe the Sadducees ear with descriptions of Pharisaical pomp and folly. In the presence of the Pharisees, He preached against hypocrisy;to the Sadducees He proved the resurrection of the dead. In like manner, of that known enmity, which subsisted between the Jews and Samaritans, this faithful Teacher took no undue advantage to make friends or proselytes of either. Upon the Jews He inculcated a more comprehensive benevolence; with the Samaritan He defended the orthodoxy of the Jewish creed. (Archdeacon Paley.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 4:22. Ye worship ye know not what — Or rather, as the original words, υμεις προσκυνειτε ο ουκ οιδατε, ye worship what ye know not, that is, ye Samaritans are ignorant, not only of the place, but, in a great measure, also of the very object of worship. They believed indeed, in a sense, in the one living and true God, as the Jews did; drawing their knowledge of him from the five books of Moses, the authority of which they acknowledged. But as they did not receive the writings of the prophets as canonical, or of divine inspiration, it is not to be supposed that they were, in general, so well acquainted with God, and the service he required, as the Jews were. On the contrary, it is probable that they were sunk into a state of gross ignorance in these respects. For, if the writings of the prophets were of importance for conveying to mankind the knowledge of the perfections and will of God, the Samaritans, who rejected all those writings, must, on this head, have been more ignorant than the Jews. Doubtless, many of them were like their progenitors, of whom we read, (2Ki 17:32,) that they feared the Lord, namely, after a fashion; but, at the same time, served their own gods, that is, they joined the worship of idols with his worship: or worshipped him merely as a local deity, as is plainly intimated, Joh 4:26-27 of that chapter, where they twice term him, the God of the land. We know what we worship — Or rather, as the Greek is, we worship what we know, or, we know the God we worship. Our Lord and his disciples, and such Jews as were pious, certainly knew the God they worshipped; and the Jews in general had much more correct ideas of the nature and attributes of God than the Samaritans had. Christ elsewhere condemns the corruptions of the Jewish worship; yet here defends their worship with regard to its object: for we may be right with respect to the object of our worship, even when there is much that is faulty and corrupt in the manner of it. For salvation is of the Jews — All the prophets spoke of the Saviour as one that should come out of the Jewish nation, and that through him the knowledge of the true God, and of the true way of worshipping and serving him, should be communicated to the rest of mankind. For, as the author of salvation came of the Jews, appeared among them, and was sent first to bless them, affording them, in an extraordinary way, the means of salvation; so the word of salvation was of them, and was delivered to them, to be derived from them to other nations. This was a sure guide to them in their worship, and they who followed it knew what they worshipped. As they, therefore, were thus privileged and advanced, it was presumption for the Samaritans to vie with them.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 4:22. Ὃ οὐκ οἴδατε) Ye know not what. He shows under how great ignorance they labour; wherefore He also adds, τῷ Πατρί, the Father, which the woman had not added. Although ὅ, what, inasmuch as it is not repeated in the subsequent member of the sentence, does not seem to denote the object of worship, but the form; in this sense, Ye know not what worship ye practise; we know, what is our worship.—ἡμεῖς, we) He speaks as an ordinary Jew; inasmuch as not being yet known to the Samaritan woman.—ἡ σωτηρία, Salvation) Truly so! The very derivation of the name Jesus, whom the woman calls a Jew, Joh 4:9. Comp. Joh 4:42, [The Samaritans] “We know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.”—ἔστιν, is) For such was the promise: that the Saviour and the knowledge of Him would originate from the Jews, and that from the Jews that knowledge would be extended to others. [Jesus speaks of the Jews in more glorifying terms when addressing foreigners than when addressing Jews.—V. g.]

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh_4:22. Jesus has answered the question as to the where of worship; He now turns, unasked, to the object of worship, and in this He pronounces in favour of the Jews. The chain of thought is not: as matters now stand, and so on (Lücke and most others); such a change of time must have been indicated.

ὃ οὐκ οἴδατε] ye worship what ye know not. God is meant, who is named not personally, but by the neuter, according to His essence and character, not as He who is worshipped, but as that which is worshipped (comp. the neuter, Act_17:23, according to the more correct reading); and this is simply God Himself, not τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ or τὰ πρὸς τὸν θεόν (Lücke), which would not be in keeping with the conception expressed in προσκυνεῖν; for what is worshipped is not what pertains to God, but God (comp. Joh_4:21; Joh_4:23-24). The οὐκ οἴδατε is to be understood relatively; comp. Joh_7:28. As the Samaritans received the Pentateuch only, they were without the developed revelation of God contained in the subsequent books of the O. T., particularly in the Prophets, especially the stedfast, pure, and living development of Messianic hope, which the Jews possessed, so also they had lost, with the temple and its sacred shrines, the abiding presence of the Deity (Rom_3:2; Rom_9:4-5). Jesus, therefore, might well speak of their knowledge of God, in comparison with that of the Jews (ἡμεῖς), who possessed the full revelation and promise, as ignorance; and He could regard this great superiority of the Jews as unaffected by the monotheism, however spiritual, of the Samaritans. According to de Wette, whom Ebrard follows, the meaning is: ye worship, and in so doing, ye do what ye know not,which is said to refer to the arbitrary and unhistorical manner in which the Samaritan worship originated. According to this, the ὅ would have to be taken as in ὃ δὲ νῦν ζῶ, Gal_2:20 (comp. Bengel), so that it would denote the προσκύνησις itself, which is accomplished in the προσκυνεῖν (see Bernhardy, p. 106). But in that case it would have been more logical to write ὃ ὑμεῖς προσκυνεῖτε, οὐκ οἴδατε. Tittmann, Morus, Kuinoel, also erroneously say that ὃ stands for καθʼ ὅ, pro vestra ignorantia. It is the accusative of the object, in which is included the dative, or even the accusative of the demonstrative (for προσκύν. is construed in both ways; see Lobeck, ad Phyrn. p. 463).

ἡμεῖς] i.e. Jews, without a conjunction, and hence all the more emphatic. According to the whole connection, it must mean we Jews, not Christians, as if ἡμεῖς were intended in the Gnostic sense to denote, as something altogether new, the distinctively Christian consciousness, as contrasted with the unconscious worship of the Israelitish race in its Samaritan and Jewish branches (Hilgenfeld, comp. his Zeitschr. 1863, p. 213 ff.). That Jesus, being Himself a Jew (Gal_4:4; Joh_1:11), should reckon Himself among the Jews, cannot be thought strange in the antithesis of such a passage as this. But in what follows, the Lord rises so high above this antithesis between Samaritan and Jew, that in the future which He opens up to view (Joh_4:23-24), this national distinctiveness ceases to have any significance. Still, in answer to the womans question, He could simply and definitely assign to the Jews that superiority which historically belonged to them before the manifestation of that higher future; but He could not intend to set her free from the unreality of her national existence (Luthardt), but rather, considering the occasion which presented itself, could make no concession to the injury of the rights of His patriotism as Messiah, based as this was upon historical fact and upon the divine purpose (Rom_1:16).

ὅτι ἡ σωτ., κ.τ.λ.] because salvation (of course, not without the σωτήρ, though this is not named) proceeds from the Jews (not from the Samaritans),a general doctrinal statement, incontestably true, based upon the promise to Abraham, Genesis 12 (comp. Isa_2:3; Mic_4:2), concerning the σωτηρία of the Messiahs kingdom, whose future establishment is represented as present, as is natural in such an axiomatic statement of historic fact. As salvation is of the Jews, this design of their existence in the economy of grace constitutes the reason (ὅτι) why they, as a nation, possessed the true and pure revelation of God, whose highest culmination and consummation is that very σωτηρία; comp. Rom_9:4-5. It must not, indeed, be overlooked that ἡμεῖς … οἴδαμεν was not true of every individual of the ἡμεῖς (not of those who rejected the σωτηρία), but refers to the nation as a whole in its ideal existence as the people of God, whose prerogative as such could not be destroyed by empirical exceptions. Thus the invisible church is hidden in the visible.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 4:22 . ὑμεῖς προσκυνεῖτε ὃ οὐκ οἴδατε . The distinction between Jewish and Samaritan worship lies not in the difference of place, but of the object of worship. The neuter refers abstractly to the object of worship. “You do not know the object of your worship;” suggested by the τῷ πατρί of the preceding clause. Cf. Act 17:23 . ἡμεῖς προσκυνοῦμεν ὃ οἴδαμεν . The Jews worshipped a God who had made Himself known to them in their history by His gracious and saving dealings with them. That it is this knowledge which is meant appears in the following clause: ὅτι ἡ σωτηρία ἐκ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἐστίν , that is to say, God has manifested Himself as Saviour to the Jews, and through them to all. “A powerful repudiation of the theory which makes the author of this Gospel a Gentile of the second century with a Gnostic antipathy to Judaism and Jews,” Reynolds.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ver. 22. “Ye worship that which ye do not know; we worship that which we know, because salvation comes from the Jews.”

The antithesis, which is so clearly marked between ye and we proves, whatever Hilgenfeld may say, who wrongly cites Hengstenberg as being of his opinion (comp. the Commentary of the latter, I. pp. 264-269), that the ye denotes the Samaritans and the we Jesus and the Jews. After having put His impartiality beyond suspicion by the revelation of the great future announced in Joh 4:21, Jesus enters more closely into the question proposed to Him and decides it, as related to the past, in favor of the Jews. “It is at Jerusalem that the living God has made Himself known; and that because it is by means of the Jews that He intends to give salvation to the world.” God is known only so far as He gives Himself to be known. The seat of the true knowledge of Him can, therefore, only be where He makes His revelation; and this place is Jerusalem. By breaking with the course of theocratic development since the time of Moses, and rejecting the prophetic revelations, the Samaritans had separated themselves from the historic God, from the living God. They had preserved only the abstract idea of the one God, a purely rational monotheism. Now the idea of God, as soon as it is taken for God Himself, is no more than a chimera. Even while worshiping God, therefore, they do not know what they worship. The Jews, on the contrary, have developed themselves in constant contact with the divine manifestations; they have remained in the school of the God of revelation, and in this living relation they have preserved the principle of a true knowledge. And whence comes this peculiar relation between this people and God? The answer is given in what follows. If God has made Himself so specially known to the Jews, it is because He wished to make use of them, in order to accomplish the salvation of the world. It is salvation which, retroactively in some sort, has produced all the previous theocratic revelations, as it is the fruit which, although appearing at the end of the annual vegetation, is the real cause of it. The true cause of things is their aim. Thus is the ὅτι, because, explained.

This passage has embarrassed rationalistic criticism, which, making the Jesus of our Gospel an adversary of Judaism, does not allow that He could have proclaimed Himself a Jew, and have Himself united in this we His own worship and that of the Israelitish people. And indeed if, as d’ Eichthal alleges (Les Evangiles I. p. xxviii.), the Jesus of the fourth Gospel, “from one end to the other of His preaching, seems to make sport of the Jews,” and consequently cannot “be one of them,” there is a flagrant contradiction between our passage and the entire Gospel.Hilgenfeld thinks that, at Joh 4:21, Jesus addresses the Jews and the Samaritans taken together, as by a kind of prosopopoeia, and that at Joh 4:22, by the words: we worship that which we know, he designates Himself, (with the believers) in opposition to these Jews and Samaritans. We have already seen at Joh 4:21 that this explanation cannot be sustained, and this appears more clearly still from the words of Joh 4:22 : “Because salvation comes from the Jews,” which evidently prove that the subject of “we worship” can only be the Jews. D’Eichthal and Renan make use here of different expedients. The enigma is explained, says the first, when it is observed that this expression is only “the annotation, or rather the protest, which a Jew of the old school had inscribed on the margin of the text, and of which an error of the copyist has made a word of Jesus” (p. xxix., note). And this scholar is in exstacies over the services which criticism can render to the interpretation of the sacred writings! Renan makes a similar hypothesis. “The 22d verse, which expresses an opposite thought to that of Joh 4:21; Joh 4:23, seems an awkward addition of the evangelist alarmed at the boldness of the saying which he reports” (p. 244, note). Arbitrariness could not be pressed further. The critic begins by decreeing what the fourth Gospel must be; an anti-Jewish book. Then, when he meets an expression which contradicts this alleged character, he rejects it with a stroke of the pen. He obtains, thus, not the Gospel which is, but that which he would have. But is it supposed that the first Jew whom one might meet was in possession of the authentic copy of our Gospel, to modify it according to his fancy; or that it was very easy for any chance foreigner, when this writing was once spread abroad, to introduce an interpolation into all the copies which were in circulation among the Churches? As for Renan’s hypothesis, it supposes that the evangelist thought he knew more than the Master whom he worshiped; which is not very logical. The alleged incompatibility of this saying with Joh 4:21; Joh 4:23, and with spirit of the fourth Gospel in general, is an assertion without foundation. (See Introduction, p. 127-134.)

At Joh 4:21 Jesus has transferred the question to the future, when the localized worship of ancient times should no longer exist. In Joh 4:22, He has justified the Jews, historically speaking. At Joh 4:23 He returns to the future announced in Joh 4:21, and describes all its grandeur.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye worship ye know not what--without any revealed authority, and so very much in the dark. In this sense, the Jews knew what they were about. But the most glorious thing here is the reason assigned,

for salvation is of the Jews--intimating to her that Salvation was not a thing left to be reached by any one who might vaguely desire it of a God of mercy, but something that had been revealed, prepared, deposited with a particular people, and must be sought in connection with, and as issuing from them; and that people, "the Jews."

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 22. Ye worship ye know not what] The Samaritans believed in the same God with the Jews; but, as they rejected all the prophetical writings, they had but an imperfect knowledge of the Deity: besides, as they incorporated the worship of idols with his worship, they might be justly said to worship him whom they did not properly know. See the account of their motley worship, 2Kg 17:26-34. But after Sanballat had built the temple on Mount Gerizim, the idolatrous worship of the Cutheans and Sepharvites, c., was entirely laid aside the same religious service being performed in the Samaritan temple which was performed in that at Jerusalem.

We know what we worship] We Jews acknowledge all the attributes of his nature, and offer to him only the sacrifices prescribed in the law.

Salvation is of the Jews.] Εκ των Ιουδαιων εστιν, Salvation is from the Jews. Salvation seems here to mean the Saviour, the Messiah, as it does Lu 2:30; Ac 4:12: and so the woman appears to have understood it, Joh 4:25. The Messiah was to spring from the Jews-from them, the preaching of the Gospel, and the knowledge of the truth, were to go to all the nations of the world. It was to the Jews that the promises were made; and it was in their prophetic Scriptures, which the Samaritans rejected, that Jesus Christ was proclaimed and described. See Isa 11:3.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

He now explains more largely what he had briefly glanced at about the abolition of the Law; but he divides the substance of his discourse into two parts. In the former, he charges with superstition and error the form of worshipping God which had been used by the Samaritans, but testifies that the true and lawful form was observed by the Jews. And he assigns the cause of the difference, that from the word of God the Jews obtained certainty as to his worship, while the Samaritans received nothing certain from the mouth of God. In the second part, he declares that the ceremonies hitherto observed by the Jews would soon be at an end.

22. You worship what you know not, we worship what we know. This is a sentence worthy of being remembered, and teaches us that we ought not to attempt any thing in religion rashly or at random; because, unless there be knowledge, it is not God that we worship, but a phantom or idol. All good intentions, as they are called, are struck by this sentence, as by a thunderbolt; for we learn from it, that men can do nothing but err, when they are guided by their own opinion without the word or command of God. For Christ, defending the person and cause of his nation, shows that the Jews are widely different from the Samaritans. And why?

Because salvation is from the Jews. By these words he means that they have the superiority in this respect, that God had made with them a covenant of eternal salvation. Some restrict it to Christ, who was descended from the Jews; and, indeed, since

all the promises of God were confirmed and ratified in him, (2 Corinthians 1:20,)

there is no salvation but in him. But as there can be no doubt that Christ gives the preference to the Jews on this ground, that they do not worship some unknown deity, but God alone, who revealed himself to them, and by whom they were adopted as his people; by the word salvation we ought to understand that saving manifestation which had been made to them concerning the heavenly doctrine.

But why does he say that it was from the Jews, when it was rather deposited with them, that they alone might enjoy it? He alludes, in my opinion, to what had been predicted by the Prophets, that the Law would go forth from Zion, (Isaiah 2:3; Micah 4:2,) for they were separated for a time from the rest of the nations on the express condition, that the pure knowledge of God should flow out from them to the whole world. It amounts to this, that God is not properly worshipped but by the certainty of faith, which cannot be produced in any other way than by the word of God. Hence it follows that all who forsake the word fall into idolatry; for Christ plainly testifies that an idol, or an imagination of their own brain, is substituted for God, when men are ignorant of the true God; and he charges with ignorance all to whom God has not revealed himself, for as soon as we are deprived of the light of his word, darkness and blindness reign.

It ought to be observed that the Jews, when they had treacherously set aside the covenant of eternal life which God had made with their fathers, were deprived of the treasure which they had till that time enjoyed; for they had not yet been driven out of the Church of God. Now that they deny the Son, they have nothing in common with the Father;

for whosoever denieth the Son hath not the Father, (1 John 2:23.)

The same judgment must be formed concerning all who have turned aside from the pure faith of the Gospel to their own inventions and the traditions of men. Although they who worship God according to their own judgment or human traditions flatter and applaud themselves in their obstinacy, this single word, thundering from heaven, lays prostrate all that they imagine to be divine and holy, You worship what you do not know It follows from this that, if we wish our religion to be approved by God, it must rest on knowledge obtained from His word.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(22) For salvation is of the Jews.—This verse has sorely tried critics who seek to construct the Gospel out of their judgments of what it should be. It can be no difficulty to those who seek to form their judgments from the Gospel as it is. Assume that the Gospel belongs to the Greek thought of the close of the second century, and the verse must be omitted, though it is certainly part of the original text; accept the Gospel as belonging to the Hebrew thought of the first century, and this touch of Jewish theology is in entire harmony with it. The contrast between the Samaritan and the Jewish worship lay in its history, its state at that time, and its rejection of the fuller teaching of the prophetical books of the Old Testament. “In every way the Jews had much advantage, but chiefly that unto them were committed the oracles of God.” Little as they knew the treasure they possessed, they were the guardians of spiritual truth for the world, and in a sense deeper than they could fathom, “salvation was of the Jews.” (Comp. Rom_3:2; Rom_9:4-5, Notes; Isa_2:3; Mic_4:2.)

The “we” of this verse is in answer to the “ye” of Joh_4:20. She identifies Him with those who claim Jerusalem as the place of worship. That “ye” contained its own answer. In using it she had said that the Messiah was of the Jews.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

22. ye know not what] Or, that which ye know not. The Samaritan religion, even after being purified from the original mixture with idolatry (2Ki_17:33; 2Ki_17:41), remained a mutilated religion; the obscurity of the Pentateuch (and of that a garbled text) unenlightened by the clearer revelations in the Prophets and other books of O.T. Such a religion when contrasted with that of the Jews might well be called ignorance.

we know what we worship] Or, we worship that which we know. The first person plural here is not similar to that in Joh_3:11 (see note there), though some would take it so. Christ here speaks as a Jew, and in such a passage there is nothing surprising in His so doing. As a rule Christ gives no countenance to the view that He belongs to the Jewish nation in any special way, though the Jewish nation specially belongs to Him (Joh_1:11): He is the Saviour of the world, not of the Jews only. But here, where it is a question whether Jew or Samaritan has the larger share of religious truth, He ranks Himself both by birth and by religion among the Jews. ‘We,’ therefore, means ‘we Jews.’

salvation is of the Jews] Literally, the salvation, the expected salvation, is of the Jews; i.e. proceeds from them (not belongs to them), in virtue of the promises to Abraham (Gen_12:3; Gen_18:18; Gen_22:18) and Isaac Gen_26:4). This verse is absolutely fatal to the theory that this Gospel is the work of a Gnostic Greek in the second century (see on Joh_19:35). That salvation proceeded from the Jews contradicts the fundamental principle of Gnosticism, that salvation was to be sought in the higher knowledge of which Gnostics had the key. Hence those who uphold such a theory of authorship assume, in defiance of all evidence, that this verse is a later interpolation. The verse is found in all MSS. and versions.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye worship ye know not what,.... However, as to her question, he more directly replies by condemning the Samaritans, and their ignorance in worship, and by approving the Jews; and so manifestly gives the preference to the Jews, not only with respect to the place, and object of worship, but with respect to knowledge and salvation. As for the Samaritans, he suggests, that they were ignorant, not only of the true object of worship, but knew not what they themselves worshipped; or, at least, were not agreed in it. The original inhabitants of those parts, from whence these Samaritans sprung, were idolatrous Heathens, placed by the king of Assyria in the room of the ten tribes he carried away captive; and these feared not the Lord, for they "knew not the manner of the God of the land": wherefore lions were sent among them which slew many of them; upon which the king of Assyria ordered a priest to be sent to instruct them: but notwithstanding this, they had everyone gods of their own, some one, and some another; and so served divers graven images, they and their children, and their children's children, to the time of the writer of the Book of Kings; see Kg2 17:24. And though after Manasseh, and other Jews were come among them, and they had received the law of Moses, they might have some knowledge of the true God, yet they glorified him not as God; and though they might in words profess him, yet in works they denied him; and even after this they are very highly charged by the Jews with idolatrous practices on this mount. Sometimes they say (g) the Cuthites, or Samaritans, worshipped fire; and at other times, and which chiefly prevails with them, they assert (h), that their wise men, upon searching, found that they worshipped the image of a dove on Mount Gerizim; and sometimes they say (i), they worshipped the idols, the strange gods, or Teraphim, which Jacob hid under the oak in Sichem; which last, if true, may serve to illustrate these words of Christ, that they worshipped they knew not what, since they worshipped idols hid in the mount.

"R. Ishmael bar Jose, they say (k) went to Neapolis, (Sichem, called Naplous,) the Cuthites, or Samaritans came to him (to persuade him to worship with them in their mountain); he said unto them, I will show you that ye do not "worship at this mountain", but "the images which are hid under it"; for it is written, Gen 35:4; "and Jacob hid them" under the oak which was by Shechem.''

And elsewhere (l) it is reported of the same Rabbi, that he went to Jerusalem to pray, as before related on Joh 4:20, and after what passed between him, and the Samaritan he met with at Mount Gerizim, before mentioned, he added;

"and said to him, I will tell you what ye are like, (ye are like) to a dog that lusts after carrion; so because ye know the idols are hid under it, (the mountain,) as it is written, Gen 35:4 and Jacob hid them, therefore ye lust after it: they said--this man knows that idols are hid here, and perhaps he will take them away; and they consulted together to kill him: he arose, and made his escape in the night.''

But this was not the case of the Jews:

we know what we worship; Christ puts himself among them, for he was a Jew, as the woman took him to be; and, as man, was a worshipper of God; he feared, loved, and obeyed God; he trusted in him, and prayed unto him; though, as God, he was the object of worship himself: and the true worshippers among the Jews, of which sort Christ was, knew God, whom they worshipped, spiritually and savingly; and the generality of that people had right notions of the God of Israel, having the oracles, and service of God, and being instructed out of Moses, and the prophets:

for salvation is of the Jews; the promises of salvation, and of a Saviour, were made to them, when the Gentiles were strangers to them; the means of salvation, and of the knowledge of it, as the word, statutes, and ordinances, were enjoyed by them, when others were ignorant of them; and the Messiah, who is sometimes styled "Salvation", see Gen 49:18, was not only prophesied of in their books, and promised unto them, but came of them, as well as to them; and the number of the saved ones had been for many hundreds of years, and still was among them; the line of election ran among them, and few among the Gentiles were called and saved, as yet.

(g) T. Bab. Taanith, fol. 5. 2. (h) Maimon. in Misn. Beracot, c. 8. sect. 8. & Bartenora in ib. c. 7. sect. 1. & in Nidda, c. 4. sect. 1. (i) Shalshelet Hakkabala, fol. 15. 2. (k) T. Hieros. Avoda Zara, fol. 44. 4. (l) Bereshit Rabba, sect. 81. fol. 71. 1.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

22 Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.

Ver. 22. We know what we worship] Christ also, as man, worshippeth, being less than himself as God. Christ is worshipped by angels as God, being greater than himself as man.

Ye worship ye know not what] And yet these Samaritans thought themselves the only right worshippers. As Turks hold themselves the only Moslems, that is, true believers; as Hermotimus, the Stoic in Lucian, thought his sect the best of all other, as being ignorant of any other himself.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye worship ye know not what - This probably refers to the comparative ignorance and corruption of the Samaritan worship. Though they received the five books of Moses, yet they rejected the prophets, and of course all that the prophets had said respecting the true God. Originally, also, they had joined the worship of idols to that of the true God. See 2Ki 17:26-34. They had, moreover, no authority for building their temple and conducting public worship by sacrifices there. On all these accounts they were acting in an unauthorized manner. They were not obeying the true God, nor offering the worship which he had commanded or would approve. Thus, Jesus indirectly settled the question which she had proposed to him, yet in such a way as to show her that it was of much less importance than she had supposed.

We know - We Jews. This they knew because God had commanded it; because they worshipped in a place appointed by God, and because they did it in accordance with the direction and teaching of the prophets.

Salvation is of the Jews - They have the true religion and the true form of worship; and the Messiah, who will bring salvation, is to proceed from them. See Luk 2:30; Luk 3:6. Jesus thus affirms that the Jews had the true form of the worship of God. At the same time he was sensible how much they had corrupted it, and on various occasions reproved them for it.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Israelites, on account of their innumerable sins, had been delivered by the Almighty into the hands of the king of Assyria, who lead them all away captives into Babylon and Medea, and sent other nations whom he had collected from different parts, to inhabit Samaria. But the Almighty, to shew to all nations that he had not delivered up these his people for want of power to defend, but solely on account of their transgressions, sent lions into the land to persecute these strangers. The Assyrian king upon hearing this, sent them a priest to teach them the law of God; but neither after this did they depart wholly from their impiety, but in part only: for many of them returned again to their idols, worshipping at the same time the true God. It was on this account that Christ preferred the Jews before them, saying, that salvation is of the Jews, with whom it was the chief principle to acknowledge the true God, and hold every denomination of idols in detestation; whereas, the Samaritans by mixing the worship of the one with the other, plainly shewed that they held the God of the universe in no greater esteem than their dumb idols. (St. John Chrysostom in St. Thomas Aquinas)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

You have no certain rule for your worship, but only do things which your fathers did, without any revelation of the Divine will, by which you may be assured that what you do is acceptable to God. We know that God hath revealed his will, that his people should worship him at Jerusalem by such rites and performances as he himself hath instituted in his word, so as we are certain that what we do is acceptable to God: for unto the Jews (of old) were committed the oracles of God, the ordinary means of salvation; Out of Zion went forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, Isa 2:3.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

22. Ye worship ye know not what—Ye worship; ye, in fact, worship God; but ye know not what is the true character of the God ye worship. It is a factitious, narrow, Samaritan deity you adore, standing in supposed special covenant relations to you, which relations are historically and really untrue. So that even if, through its ignorant sincerity, your prayer reaches through the mists and darkness to the true God, that true God which you thus successfully worship, ye do not truly know.

We know what we worship—The God worshipped by the Jews was the God of the Pentateuch and the prophets, standing truly in the historical relations in which the true Jews believed.

Salvation is of—Rather from the Jews. For theirs was the covenanted and prophesied Christ, in whom salvation is embodied. And even if that salvation went forth to save the pious Samaritan in his twilight, it truly went forth from the Jews.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye worship that which (not "him whom") ye know not. "That which" points to the essence and inner character of the object of their worship. They gave him a name, but they were comparatively ignorant of, and confessedly hostile as a people to, the revelation that the Father had made. They fell back on a past of rigid orthodoxy but of limited range. They rejected every portion of the Old Testament with the exception of the Pentateuch, i.e. the entire historical treatment of the primeval faith; even that very essence of it which involved the progressive and expanding conception of the character of God the perpetuity and continuous renovation of relations, the prophetic insight into providence, the sublime liturgy of a ceaseless worship, the prediction of a Messianic glory which, in the fulness of the times, should complete and complement all that preceded. They were, by their prejudices and hostility, kept ignorant of and unacquainted with the Name that was above every name. In contradistinction from this, we Jews, to whom as a nation you rightly conclude I belong, and as a representative of whom I speakWe worship that which we know. Christ in this place, more distinctly perhaps than in any portion of the four Gospels, places himself as a worshipper side by side with his hearers. Here, moreover, he identifies himself with the Jews becomes their interpreter and mouthpiece and representative. When a question arises, which of the two has the larger amount of truth, Jew or Gentile, Jew or Samaritan, he pronounced in stringent terms in favour of the Jew. The revelation advancing beyond the narrow limitations of Samaritan nationality as to place, and time, and historic fact, with its pregnant ritual, has revealed the Father to us Jews, in this respect and because the salvation of which Moses partly dreamed, but which has been the burden of every prophecy and psalm the "salvation" which gives meaning to all our knowledge, is from (ek , not "belonging to," but "proceeding from," Joh_1:46 Joh_7:22, Joh_7:52) the Jews. The Jews have been the school where the highest lessons have been taught, the richest experiences felt, the noblest lives lived, the types and shadows of good things to come most conspicuous. We cannot avoid reading between the lines the sublime enthusiasm which Paul gathered from this class of teaching ("To whom pertaineth the adoption,...and covenant,...whose are the fathers, and to whom were committed the oracles of God,... and from whom as concerning the flesh Christ came"). The utterance is profoundly significant, as it is a powerful repudiation of the theory which makes the author of this Fourth Gospel a Gentile of the second century, with a Gnostic antipathy to Judaism and Jews. The contradiction to this theory indubitably involved in this verse has led to the wildest conjectures even the suggestion of a Jewish gloss on some ancient manuscripts of the Gospel has been one desperate device to save the theory. Taut pis pour les fairs.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye worship ye know not what - Ye Samaritans are ignorant, not only of the place, but of the very object of worship. Indeed, they feared the Lord after a fashion; but at the same time served their own gods, 2 Kings xvii, 33. Salvation is from the Jews - So spake all the prophets, that the saviour should arise out of the Jewish nation: and that from thence the knowledge of him should spread to all nations under heaven.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

salvation

(See Scofield "Rom 1:16")

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

22. Salvation is of the Jews. In the controversy between the Jews and Samaritans, the former were right on the great issue. The Samaritans worshiped, but knew not what they worshiped, because they rejected the prophets who would have directed them.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

22. ὃ οὐκ οἴδ. That which ye know not. The higher truth having been planted for the future, Christ proceeds to answer her question as to the present controversy. The Samaritan religion, even after being purified from the original mixture with idolatry (2Ki 17:33; 2Ki 17:41), remained a mutilated religion; the obscurity of the Pentateuch (and of that a garbled text) unenlightened by the clearer revelations in the Prophets and other books of O.T. Such a religion when contrasted with the Jewish, which had developed in constant contact with Divine revelation, might well be called ignorance.

ἡμεῖς κ.τ.λ. We worship that which we know. The abstract form conveyed by the neuter should be preserved in both clauses (Act 17:23). The first person plural here is not similar to that in Joh 3:11 (see note there), though some would take it so. Christ here speaks as a Jew, and in such a passage there is nothing surprising in His so doing. As a rule Christ gives no countenance to the view that He belongs to the Jewish nation in any special way, though the Jewish nation specially belongs to Him (Joh 1:11): He is the Saviour of the world, not of the Jews only. But here, where it is a question whether Jew or Samaritan has the larger share of religious truth, He ranks Himself both by birth and by religion among the Jews. ‘We,’ therefore, means ‘we Jews.’

ὅτι. The importance of the conjunction must not be missed: the Jews know their God because the salvation of the world issues from them. Their religion was not, like the Samaritan, mere deism, but a παιδαγωγός leading on to the Messiah (Gal 3:24).

ἡ σωτηρία ἐκ τ. Ἰ. ἐ. The salvation, the expected salvation, is of the Jews; i.e. proceeds from them (not belongs to them), in virtue of the promises to Abraham (Gen 12:3; Gen 18:18; Gen 22:18) and Isaac (Gen 26:4): comp. Isa 2:3; Oba 1:17. This verse is absolutely fatal to the theory that this Gospel is the work of a Gnostic Greek in the second century (see on Joh 19:35). That salvation proceeded from the Jews contradicts the fundamental principle of Gnosticism, that salvation was to be sought in the higher knowledge of which Gnostics had the key. Hence those who uphold such a theory of authorship assume, in defiance of all evidence, that this verse is a later interpolation. The verse is found in all MSS. and versions. See Introduction, Chap. II. 2. For τῶν Ἰουδαίων see on Joh 13:33.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

22.] But he will not leave the temple of Zion and the worship appointed by God without His testimony. He decides her question not merely by affirming, but by proving the Jewish worship to be the right one. In the Samaritan worship there was no leading of God to guide them, there were no prophetic voices revealing more and more of His purposes. The neuter ὅ is used to shew the want of personality and distinctness in their idea of God:—the second ὅ, merely as corresponding to it in the other member of the sentence. Or perhaps better, both, as designating merely the abstract object of worship, not the personal God.

The ἡμεῖς is remarkable, as being the only instance of our Lord thus speaking. But the nature of the case accounts for it. He never elsewhere is speaking to one so set in opposition to the Jews on a point where Himself and the Jews stood together for God’s truth. He now speaks as a Jew. The nearest approach to it is in His answer to the Canaanitish woman, Mat 15:24, Mat 15:26.

ὅτι, because: this is the reason why we know what we worship, because the promises of God are made to us, and we possess them and believe them: see Rom 3:1, Rom 3:2.

ἡ σωτ. ἐκ τ. Ἰ. ἐστ.] It was in this point especially, expectation of the promised salvation by the great Deliverer (see Gen 49:18), that the Samaritan rejection of the prophetic word had made them so deficient in comparison of the Jews. But not only this;—the Messiah Himself was to spring from among the Jews, and had sprung from among them;—not ἔσται, but ἐστίν, the abstract present, but perhaps with a reference to what was then happening. See Isa 2:1-3.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

22. This verse is an assertion of the superiority of the Jewish religion to the Samaritan, not based on any difference as to the place of worship, but. rather on the difference as to their knowledge of the Object of worship. “Ye,” i.e. the Samaritans, “worship that which ye know not” (cf. ἣν ὑμεῖς οὐκ οἴδατε in v. 32). They accepted Yahweh for the true God, indeed, but they knew little about Him. By refusing to recognise the writings of the prophets and psalmists they had shut themselves off from all revelation of God except that which was contained in the Law. The Athenian inscription Ἀγνώστῳ θεῷ quoted in Act 17:23 provides no parallel to the ignorance of the Samaritans. The Samaritans knew, as the Athenians professedly did not know, the Name of the God to whom they erected their altar on Mount Gerizim; but their ignorance was an ignorance of His character and purposes.

“We,” on the other hand, i.e. the Jews, “worship that which we know” (but cf. 7:28), the same God as the God of the Samaritans, but known to Jews as He was not known to Samaritans; cf. Psa 147:19, Psa 147:20.Psa 147:1 The Jews were the chosen people, “whose is the adoption and the glory and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service (of God), and the promises” (Rom 9:4). Paul’s enumeration of their prerogatives is not more emphatic than the calm statement, “We worship that which we know.” The woman of Samaria is not permitted to suppose that the Speaker believes the Samaritan religion to be as good as the Jewish, although He tells her that in the future their poor rivalries as to their respective sanctuaries will be disregarded as of no consequence. He gives the reason why the Jewish religion is, and must be, superior: ἡ σωτηρία ἐκ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἐστίν.

ἡ σωτηρία, “the salvation,” the Messianic deliverance (see on 3:17), was the central thought of Jewish national expectation (cf. Luk 1:69, Luk 1:71, Luk 1:77, Act 13:26, Act 13:47). It was to come from the tribe of Judah, ἐκ τῶν Ἰουδαίων, as distinct from the other tribes; cf. Gen 49:10 (a passage which Samaritans accepted as canonical, although they do not seem to have taken it as Messianic), Isa 59:20 (quoted Rom 11:26). Later Judaism held firmly to this conviction of Jewish prerogative. Cf. Test. of XII. Patr., Dan 5:10, “There shall arise unto you from the tribe of [Judah and] Levi the salvation of Yahweh”; see also Gad viii. 1, Naph. viii. 2). See further for σωτήρ, σωτηρία, on 4:42. Here the point is that the Messianic deliverance was to be ἐκ τῶν Ἰουδαίων. For the constr. εἶναι ἐκ … cf. 1:46, 7:22, 52, 10:16; and for “the Jews” in the Fourth Gospel, see on 1:19.

The force of ἡμεῖς must be observed: “We worship that which we know.” Jesus, here, definitely associates Himself with the Jews; He is a Jew. Their God is His God. Nowhere in the Gospels is there another passage so emphatic as this, in its assertion of the common nationality of Jesus and the Jews who rejected Him; cf. Mat 15:24. Here He associates Himself with Jews in a common worship. The plural οἴδαμεν in 3:11 (see note) is not a true parallel to this. See on 15:25.

In this verse are expressed the worthiness of Jewish worship and the supreme privilege of the Jewish race; but in v. 23 we have on the other hand the simplicity of the ideal worship of God and the catholicity of true religion. Both aspects are included in the Fourth Gospel. The evangelist is not forgetful of the debt which Christianity owes to Judaism, while he views Christianity sub specie œternitatis as for all men and for all time.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye know not what [ο ουκ οιδατε] . Literally, what ye know not. Rev., rightly, that which ye know not. Compare Act 17:23, where the correct reading is o, what, instead of on, whom : "what therefore ye worship in ignorance." This worship of the unknown is common to vulgar ignorance and to philosophic culture; to the Samaritan woman, and to the Athenian philosophers. Compare Joh 7:28; Joh 8:19, 27. The neuter expresses the unreal and impersonal character of the Samaritan worship. As the Samaritans received the Pentateuch only, they were ignorant of the later and larger revelation of God, as contained especially in the prophetic writings, and of the Messianic hope, as developed among the Jews. They had preserved only the abstract notion of God.

Jesus here identifies Himself With the Jewish people. The essence of the true Jewish worship is represented by Him.

Know what we worship [προσκυνουμεν ο οιδαμεν] . Literally, and as Rev., we worship that which we know. On know, see on 2 24. The neuter that which, is used of the true as of the unreal object of worship, perhaps for the sake of correspondence with the preceding clause, or because the object of worship is conceived abstractly and not personally. Compare Joh 14:9.

Salvation [η σωτηρια] . The word has the article : the salvation, promised and to be revealed in Christ.

Is of the Jews. Rev., rightly, from the Jews [εκ] . Not therefore belongs to, but proceeds from. See Genesis 12; Isa 2:3; Mic 4:2. Even the Old Testament idea of salvation is bound up with Christ. See Rom 9:4, 5. The salvation is from the Jews, even from that people which has rejected it. See on 1 19. On the characteristic is from, see on 1 46. The passage illustrates John's habit of confirming the divine authority of the Old Testament revelation, and of showing its fulfillment in Christ.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.