Text -- John 4:9 (NET)

4:9 So the Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you– a Jew– ask me, a Samaritan woman, for water to drink?” (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.)

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Joh 4:9

¹ tn Or “a Judean.” Here BDAG 478 s.v. ᾿Ιουδαίος 2.a states, “Judean (with respect to birth, nationality, or cult).” The same term occurs in the plural later in this verse. In one sense “Judean” would work very well in the translation here, since the contrast is between residents of the two geographical regions. However, since in the context of this chapter the discussion soon becomes a religious rather than a territorial one (cf. vv. 19-26), the translation “Jew” has been retained here and in v. 22.

² tn “Water” is supplied as the understood direct object of the infinitive πεῖν (pein).

³ tn D. Daube (“Jesus and the Samaritan Woman: the Meaning of συγχράομαι [Jn 4:7ff],” JBL 69 [1950]: 137-47) suggests this meaning.

sn The background to the statement use nothing in common is the general assumption among Jews that the Samaritans were ritually impure or unclean. Thus a Jew who used a drinking vessel after a Samaritan had touched it would become ceremonially unclean.

⁴ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.