1 Kings 16:24

16:24 He purchased the hill of Samaria ¹  from Shemer for two talents ²  of silver. He launched a construction project there ³  and named the city he built after Shemer, the former owner of the hill of Samaria.

1 Kings 16:2

16:2 “I raised you up ⁴  from the dust and made you ruler over my people Israel. Yet you followed in Jeroboam’s footsteps ⁵  and encouraged my people Israel to sin; their sins have made me angry. ⁶ 

1 Kings 1:13

1:13 Visit ⁷  King David and say to him, ‘My master, O king, did you not solemnly promise ⁸  your servant, “Surely your son Solomon will be king after me; he will sit on my throne”? So why has Adonijah become king?’

Ezra 4:10

4:10 and the rest of nations whom the great and noble Ashurbanipal ⁹  deported and settled in the cities ¹⁰  of Samaria and other places in Trans-Euphrates. ¹¹ 

John 4:4-5

Conversation With a Samaritan Woman

4:4 But he had ¹²  to pass through Samaria. ¹³  4:5 Now he came to a Samaritan town ¹⁴  called Sychar, ¹⁵  near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ¹⁶ 

¹ map For location see Map2-B1; Map4-D3; Map5-E2; Map6-A4; Map7-C1.

² tn The Hebrew term כִּכָּר (kikkar, “circle”) refers generally to something that is round. When used of metals it can refer to a disk-shaped weight made of the metal or to a standard unit of weight, generally regarded as a talent. Since the accepted weight for a talent of metal is about 75 pounds, this would have amounted to about 150 pounds of silver.

³ tn Heb “he built up the hill.”

⁴ tn The Hebrew text has “because” at the beginning of the sentence. In the Hebrew text vv. 2-3 are one sentence comprised of a causal clause giving the reason for divine punishment (v. 2) and the main clause announcing the punishment (v. 3). The translation divides this sentence for stylistic reasons.

⁵ tn Heb “walked in the way of Jeroboam.”

⁶ tn Heb “angering me by their sins.”

⁷ tn Heb “come, go to.” The imperative of הָלַךְ (halakh) is here used as an introductory interjection. See BDB 234 s.v. חָלַךְ.

⁸ tn Or “swear an oath to.”

⁹ tn Aram “Osnappar” (so ASV, NASB, NRSV), another name for Ashurbanipal.

¹⁰ tc The translation reads with the ancient versions the plural בְּקֻרְיַהּ (bÿquryah, “in the cities”) rather than the singular (“in the city”) of the MT.

¹¹ tn Aram “beyond the river.” In Ezra this term is a technical designation for the region west of the Euphrates river.

¹² sn Travel through Samaria was not geographically necessary; the normal route for Jews ran up the east side of the Jordan River (Transjordan). Although some take the impersonal verb had to (δεῖ, dei) here to indicate logical necessity only, normally in John’s Gospel its use involves God’s will or plan (3:7, 3:14, 3:30, 4:4, 4:20, 4:24, 9:4, 10:16, 12:34, 20:9).

¹³ sn Samaria. The Samaritans were descendants of 2 groups: (1) The remnant of native Israelites who were not deported after the fall of the Northern Kingdom in 722 b.c.; (2) Foreign colonists brought in from Babylonia and Media by the Assyrian conquerors to settle the land with inhabitants who would be loyal to Assyria. There was theological opposition between the Samaritans and the Jews because the former refused to worship in Jerusalem. After the exile the Samaritans put obstacles in the way of the Jewish restoration of Jerusalem, and in the 2nd century b.c. the Samaritans helped the Syrians in their wars against the Jews. In 128 b.c. the Jewish high priest retaliated and burned the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim.

¹⁴ tn Grk “town of Samaria.” The noun Σαμαρείας (Samareias) has been translated as an attributive genitive.

¹⁵ sn Sychar was somewhere in the vicinity of Shechem, possibly the village of Askar, 1.5 km northeast of Jacob’s well.

¹⁶ sn Perhaps referred to in Gen 48:22.