John 4:39-42

The Samaritans Respond

4:39 Now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the report of the woman who testified, ¹  “He told me everything I ever did.” 4:40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they began asking ²  him to stay with them. ³  He stayed there two days, 4:41 and because of his word many more ⁴  believed. 4:42 They said to the woman, “No longer do we believe because of your words, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this one ⁵  really is the Savior of the world.” ⁶ 

[4:39]  ¹ tn Grk “when she testified.”

[4:40]  ² tn Following the arrival of the Samaritans, the imperfect verb has been translated as ingressive.

[4:40]  ³ tn Because of the length of the Greek sentence and the sequencing with the following verse, the conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated here. Instead a new English sentence is begun.

[4:41]  ⁴ tn Or “and they believed much more.”

[4:42]  ⁵ tn Or “this.” The Greek pronoun can mean either “this one” or “this” (BDAG 740 s.v. οὗτος 1).

[4:42]  ⁶ sn There is irony in the Samaritans’ declaration that Jesus was really the Savior of the world, an irony foreshadowed in the prologue to the Fourth Gospel (1:11): “He came to his own, and his own did not receive him.” Yet the Samaritans welcomed Jesus and proclaimed him to be not the Jewish Messiah only, but the Savior of the world.