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Palestina in the time of Jesus

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The Lord’s travels were meticulously planned, and His activity proceeded on the divine clock. Timing was a factor in Christ’s journey through Samaria. His ministry had been enormously successful, reflected in conversions by his disciples, to focus the Pharisees’ hostile interest in Him. The Pharisees were the most vocal and influential of three major religious societies in the Holy Land.

To enhance His mission, Christ moved from Judea in the south, to Galilee in the north, passing through Samaria. It lies between Judea and Galilee but passing through Samaria was not the most the most common route between the two provinces, partly because Samaria was not considered to belong to the Holy Land and hostility between Jews and Samaritans.

The Lord did not hesitate to traverse Samaria, because as the Savior of all men, Jesus had to confront the smoldering suspicion and enmity between Jews and Samaritans by ministering to the Samaritans.

As Jesus and his disciples traveled northward, they came to a city called Sychar, in Samaria. The apostle John declared that “Jacob’s well was there,” and called it a “spring” and a “well” because its water came from both rain and an underground spring. The Lord was tired and sat down when He arrived at the well.

The following biblical passage relates Christ’s trip from Judea to Jacob’s well in Samaria:

“When Jesus heard that the Pharisees found out that he was making and baptizing more disciples than John – though in fact it was his disciples who baptized, not Jesus himself – he left Judaea and went back to Galilee. He had to pass through Samaria. On the way he came to the Samaritan town called Sychar near the land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there and Jesus, tired by the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.”  (John 4:1-6)

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