John 4:1-4 - So He left Judea

4:1-3

Jesus had met Nicodemus, a man who should have understood what He was about and man’s need for a complete transformation, to be born again. In this chapter Jesus meets a woman who in the world’s eyes should have known nothing. She was a woman! She was a Samaritan, and she was living in sin. Yet she was far quicker to grasp the reality of Jesus than Nicodemus was. The world’s wisdom is worthless, and a vital key to understanding the gospel is an awareness of our own sinfulness.

Jesus learnt that the Pharisees were now aware that He was attracting more followers than John the Baptist, and He too was baptising, albeit that it was His disciples who did the actual baptising. So He left Judea and went back to Galilee. Jesus was not seeking crowds or conflict for its own sake. The Pharisees had been concerned about John, they would be even more concerned about Jesus. The unique feature of the baptisms carried out by John and Jesus was that they were aimed at the Jews. There were various “baptisers” around in those days, and converts to Judaism had to go through an initiatory rite, but why did the Jews need to do this? This would shock the religious leaders. 

4:4

“He had to pass through Samaria. The quickest route from Judea to Galilee passed through Samaria, and this was the most commonly taken route. There was a longer route that avoided Samaria, but the direct route was the more popular. So why the antagonism between Judah and Samaria? Samaria had been part of the northern kingdom of Israel, though it now had no political status. The northern kingdom was the first to really rebel against God (Judah did catch up some years later!). Assyria conquered Samaria in 722-721 BC. The leaders and well qualified people were deported to foreign lands, and foreigners were settled in Samaria. Intermarriage occurred on a large scale. So Samaria was viewed as an apostate land and lacked racial purity. We should note that Jesus had a rather different view of Samaritans than the people did, hence the parable of the good Samaritan, the incident here, and the healed leper who returned to thank Jesus.