Are you greater than our father, Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself, as did his children, and his cattle?"
      [1.] Whom she expects: I know that Messias cometh. The Jews and Samaritans, though so much at variance, agreed in the expectation of the messiah and his kingdom. The Samaritans received the writings of Moses, and were no strangers to the prophets, nor to the hopes of the Jewish nation; those who knew least knew this, that Messias was to come; so general and uncontested was the expectation of him, and at this time more raised than ever (for the sceptre was departed from Judah, Daniel's weeks were near expiring), so that she concludes not only, He will come, but erchetai--"He comes, he is just at hand:" Messias, who is called Christ. The evangelist, though he retains the Hebrew word Messias (which the woman used) in honour to the holy language, and to the Jewish church, that used it familiarly, yet, writing for the use of the Gentiles, he takes care to render it by a Greek word of the same signification, who is called Christ-Anointed, giving an example to the apostle's rule, that whatever is spoken in an unknown or less vulgar tongue should be interpreted,1 Corinthians 14:27; 1 Corinthians 14:28.