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NASB | John 4:18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly." |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | John 4:18 for you have had five husbands, and the man you are now living with is not your husband. You have said this truthfully." |
Bible Question: In St. John 4 Jesus tells the woman at the well that she has had five husbands and the one she now has it not her own. Most in our Bible study class have always surmised that the five were like the one she currently has "not her own" but the husbands of other women. However, some are of the opinion that she had been married five times. Is there biblical support to back either theory? Please send your response ASAP! Thanks! |
Bible Answer: scparham, Answer Part 2 " Jews knew they preserved the worship of the true God at the Temple, but tended to forget that Samaritans had received this promise from the prophets. Ethnic and religious pride got the upper hand in Judah, and so the Jews (i.e. descendents of the southern kingdom of Judah) had nothing to do with the apostate "half-breed" Samaritans, as John notes (v. 9). The Samaritan woman knows it too. And she knows why. That is why, when Jesus tells her to go call her husband, she gets the double message. He not only is aware of her serial marriages, he is also making a sort of spiritual pun to refer to the five "husbands" (baals) of the Samaritans and making clear that their worship of Yahweh is not the worship Moses commanded. That is why the woman immediately replies, "Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship" (v. 20). Jesus' reply to this is related to his earlier remark that "he whom you now have is not your husband" (v. 18). At the shallowest level, this can be taken (truly) to refer to the man she is living with at present. But at its deepest level, it refers to Jesus himself. For he is the God whom the Samaritans have failed to worship. He is the "husband" Samaria does not have because they have "married" the five baals of Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sephar-vaim. He is now here to bring at last the water of life that Samaria needs: the gift of the Holy Spirit which is promised, not merely to those who worship in Jerusalem, but to "all flesh" (Joel 2:28-32). He is here to prepare his Bride by baptism in living water, to "sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish" (Ephesians 5:26-27). This nuptial theme continues into the next scene, which, notably, takes place in Cana, where the Wedding Feast in John 2 occurred. The sign of healing Jesus performs shows that the gentile official, like the Samaritan Woman, is welcome at the Messianic Wedding Banquet along with Israel. Interestingly, this is precisely the moral Jesus draws in the parallel account of this incident, related in Matthew 8:5-13." from: Catholic Scripture Study www.catholicexchange.com |