John 4:14 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
John 4:14
But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
to give (used in a very wide application · verb — future active indicative, 1st person singular
him
αὐτῷautō
G846
the reflexive pronoun self · personal pronoun — dative singular masculine
shall be
γενήσεταιgenēsetai
G1096
to cause to be ("gen"-erate) · verb — future middle deponent indicative, 3rd person singular
in
ἐνen
G1722
"in · preposition
him
αὐτῷautō
G846
the reflexive pronoun self · personal pronoun — dative singular masculine
a well
πηγὴpēgē
G4077
a fount (literally or figuratively) · noun — nominative singular feminine
of water
ὕδατοςhudatos
G5204
water (as if rainy) literally or figuratively · noun — genitive singular neuter
springing up
ἁλλομένουhallomenou
G242
to jump · verb — present middle or passive deponent participle, genitive singular neuter
into
εἰςeis
G1519
to or into (indicating the point reached or entered) · preposition
everlasting
αἰώνιον.¶aiōnion
G166
perpetual (also used of past time · adjective — accusative singular feminine
life
ζωὴνzōēn
G2222
life (literally or figuratively) · noun — accusative singular feminine
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
John 7:38-39 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
John 6:35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
Isaiah 49:10 They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the spr…
Revelation 7:16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.
Ephesians 1:13-14 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were s…
John 11:26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
John 6:58 This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for…
1 John 5:20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is tr…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on John 4:4-26
We have here an account of the good Christ did in Samaria, when he passed through that country in his way to Galilee. The Samaritans, both in blood and religion, were mongrel Jews, the posterity of those colonies which the king of Assyria planted there after the captivity of the ten tribes, with whom the poor of the land that were left behind, and many other Jews afterwards, incorporated themselves. They worshipped the God of Israel only, to whom they erected a temple on mount Gerizim, in competition with that at Jerusalem. There was great enmity between them and the Jews; the Samaritans would not admit Christ, when they saw he was going to Jerusalem (Luk 9:53); the Jews thought they could n…
thirst again . . . never thirst, &c.--The contrast here is fundamental and all comprehensive. "This water" plainly means "this natural water and all satisfactions of a like earthly and perishable nature." Coming to us from without, and reaching only the superficial parts of our nature, they are soon spent, and need to be anew supplied as much as if we had never experienced them before, while the deeper wants of our being are not reached by them at all; whereas the "water" that Christ gives--spiritual life--is struck out of the very depths of our being, making the soul not a cistern, for holding water poured into it from without, but a fountain (the word had been better so rendered, to distin…
Springing up into everlasting life - On this account he can never thirst: - for how can he lack water who has in himself a living, eternal spring? By this water our Lord means also his doctrine, explaining and promising the gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost, which proceed from Jesus Christ their fountain, dwelling in a believing heart. There is no eternal life without the Spirit; no Spirit without Christ; and no Christ to give the Spirit, without dwelling in the heart: this his whole doctrine proclaims.
John Gill
The Church Fathers
He says that visible water can quench one's thirst for a little while, but the unseen water cures one of thirst altogether because there is no longer a thirst for life when immortality is gushing forth on you. What follows clearly demonstrates that the Holy Spirit is what is freely being promised here, as the spiritual water spoken of here corresponds with the physical water spoken of.… The Spirit of wisdom, whose presence is unceasing, gives of its abundance freely.
Sick, we truly stand in need of the Saviour; having wandered, of one to guide us; blind, of one to lead us to the light; thirsty, "of the fountain of life, of which whosoever partakes, shall no longer thirst;" dead, we need life; sheep, we need a shepherd; we who are children need a tutor, while universal humanity stands in need of Jesus; so that we may not continue intractable and sinners to the end, and thus fall into condemnation, but may be separated from the chaff, and stored up in the paternal garner.
We must know again that the Savior here calls the grace of the Holy Spirit water. If anyone drinks of this water, he will have the gift of the divine teaching constantly welling up from within him. He needs no admonition from others. Rather, it is enough to exhort those who thirst after the divine and heavenly Word that they are yet living in this present life and on earth along with the holy prophets and apostles. They are heirs of their ministrations of whom it was written, "And you shall draw water with joy out of the wells of salvation."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Crucifixion — A common mode of punishment among heathen nations in early times. It is not certain whether it was known among the ancient Jews; probably it was not. The modes of capital punishment according to the…
Jacobs Well — a deep spring in the vicinity of Shechem (called Sychar in Christ’s time and Nablus at the present day). It was probably dug by Jacob whose name it bears. On the curb of the well Jesus sat and…
Samaritans — The name given to the new and mixed inhabitants whom Esarhaddon (B.C. 677), the king of Assyria, brought from Babylon and other places and settled in the cities of Samaria, instead of the original…
Emblems Of The Holy Spirit, The · Freely given — Freely given
Fountains And Springs · Illustrative: Of eternal life — Illustrative: Of eternal life
Holiness · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Life, Eternal · Results from: Drinking the water of life — Results from: Drinking the water of life
Samaria · .Jesus travels through — .Jesus travels through
Shechem
on John 4:14
But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him,.... Meaning, the Spirit and his grace; see John 7:38; and which he more than once speaks of, as his gift here, and in the context: of which, whoever truly partakes,
shall never thirst; either after sinful lusts and pleasures, and his former vicious way of living, which he now disrelishes: not but there are desires and lustings after carnal things in regenerate persons, as there were lustings in the Israelites, after the onions, garlic, and flesh pots in Egypt, when they were come out from thence; yet these are not so strong, prevalent, and predominant; they are checked and restrained by the grace of God; so that they do not hanker a…
John 4:10-15
10. Jesus answered and said to her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. 11. The woman saith to him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; whence, therefore, hast thou living water? [74] 12. Art thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and himself drank of it, and his children, and his cattle? 13. Jesus answered and said to her, Every one that drinketh of this water will thirst again; 14. But he who drinketh of the water which I shall give him will never thirst; but the water, which I shall give him, shall be in him a w…
The notion of a fresh, bubbling spring was a powerful image in the dry climate of Israel. Those who come to God will neither hunger nor thirst (see Isa 49:10; 55:1-3; Jer 2:13).
Thirst · Figurative of the ar — Figurative of the ar
Water · .Water of life — .Water of life
Wells · .Of salvation — .Of salvation
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
