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4:1 Pharisees. The religious leaders took a close interest in John the Baptist (see note on 1:24) and then also in Jesus.

4:2 The disciples did not baptize without Jesus’ approval (3:22).

4:3 left Judea. Success (which aroused opposition; see 7:1), not failure, led Jesus to leave Judea.

4:4 had to go. The necessity lay in Jesus’ mission, not in geography. Samaria. Here the whole region, not simply the city. Jews often avoided Samaria by crossing the Jordan and traveling on the east (see notes on Mt 10:5; Lk 9:52).

4:5 Sychar. A small village near Shechem. Jacob bought some land in the vicinity of Shechem (Ge 33:18-19), and it was apparently this land that he gave to Joseph (Ge 48:21-22). See map on p 201.

4:6 Jacob’s well. Mentioned nowhere else in Scripture. about the sixth hour. About 12:00 noon.

4:7 to draw water. People normally drew water the end of the day rather than in the heat of midday (see Ge 24:11 and note). But the practice is attested by Josephus, who says that the young ladies whom Moses helped (Ex 2:15-17) came to draw water at noon.

4:9 The point of the NIV text note (and probably of the text) is that a Jew would become ceremonially unclean if he used a drinking vessel handled by a Samaritan, since the Jews held that all Samaritans were “unclean.”