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By understanding the long history of Samaria and the Samaritans, as well as their present expectations, we can better understand the Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well, recorded in John 4.
Samaria was founded by Omri (r. 885-874 BC), king of the northern kingdom of Israel, and made his capital. Omri was the grandfather of Ahab. He needed to build a new capital and palace because the former palace had been burned down by the usurper Zimri, who reigned for only seven days. See 2 Kings 16.
Removal of the people of Israel from Samaria
2 Kings 17:3-6 This passage describes the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC.
Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against him; and Hoshea became his vassal, and paid him tribute money. And the king of Assyria uncovered a conspiracy by Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and brought no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison.
Now the king of Assyria went throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria and besieged it for three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea [722 BC], the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah and by the Habor, the River of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
(NKJV)
From the Grolier Interactive Encyclopedia, article "Assyria"
"Tiglath-Pileser's son, Shalmaneser V, is remembered for his siege of Samaria, the capital of Israel (recorded in 2 Kings: 17-18). Apparently he died during the siege and was succeeded by Sargon II, who took credit for the destruction of Samaria and the exile of its people (722 BC)."
Placement of new inhabitants in Samaria
2 Kings 17:24-29 This passage apparently refers to people brought in by Sargon II immediately after the defeat of Israel in 722 BC. (Shalmaneser, the king who besieged Samaria, died in 722 and Sargon II took the throne.)
Then the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its cities. And it was so, at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they did not fear the LORD; therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which killed some of them. So they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, "The nations whom you have removed and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the rituals of the God of the land; therefore He has sent lions among them, and indeed, they are killing them because they do not know the rituals of the God of the land." Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, "Send there one of the priests whom you brought from there; let him go and dwell there, and let him teach them the rituals of the God of the land." Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear the LORD. However every nation continued to make gods of its own, and put them in the shrines on the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities where they dwelt. (NKJV)
Ezra 4:8-10 This passage, written after Ezra came to Jerusalem in 457 BC, reveals that Osnapper (the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, r. 669-627 BC) also transplanted foreigners from Mesopotamia to Samaria.
Rehum the commander and Shimshai the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to King Artaxerxes in this fashion:
Fom Rehum the commander, Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their companions-- representatives of the Dinaites, the Apharsathchites, the Tarpelites, the people of Persia and Erech and Babylon and Shushan, the Dehavites, the Elamites, and the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Osnapper [Ashurbanipal] took captive and settled in the cities of Samaria and the remainder beyond the River-- and so forth. (NKJV)
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Conversion of the Samaritans to worship of the God of Israel
2 Chronicles 34:3-7 This passage tells of the reign of Josiah (r. 639-608 BC) and reveals that starting in 631 BC, near the end of the reign of Ashurbanipal, who placed the Cutheans in Samaria, Josiah was able to extend his political and religious authority into the northern region of Samaria and to do away with worship of other gods. This becomes especially interesting when read in the context of Josephus’ comment below.
For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the wooden images, the carved images, and the molded images. They broke down the altars of the Baals in his presence, and the incense altars which were above them he cut down; and the wooden images, the carved images, and the molded images he broke in pieces, and made dust of them and scattered it on the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. He also burned the bones of the priests on their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. And so he did in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, as far as Naphtali and all around, with axes. When he had broken down the altars and the wooden images, had beaten the carved images into powder, and cut down all the incense altars throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem. (NKJV)
Josephus’ Commentary History of the Samaritans in Israel
Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book nine, Chapter 14, Paragraph 3, from the translation by William Wiston.
3. (288) But now the Cutheans, who removed into Samaria (for that is the name they have been called by to this time, because they were brought out of the country called Cuthah, which is a country of Persia, and there is a river of the same name in it), each of them, according to their nations, which were in number five, brought their own gods into Samaria, and by worshiping them, as was the custom of their own countries, they provoked Almighty God to be angry and displeased at them, (289) for a plague seized upon them, by which they were destroyed; and when they found no cure for their miseries, they learned by the oracle that they ought to worship Almighty God, as the method for their deliverance. So they sent ambassadors to the king of Assylia, and desired ~m to send them some of those priests of the Israelites wham he had taken captive. (290) And when he thereupon sent them, and the people were by them taught the laws and the holy worship of God, they worshiped him in a respectful manner, and the plague ceased immediately; and indeed they continue to make use of the very same customs to this very time, and are called in the Hebrew tongue Cutheans; but in the Greek Samaritans. (291) And when they see the Jews in prosperity, they pretend that they are changed, and allied to them, and call them kinsmen, as though they were derived from Joseph, and had by that means an original alliance with them: but when they see them falling into a low condition, they say they are no way related to them, and that the Jews have no right to expect any kindness or marks of kindred from them, but they declare that they are sojourners, that come from other countries. But of these we shall have a more seasonable opportunity to discourse hereafter.
Opposition of Samaritans to rebuilding of the temple
The following summary of the activities of Ezra and Nehmiah in relation to the Samaritans living around Jerusalem is taken from chart A4 of the Bible Timelines charts from Bible Lights Publishing
In 536 BC, Zerubbabel (Sheshbazzar) led 50,167 to Jerusalem. Ezra 2
In September, 536 BC, the returnees constructed an altar and began keeping the festivals decreed by God. Ezra 3:1-7
In April, 535, the returnees began constructing the temple. The people who had been living around Jerusalem offered to help, but when Zerubbabel and Jeshua turned down their help, they began to hinder the work through intimidation and legal protests to Cyrus. The work languished throughout the rest of Cyrus' reign and during Cambyses' reign. Ezra 3:8-4:5, 24
Work resumed in 520 encouraged by the prophesying of Haggai and Zechariah. The temple was finished in March, 515. The returnees celebrated the Passover at the temple the following month. Ezra 5:1-2; 6:13-22
Nothing is recorded in the Bible about the activities of the returnees between 520 and 457. But when Ezra arrived in 457, he found that they had not been faithful to the law, and that they had begun to intermarry with the non-Jewish residents.
The local inhabitants wrote a complaint to King Xerxes (Ahasuerus in the book of Esther) at the beginning of his reign (486 BC) Ezra 4:6.
During Xerxes reign (486-465 BC) the Jews were saved from extermination by the courage of Mordecai and Esther (Esther 3-9).
Ezra and company departed Babylon in March, 457 and arrived in Jerusalem in July. He soon learned of the people's intermarriage, and the problem was handled during the winter of 457-456. Ezra 7:11-10:44
Sometime after 450 the province around Jerusalem rebelled against Persia. Rehum, the local military commander, took advantage of the situation by complaining to Artaxerxes and obtaining an order to stop work at Jerusalem. The work was stopped and the wall broken down. Ezra 4:7-23; Neh. 1:3
Late in 445 Nehemiah learned that the walls of Jerusalem had been broken down. He persuaded Artaxerxes to allow him to go to Jerusalem. He arrived there in the summer of 444 and led out in reconstruction of the wall, which was completed by the end of the summer. He and Ezra also led out in spiritual reform and in moving some of the population from the country into Jerusalem. Nehemiah 1-13
Nehemiah stayed at Jerusalem for 12 years (until 432) Neh. 5:14; 13:6, then returned to Artaxerxes' court.
He later went back to Jerusalem and at that time cleansed the temple of defilement by heathens and reinstituted tithe, offerings, and Sabbath observance, and made some put away their foreign wives. Neh. 13:7-31.
The following graphic, excerpted from Chart A4 of the Bible Timelines Charts from Bible Lights Publishing, shows the chronological relationship of some of these events
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Movement of Samaritan center from Samaria to Shechem/Sychar
After it became clear that the Jews who had returned from exile in Babylon would not accept the Samaritans as brothers, the Samaritans established their center in Samaria. However, when Alexander the Great captured the city of Samaria in 332 BC, he turned it into a Greek city and settled many of his veterans there. At that time the Samaritans moved their center of worship to Shechem and built a temple on Mt. Gerizim.
During the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (r. 175-164 BC), the Seleucid ruler who sparked the Hasmonaean revolt by defiling the Jerusalem temple and trying to force the Jews to sacrifice pigs on their altars, the Samaritans bowed to outside pressures. While the Jews took up arms and eventually drove the Seleucids out of Jerusalem, the Samaritans capitulated to the Hellenizing influences and dedicated their temple on Mt. Gerizim to the Greek god Zeus, known in Roman times as Jupiter.
Bible Timeline Chart 4 from Bible Lights Publishing illustrates this historical period. For better understanding of the people and issues involved in Samaritan history, take a look at the Interactive Chart at the Bible Lights homepage (the link to the interactive chart is near the bottom of the main page).
Destruction of the temple on Mt. Gerizim
When the Jews finally managed to drive out their Greek Seleucid overlords, they established what came to be known as the Hasmonaean Kingdom in 142 BC. The second ruler of this kingdom was John Hyrcanus I (r. 134-104 BC). Hyrcanus was forced to pay heavy tribute to the Seleucids until the death of the Seleucid king Antiochus VII in 129 BC. After that he was able operate more freely and extended the borders of the Hasmonaean kingdom to include Samaria. He captured and destroyed the city of Samaria, and also captured Shechem and Mt. Gerizim. When he captured Mt. Gerizim, he destroyed the Samaritans temple there, which had allowed the Greeks to dedicate to Zeus. The Samaritans continued to worship there, however (and do to this day). Hence the dispute that the woman at the well brought up to Jesus: "Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship" (John 4:20, NKJV).
By the time of Jesus the city of Samaria (which was about 8 miles west of Sychar) had been given to Herod the Great by Emperor Augustus. Herod renamed it Sebaste in honor of the emperor, and built many magnificent buildings there.
Messianic expectations among the Samaritans
This passage, taken from the book Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs: Popular Movements at the Time of Jesus by Richard A. Horsley with John S. Hanson (San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers, 1985), pp. 162, 163, tells of a time when the Samaritans followed a supposed messiah to Mount Gerizim in revolt against the Romans. Note that the involvement of Pilate (procurator AD 26-36) indicates this happened within a few years of Jesus’ visit with the woman at the well.
"The first of these movements occurred under Pontius Pilate, not among the Jews proper, but among the Samaritans. Despite the mutual distrust and conflict that existed between the two peoples, the Samaritans, like the Jews, were an outgrowth of, and were loyal to, the same Israelite people and heritage. The Samaritans were the descendants of the Israelite tribes which had composed the northern kingdom of Israel. Thus they too looked back to the exodus from
"Egypt and to Moses as the prophet, the mediator of the covenant revealed on Sinai. Samaria had been conquered by (the Jews under) the Hasmoneans, who had also attempted to Judaize the population, whence some of the intense feelings between Jews and Samaritans. Samaria had been part Of Herod's domain and, at the death of Archelaus, came under the direct rule of the Roman governors, No less than the Jews, the Samaritans resented foreign rule and oppression. They too cultivated hopes for a future prophet, the "restorer" (tahev) who was thought of as a new Moses. The Tahev was expected to restore the ancient temple on Mount Gerizim r and the people as a whole to independence and prosperity. Thus both the Samaritan situation and the Samaritan traditions and expectations were very similar to those of the Jews, and the prophetic movement described by Josephus appears to fit the same pattern as the parallel movements a few years later among the Jews.
Nor was the Samaritan nation free from disturbance. For a man who had no qualms about deceit, and freely used it to sway the crowd, commanded them to go up with him as a group to Mount Gerizim, which is for them the most sacred mountain. He promised to show them, when they got there, the holy vessels buried at the spot where Moses had put them. Those who thought his speech convincing came with arms and stationed themselves at a village called Tirathana. There they welcomed late-comers so that they might make the climb up the mountain in a great throng. But Pilate was quick to prevent their ascent with a contingent of cavalry and armed infantry. They attacked those who had assembled beforehand in the village, killed some, routed others, and took many into captivity. From this group Pilate executed the ringleaders as well as the most able among the fugitives. (Ant. 18.85-87)
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