Intersection Column | Who Was the Woman at the Well?
- mtlmagazine
- 2 minutes ago
- 4 min read
by Jill Eileen Smith
Most of us are familiar with the story of the Samaritan woman who met Jesus at the well. Though her story only appears in the Gospel of John, she is famous (or infamous) for having had five husbands, and the man she had at the time she met Jesus was not her husband.
Many people assume that she was a promiscuous woman. We imagine her getting bored with man after man and changing husbands like we might change clothes or addresses.
When I sat down to study the life of this unnamed woman in Scripture, I had to look past what little we know about her personally and learn about the culture in which she lived. Could a woman have had five husbands by her own desire or design? The answer is no. In her culture, her husbands would have had to either die or divorce her. A woman could not just leave a marriage. If she committed adultery, she could have been stoned. But five men were married to her, so either she was the ultimate black widow, or these men divorced her. Why?
Scripture does not give us a reason, and there is no mention of her in history until many years after the Gospels were written when the Catholic church canonized her and gave her the name St. Photina. I chose not to use this name in my story because it didn’t come from Scripture. Besides, this is fiction, and I preferred the name Nessa.
But back to the question of why would five husbands have wanted out of the marriage to this unfortunate woman? We can speculate, and I did, but of course, only God knows the truth. I chose to make her the most beautiful woman in Sychar—someone every man might lust after and every woman disdained out of jealousy.
Then the challenge came in making five separate households, along with the home she was born into and the background of the man she didn’t marry but was living with when she met Jesus. So, I created five husbands along with their families, occupations, wealth, housing situations, and how they treated Nessa. I also gave page time to the story of the last man in her life before she met the Messiah.
Once I cast the characters for each family, I had to find a reason why she would be free to marry each man. And why, in the end, did she end up with a man who was not her husband?
Women in her day were expected to marry. Few could survive on their own without a husband or son to care for them. If they truly were alone, they may have ended up earning a living in an unseemly manner. I didn’t see Nessa in that way.
I’d been taught that she was an immoral woman. Like all of us, she was a sinner and had her faults. But I think she was also a victim of her circumstances and her culture. I doubt very much that she would have chosen the life she was given. No woman would want to be shuffled from husband to father to husband after husband.
I hope my vision of the woman at the well gives you a different “take” on how you see her story. The really cool thing about this woman was that Jesus valued her. She was the first person to whom He revealed that He was the Messiah. And she became the first recorded missionary.
She deserves to be remembered with respect and understanding and even dignity. She survived years of marriages to men who would not keep her. And Jesus thought it worth His time to enter hostile Samaria just to meet her. In my opinion, that makes her a heroine.
About the Author
Jill Eileen Smith is the bestselling and award-winning author of twenty-five fiction and nonfiction works, including biblical novels such as her first series, The Wives of King David. Her newest book, A Deeper Well: The Story of the Woman at the Well, is out now. Jill is passionate about Jesus and His Word, particularly exploring the lives of the women God has immortalized in Scripture. She has been married to the love of her life for 48 years and counting and lives in a quiet neighborhood in southeast Michigan. Learn more about Jill at www.jilleileensmith.com.
About the Book
In ancient Israel, soon after Nessa is of marriageable age, her father gives her to a wealthy widowed friend, capitalizing on her beauty. Nessa tries to accept her fate, but after only a year of marriage, tragedy hits her new family. She is sent back to her father, who quickly finds a young man who wants to marry the most beautiful woman in Sychar. As she is passed from one marriage to the next, Nessa’s broken heart thirsts for acceptance and love that seem out of reach—until an encounter at the well reveals what her soul truly longs for.