John 4:6

And Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

Jacob's well ... As Ryle noted, this reference contains all that is certainly known about this well, as to its origin; because the Bible nowhere mentions Jacob's digging a well, although it is recorded that Abraham and Isaac dug wells. Still, this reference is enough. The well is still there and is, in all probability, one of the few authentic places that can be identified as the place where Jesus sat.

J. W. McGarvey, after visiting the well, wrote:

Jacob's well is still there, about one hundred feet from Mount Gerizim, which rises high above it to the west. The well is a perfect cylinder, seven and a half feet in diameter, walled with stones of good size, smoothly dressed, and nicely fitted together, an excellent piece of masonry. Its depth was stated by the earliest modern who visited it (Maundrel) at 105 feet with fifteen feet of water. In 1839, it was found to be seventy-five feet deep with ten or twelve feet of water. All visitors of more recent date have found it dry and gradually filling up from the habit of throwing stones into it to hear the reverberation when they strike the bottom.[2]

Jesus, being wearied with his journey ... The perfect humanity of Jesus is very evident in John. He alone recorded the saying from the cross, "I thirst!" and it appears that the apostle was particularly impressed with the bone-tired weariness of Jesus as he sat wearily by the well when the apostles departed to buy provisions. It would appear that the Lord's unusual weariness might have resulted from the fervor and enthusiasm with which the preaching and baptizing had been accomplished in the preceding days. It was the kind of letdown that every great campaigner feels when the effort is over; and the long march up from Judaea had intensified his weariness.

Sat thus by the well ... Such a detail only an eyewitness would have included.

It was about the sixth hour ... The ancient Jews reckoned time from sundown to sunrise, roughly twelve hours of darkness; and from sunrise to sunset, roughly twelve hours of daylight. The Romans and other ancients reckoned time from midnight to noon, and from noon until midnight. In this light, the "sixth hour" would have been about noon, six hours after sunrise, by the Jewish method of reckoning; or, by the Roman method, it would have been six hours after noon, or about six o'clock in the evening.

For those interested in full discussions of the arguments on this question of the time of day, reference is made to the works of Westcott who favored understanding this as Roman time (6 P.M.),[3] and to the works of Ryle who favored Jewish time (noon).[4] One thing for sure, it was one or the other; and perhaps the best way to determine which it was is by the events related in the context. There is no necessity at all for supposing that John invariably used either method of reckoning time, probably using Jewish time in one episode and Roman time in another, as for example, when Roman courts were involved.

To this writer, it seems that the extensive results that flowed out of this episode, such as the coming of the whole city out to meet Jesus, and their inviting him and his disciples to stay with them, indicate that the event happened at noon. Of weight in this preference is the fact of the woman's having come to the well alone, rather than with a group of women who, like herself, needed water. It is written of Abraham's servant that "He made his camels kneel down without the city by a well of water at the time of the evening, even the time that women go out to draw water" (Genesis 24:11). Now, if the woman had gone to the well at the usual time, there is the probability of the presence of others and the absence of the privacy evident in this narrative. Also, the social status of the woman suggests that she might have preferred to go at a time when she would not have encountered the neighbors.

[2] J. W. McGarvey, The Fourfold Gospel (Cincinnati, Ohio: The Standard Publishing Company, 1914), p. 56.

[3] B. F. Westcott, The Gospel according to St. John (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971), p. 282.

[4] J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House), John, Vol. I, p. 198.