John 4:11-12

The woman responded by trying to find out how Jesus could give her living water and who He was. She said "living water" probably to avoid the embarrassment of asking what "living water" was. Obviously she thought Jesus was a cheap charlatan. Her question expected a negative answer. She could not see how he could be greater than the patriarch Jacob.

Even today this is one of the deepest wells in Palestine being over 75 feet deep, as local guides delight to point out. [Note: Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, s.v. "Jacob’s Well," by R. L. Alden, 3:388.] Her reference to "our father Jacob" was probably another barb designed to remind this Jew that Jacob was the Samaritans’ ancestor as well as the Jews’.