Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
Thou hast had five husbands - It is not clear that this woman was a prostitute: she might have been legally married to those five, and might have been divorced through some misbehavior of her own, not amounting to adultery; for the adulteress was to be put to death, both by the Jewish and Samaritan law, not divorced: or she might have been cast off through some caprice of her husband; for, in the time of our Lord, divorces were very common among the Jews, so that a man put away his wife for any fault. See the note on Matthew 5:31. Some are so very fond of exaggerating that nothing can pass through their hands without an increase: hence Heracleon says she had six husbands, and Jerome modestly gives her twenty-two! Viginti duos habuisti maritos, et ille a quo sepelieris non est tuus . "Thou hast had twenty-two husbands and he by whom thou shalt be buried is not thine." Epist. xi.
He whom thou now hast is not thy husband - ̔ , Ϛ . Bishop Pearce would translate this clause in the following manner: There is no husband whom thou now hast - or, less literally, Thou hast no husband now: probably the meaning is, Thou art contracted to another, but not yet brought home: therefore he is not yet thy husband. See Rosenmuller. Bishop Pearce contends that our Lord did not speak these words to her by way of reproof:
1.Because it is not likely that a woman so far advanced in years as to have had five husbands should have now been found living in adultery with a sixth person.
2.Because it is not likely that our Lord would not, in some part of his discourse, have reproved her for her fornication, especially if guilty of it under such gross circumstances.
3.Nor is it likely that a woman of so bad a life should have had so much influence with the people of her city that they should, on her testimony, John 4:39-42, believe Jesus to be the Messiah.
4.Nor is it at all likely that when a discovery of her guilt was made to her, by one whom she acknowledged to be a prophet, John 4:19, the first thing which came into her thoughts should be the important question in religion, about the place appointed by God for his worship, so warmly contested between the Jews and Samaritans.
5.Nor is it at all probable that a person of such a bad life, without any mentioned sign of repentance, should have been the first (perhaps the only private person) to whom Jesus is recorded as declaring himself to be the Christ, as he does to her, John 4:26.
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