Commentaries:
Robertson's Word Pictures (NT)
Not because of thy speaking (ouketi dia thn shn lalian). "No longer because of thy talk," good and effective as that was. Lalia (cf. lalew) is talk, talkativeness, mode of speech, one's vernacular, used by Jesus of his own speech (John 8:43).
We have heard (akhkoamen). Perfect active indicative of akouw, their abiding experience.
For ourselves (autoi). Just "ourselves."
The Saviour of the world (o swthr tou kosmou). See Matthew 1:21 for s"sei used of Jesus by the angel Gabriel. John applies the term swthr to Jesus again in I John 4:14. Jesus had said to the woman that salvation is of the Jews (verse John 4:22). He clearly told the Samaritans during these two days that he was the Messiah as he had done to the woman (verse John 4:26) and explained that to mean Saviour of Samaritans as well as Jews. Sanday thinks that probably John puts this epithet of Saviour in the mouth of the Samaritans, but adds: "At the same time it is possible that such an epithet might be employed by them merely as synonymous with Messiah." But why "merely"? Was it not natural for these Samaritans who took Jesus as their "Saviour," Jew as he was, to enlarge the idea to the whole world? Bernard has this amazing statement on John 4:42: "That in the first century Messiah was given the title s"tˆr is not proven." The use of "saviour and god" for Ptolemy in the third century BC is well known. "The ample materials collected by Magie show that the full title of honour, Saviour of the world, with which St. John adorns the Master, was bestowed with sundry variations in the Greek expression on Julius Caesar, Augustus, Claudius, Vespasian, Titus, Trajan, Hadrian, and other Emperors in inscriptions in the Hellenistic East" (Deissmann, Light, etc., p. 364). Perhaps Bernard means that the Jews did not call Messiah Saviour. But what of it? The Romans so termed their emperors and the New Testament so calls Christ (Luke 2:11; John 4:42; Acts 5:31; Acts 3:23; Philippians 3:20; Ephesians 5:23; Titus 1:4; Titus 2:13; Titus 3:6; II Timothy 1:10; II Peter 1:1, II Peter 1:11; II Peter 2:20; II Peter 3:2, II Peter 3:18). All these are writings of the first century AD The Samaritan villagers rise to the conception that he was the Saviour of the world.
Other Robertson's Word Pictures (NT) entries containing John 4:42:
Matthew 1:21
John 3:17
John 4:42
John 6:51
John 8:43
1 Timothy 4:10
1 John 4:14
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