By: Obed Pineda
In central Palestine there lies a fertile, half-mile wide valley described by geographers as the best watered valley in that region. The Valley of Shechem (as the area was once known) sits between the twin mountains of Gerizim and Ebal, with the entrance to the ancient city of Shechem just east of them. Mount Ebal, which is on the northern side of the valley, is estimated to be at 3,077 feet above the level of the Mediterranean Sea, with Mount Gerizim directly south of it standing slightly lower at approximately 2,849 feet above sea level. It is undeniable that these twin mountains were instrumental to Israelite history. After Joshua had conquered the city of Ai, he “built an altar to the Lord God of Israel in Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the Book of the Law of Moses: ‘an altar of whole stones over which no man has wielded an iron tool.’ And they offered on it burnt offerings to the Lord, and sacrificed peace offerings” (Joshua 8:30-31). Holy Writ continues to explain that the children of Israel were standing before each other, “half of them…in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded them before, that they should bless the people of Israel” (Joshua 8:33). It was upon Mount Gerizim where Gideon’s youngest son, Jotham, boldly proclaimed his curse against his brother Abimelech for assassinating all of his siblings, in order to be crowned ruler of Shechem (Judges 9:1-21). After the Assyrian Empire took the northern kingdom of Israel hostage, and flooded their lands with foreign women, the few Israelite men that remained wed these women and thus Israel transformed into Samaria. Their southern brothers of Judah, despised them because of their marriages with the Assyrian women because God had commanded them not to marry the women of Canaan because “they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods” (Deuteronomy 7:1-4). Thus, in the eyes of the Jews, the Samaritans were a product of an unsanctioned and ungodly union that defiled Abraham’s lineage. Yet, the most renown event that is remembered by the majority of Bible students taking place at Mount Gerizim is a conversation that took place at Jacob’s well between a Samaritan woman and the Lord Jesus (John 4:1-26). Although John never mention’s Gerizim by name in the pericope, he does provide ample geographic evidence that confirms this location as true. John pens that the Master “needed to go through Samaria…so He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there” (John 4:4-6a). The well of Jacob was a half mile south of Sychar, sitting on a high road from Jerusalem that led into the Valley of Shechem, between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. Additionally, when the Samaritan woman at the well astutely speculated that Jesus was perhaps a prophet, she says to Him, “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship” (John 4:19-20). Remember that previously, the beloved disciple had established that “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans” and this woman had just revealed a major reason why this was the case (John 4:9). The spiritual schism between Jews and Samaritans was much deeper than just the intermarriages that took place when Israel was taken captive by the Assyrians. Although the mixture of the bloodlines did contribute greatly to this bitter rivalry, this set the ground for what transpired several years later, when Zerubbabel led a group of Jews back to Jerusalem from their captivity in Babylon, to rebuild the temple. The southern kingdom of Judah had been Babylon’s captives for seventy years, according to God’s decree (cf. Jeremiah 29:4-10), but contrary to their northern brothers did not blend their bloodline with the Chaldean’s bloodline. It must be noted that this achievement was vital because the Messiah would be a direct descendant of Abraham and David (cf. Galatians 3:16, Acts 2:22-36) and thus was successfully secured by God, and not so much the Jews themselves. Yet, as was typical of the Jews, they took much pride in this accomplishment failing to acknowledge that it was because of God’s mercy and His eternal plan of salvation that keeping Judah’s bloodline pure was necessary (cf. Genesis 49:10). Therefore, when a group of Jews from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin were allowed by Cyrus, king of Persia, to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple, the Samaritan’s “came to Zerubbabel and the heads of the fathers’ houses, and said to them, ‘Let us build with you, for we seek your God as you do; and we have sacrificed to Him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us here’” (Ezra 4:2). Holy Writ tells that Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads who were present rejected their offer to help rebuild stating, “we alone will build to the Lord God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us” (Ezra 4:3). Even though the Samaritan’s offer had an appearance of pure generosity, the Holy Spirit exposes this as a ruse since they are introduced as “the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin” who after being denied the permission to help “tried to discourage the people of Judah. They troubled them in building, and hired counselors against them to frustrate their purpose all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia” (Ezra 4:1, 4-5). Upon reading how the Samaritan’s reacted to not being allowed to assist in rebuilding the temple, it is irrefutable that their intentions were to either prevent this sacred endeavor from being achieved or to influence the Jews to “synchronize” (i.e. combine) Jehovah God’s worship with pagan worship as they had learned to do long ago from their Assyrian captors. What resulted from this rejection was that the Samaritans chose to build their own temple on Mount Gerizim, establishing their own priesthood who were not from the tribe of Levi. Their logic for selecting Mount Gerizim was twofold: first, they believed that this was the ancient Mount Moriah (and not Jerusalem, cf. 2nd Chronicles 3:1) where Abraham had offered his son Isaac to the Lord (cf. Genesis 22:1-19) and second, because it was also known as the Mount of Blessings because Moses had declared that from there the people would be blessed after crossing over the Jordan (cf. Deuteronomy 27:11-13). Hence the culprit behind the Samaritan woman’s confusion as to which mountain was the one approved by the Lord for worship. This, too, reveals why John premised this encounter by stating that Jesus “needed to go through Samaria” (John 4:4). Indeed, many valuable events that shaped the history of Israel and Samaria had unfolded at this location, but the most important one happened in the exchange that took place at Jacob’s well. In the presence of these twin mountains many imperative lessons were imparted, but it was where the most precious truth of all was unveiled by the Son of God to a humble Samaritan woman: the revelation of the gift of God. To be continued…