'9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink’, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
John 4:9-14
Calvin interprets 10 to read, 'If thou knewest the gift of God, namely, who it is that saith unto thee' - in other words, our Lord's talking to her was itself God's gift to her at that moment. This is a very telling interpretation, and if it is correct it means that talking about spiritual things to people is in itself God's offer to them. This is why it is so important they should get to know that God is speaking, for it is possible after all, to miss the time of one's visitation. In 11 it is striking to see that the woman shows the same kind of mental obtuseness as Nicodemus did in 3:4. Even when the Son of God speaks, there is this lack of understanding, and this should both underline for us the depth of nature's blindness and also put our own failure to communicate in a truer perspective. It may well be, as we have already suggested, that there is an element of mockery in the woman's words in 11, 12, with perhaps a deliberate stress on the literal meaning of the word 'water' but it is difficult not to think also that there was by this time a serious note beginning to assert itself, as if she were saying, 'I'm laughing at you, you know, Stranger, but in spite of myself, I'm listening hard.' There are many like this, and we should not be too discouraged when we see them laughing, or disconsolate either, thinking our testimony is not cutting any ice. We must keep on, as Jesus did here. Who shall know whether the next thrust will prove decisive? The lesson here is: Go on teaching, till light breaks, trusting in the light-bearing properties of the Word. As the Psalmist insists, the entrance of Thy words giveth light.