24:1-25); and there Joseph was buried in the land that belonged to his father Jacob (Josh. 24:32). “At no other spot in Palestine, probably, could Jesus have more fitly uttered his remarkable doctrine, of the absolute liberty of conscience from all thrall of place or tradition, than here in Shechem, where the whole Jewish nation, in a peculiar sense, had its beginning.”--(_H. W. Beecher’s Life of Christ._)--=Being wearied with his journey.= The commentators call attention to this weariness as an evidence of the reality of his humanity. It seems to me, when coupled with the prophecy of Isaiah 53:2, his apparent sinking under the weight of the cross, and his early death, while the two thieves survived (Matt. 27:32; Mark 15:44; John 19:32, 33), to be an indication that his physical frame was not robust, was not equal to the demands of the soul which it contained, and that, as a part of his human experience, he knew the peculiar sorrows which an intense and active mind feels when hindered by a weak bodily organization.--=Sat thus at the spring.= “What meaneth ‘thus’? Not upon a throne; not upon a cushion; but simply and as he was upon the ground.”--(_Chrysostom._)--=And it was about the sixth hour.= That is, about twelve o’clock. There appears to be no adequate reason for the opinion that has been advanced, that John employs a different kind of reckoning from that common among the Jews, and means here 6 P. M. It is true that the evening was the common hour of resort to the wells by the women, but evidently this conference was with Christ _alone_, an indication that the hour was not the evening hour, for then others would probably have been present also. Ryle suggests that there is a significance in the fact that while Christ talked with Nicodemus alone, and at night, his ministry to this sinful woman was at a public resort, and at noon. “If a man will try to do good to a person like the Samaritan woman, alone and without witnesses, let him take heed that he walk in his Master’s footsteps, as to the time of his proceedings, as well as to the message he delivers.” Compare the circumstances of Christ’s Gospel message to the woman that was a sinner (Luke 7:37, etc.). 7 There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. 8 (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.)