Q. What did Yah'shua (Jesus) mean when He said: "You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews" (John 4:22, NKJV). How is salvation "of the Jews"?

A. As with all Scriptural sayings, context is everything and the meaning of this statement, taken out of context, can easily be missed. Before we establish that context, let's first look at the Aramaic version of the passage, from which the Greek was almost certainly translated:

"You worship something that you do not know. But we worship what we know, for life (literally 'life's' in the plural) is (are) from the Yehudeans (Judeans) [1]" (AENT).

A Judean is a person who lives in a certain place, country or region - historically and contextually this was the Roman Province of Judæa. A Judahite (Yehudi in Hebrew) is a person who belongs to a certain race, namely, the Tribe of Judah, one of the sons of Jacob. A 'Jew', by contrast, is someone who adheres to the religion of Judaism, or otherwise considers him- or herself associated with such people culturally, and is a modern term. We'll return in more detail to the distinction between the three - Judean, Judahite, and Jew a little later on in this discussion.

But first, let's look into the background of this saying so that we have the bigger picture. The background is the Master's encounter and dialogue with the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar, which I visited many years ago when I was a young man. The Johannine theme is the 'mayim chayim' or 'waters of [eternal] life'. Here is the background of the Saviour's response:

"The [Samaritan] woman said to Him, 'Sir, I perceive that You are a navi (prophet). Our fathers worshiped on this mountain (Gerezim), and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.' Yah'shua (Jesus) said to her, 'Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain (Gerizim), nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Judeans ('Jews'). But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in ruach (spirit) and emet (truth); for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. Elohim (God) is spiritual, and those who worship Him must worship in ruach (spirit) and emet (truth).' The woman said to Him, 'I know that Messiah is coming. When He comes, He will tell us all things.' Yah'shua (Jesus) said to her, 'I who speak to you am He'" (John 4:19-26, NKJV, adapted).

For Yah'shua (Jesus), who was inaugurating a B'rit Chadashah or New Covenant, the correct location was now purely academic, and there was therefore no longer any reason to debate the correct location, since soon - after the cross - both locations would be obsolete and have no rôle to play in the lives of those who genuinely worshipped the Father through the Son. Indeed, He prophesied that Jerusalem, with its temple, would be destroyed, which indeed happened in AD 70.

The Samartians did not know Elohim (God), even though they had the Pentateuch. Why? Because they did not have the full revelation of Him that had been revealed by the nevi'im (prophets), whom after Moses they did not recognise, and so had no way of identifying the Messiah accurately. Neither the the Judahites abroad in Persia and Mesopotamia, apparently, which is why salvation (eternal life) was from those converted in Judea itself, and the adjunct territory of Galilee. Therefore the Samaritans were unable to worship Yahweh in emet (truth). The Judeans did, on the other hand, have the full revelation of Elohim (God) in the Tanakh (Old Testament). Thus they knew the Elohim (God) they worshipped, because the emet (truth) of salvation came first to them, through a Judahite, Yah'shua (Jesus) (not a Samaritan), "a son of Abraham", as He Himself declared, speaking of another Judahite, Zaccheus:

"Yah'shua (Jesus) said to [Zaccheus], "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost'" (Luke 19:9-10, NIV)

Let us return to the Judean-Judahite-Jew controversy, Aside from the Roman occupiers, the territory of Judea contained not just Judahites, the descendents of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob through Judah, but also two other Israelite tribes, the Benjamites and Levites who seceeded from the southern Kingdom after the north, which henceforth became known as Israel, separated after the death of Solomon. The Judahites, Benjamites and Levites ('Judeans') were the principle inhabitants of the southern Kingdom of Judea, which later became the Roman Province of Judea (as it was in New Testament times), with a smattering of the other ten tribes from the north who moved south as refugees after the Israelite Kingdom became rapidly paganised. In addition to these were the numerous Edomites or Idumeans, the decendants of Esau, who were forcibly circumcised by the Maccabeans and integrated with the other Judean tribes through intermarriage. King Herod and his clan were Idumeans.

After the Maccabean revolt, the whole of the former Israelite territory - that had once been inhabited by all 12 tribes prior to the Assyrian deportations, became a Judean State, and since that time the territory from 'Dan to Beersheba' came to be known as Judea. With the Roman occupation, this Judean state was divided several parts: Galilee in the north, Samaria in the middle, and the Province of Judea in the south - very roughly corresponding to the former Southern Kingdom of Judah, plus some of the former Philistine territories - with an extra Province of Idumæa south of that. East of the Jordan River Peræa, the Decapolis ('Ten Cities'), and Gaulantis (Golan)-and-Iturea completed the jigsaw.

After thr Babylonian exile, the tribe of Benjamin relocated to the north of the country, into Galilee, that has previously housed four of the northern Tribes of Asher, Naphtali, Zebulon and Issachar, in the northern most part of what would become Maccabean Judea. Most of the apostles, who were Galileans, were therefore of the Tribe of Benjamin, like Paul. (see Benjamin Revisited).

Who, then, were the 'Judeans' ('Jews' in English Bibles) in John 4:22? These were the Judahites, Benjamites and Levites of the territory once controlled by the Maccabbes, but then split into Roman Judea, Samaria and Galilee (west of the Jordan). These were the first tribes of Israel to hear the Besorah (Gospel) and were therefore from whom the message of salvation (eternal life) would subsequently be heard by everyone else - from the other Judahites in diaspora to the remainder of the 12 tribes in diaspora and eventually to all the whole world - the gentiles.

Yah'shua's (Jesus) words were a statement of history, a reminder to the Samaritans that they were off course spiritually, worshipping in the wrong place and with an incomplete canon of Scripture, and could have known Yahweh better if they hadn't rejected the nevi'im (prophets) and kethuvim (writings - psalms, proverbs, etc.). True, the returning exiles from Babylon hadn't treated them very nicely, but that did not invalidate the revelation that had come through their nevi'im (prophets).

What this passage is not an excuse for is for anyone to give modern Jews - and Messianic Jews specifically - carte blanche in all their teachings and pronouncements. There are sadly many Messianic Jews who regard themselves as a 'rank above' other Christians, and treat them accordingly, who work off the assumption that all their teachings are by default correct and to which all other believers must submit. Whilst Messianic Jews have brought many important and necessary teachings on Torah to the Body of Messiah, they have also brought a lot of false teachings too. No one is immune from error and no one is 'teacher's pet' in Yahweh's eyes. I am indebted to so much Messianic Jewish teaching in my own ministry personally, and I have many of their books and commentaries, but I have also had to do some very careful sifting. They are wrong in key areas such as the sacred calendar, in Zionism and so many of them fatally deny the incarnation and Deity of Messiah. The same haughty spirit that alienated the Samaritans when the Judahites returned from Babylon still sadly persists in some quarters of the Messianic Jewish community. We none of us have the right to "lord it" over anyone's emunah (faith) (2 Cor 1:24, NIV).

For a fuller discussion on the topic on the identity of the modern Jews are, please see the FAQ, What is a Jew? and also our Israel website.

Endnotes

[1] "...because life is from the Yehudaye" (Aramaic Peshitta). Most Messianic versions have "Yehudim" (e.g. ISRV) or Judahites and most Protestant and Catholic versions have "Jews"

This page was created on 3 June 2018 Last updated on 3 June 2018

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