The Samaritan woman LEFT her WATER JAR and went away

[tonychanyt]

Did the Samaritan woman give Jesus water to drink?

Perhaps not. Jesus was alone sitting at Jacob's well when a Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus asked her for a drink, but rather than immediately giving Him water, this led to a significant conversation between them. Jn 4:

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.”

The conversation shifted from physical water to spiritual matters, and the text does not mention her actually giving Jesus the water He initially requested.

27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?”
28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town

She left her equipment to draw water. Jesus' disciples could use it to draw water for him. She went back to her town:

and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.

Why did the Samaritan woman leave her waterpot?

She might have left it for Jesus' disciples to use to draw water.

Ellicott explained it more logistically:

The waterpot left behind was a pledge of her return; and it is to us a mark of the presence of him who has related the incidents.

Benson saw it more emotionally:

The woman then — Seeing other company coming up to interrupt the discourse, immediately left her water-pot — Or pail, behind her, forgetting smaller things, while her thoughts were engrossed with matters of the greatest importance;

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown saw it spiritually:

How exquisitely natural! The presence of strangers made her feel that it was time for her to withdraw, and He who knew what was in her heart, and what she was going to the city to do, let her go without exchanging a word with her in the hearing of others. Their interview was too sacred, and the effect on the woman too overpowering (not to speak of His own deep emotion) to allow of its being continued. But this one artless touch—that she "left her water-pot"—speaks volumes. The living water was already beginning to spring up within her; she found that man doth not live by bread nor by water only, and that there was a water of wondrous virtue that raised people above meat and drink, and the vessels that held them, and all human things. In short, she was transported, forgot everything but One, and her heart running over with the tale she had to tell, she hastens home and pours it out.

The woman finally understood that living water was more important than H2O water. She had finally understood Jesus' point. Living water was welling up in her, so she ignored the physical water jar. Her priority and perspective changed.

In terms of theatrics, the water jar is a dramatic device that shows the immediacy and power of her encounter with Jesus.

 

[Paul4JC]

I was looking at that a few weeks ago. Yes, she was so excited and overwhelmed, having just met the Messiah, that she forgot to give him water. Either he got some, or his disciples got it when they returned. I don't see it logically either. She was just caught in the moment, the water pot became meaningless.