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The Question 

The gospel accounts in the New Testament speak periodically of a race of people called Samaritans.  No effort is made by the gospel writers to cover up the historic enmity that had developed between this group and the Jewish people.  John, the writer of the fourth gospel account, makes clear mention of this as he relates an encounter between Jesus and a Samaritan woman: “The Samaritan woman said to Him, ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman.  How can you ask me for a drink?’ (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)” (John 4:9) 

In a later episode at the temple in Jerusalem, John records what becomes a hostile encounter between some Jews and Jesus.  It is interesting to note the terms used by the Jews in their attack on Jesus:  “The Jews answered Him, ‘Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?’” (John 8:48)  They could think of nothing worse to say about Jesus than to call Him a Samaritan. 

Luke’s gospel shows us that the feelings ran both ways: 

“As the time approached for Him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.  And He sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for Him; but the people there did not welcome Him, because He was heading for Jerusalem.  When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, ‘Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?’  But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went to another village.” (Luke 9:51-56)

The fact that Jesus and his disciples were headed to the city which lay at the heart of Judaism was enough for the Samaritans to refuse them hospitality.  Revealing their own sentiments, two of Jesus’ disciples had no qualms expressing a desire for the death of all the Samaritans in the village. 

So just who were the Samaritans, and why did the Jews hate them so, and vice versa?

The History 

The ancient enmity between Jews and Samaritans possibly began before the Samaritan race ever actually existed.  From the time of the division of Israel in 930 B.C. following the death of King Solomon, the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom and the two tribes – Judah and Benjamin – of the Southern Kingdom waged on-again off-again wars with each other for the next two centuries.  The Northern Kingdom is generally referred to as Israel and the Southern Kingdom as Judah. 

Omri, the seventh king of Israel, who came to power in 885 B.C. purchased a hill upon which he built a city and called it Samaria.  The entire region became know as Samaria as well.  Samaria – and the kings who ruled from there – became known for its blatant idolatry.  The most memorable of the idolatrous kings is probably Ahab, whose Sidonian wife Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord while openly providing for hundreds of prophets of the false gods Baal and Asherah. 

In 722 B.C., after a siege of three years, Shalmaneser the king of Assyria conquered Samaria and deported the Israelite elite to Assyria.  Shalmaneser’s successor, Sargon, “brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites.” (2 Kings 17:24)  Each group newly settled in the region brought with them their own gods.  At one point, because years of war had left the land unmanaged and the wildlife uncontrolled, the colonists reported to the king that “the god of the country” had “sent lions among them, which were killing them off” because the people did not know what the god of the land required.  (2 Kings 17:26)  The king, therefore, sent back a priest from exile to teach the people how to worship the god of the land.  The end result of all this was mingled race – for the remaining Israelites intermarried with the colonists – purporting belief in the God of Israel and the laws of Torah while worshiping the gods of the foreign settlers with whom they had blended.  Neither the race nor the religion was pure. 

In 538 B.C., seventy years after the Southern Kingdom, Judah, had been led into Babylon in exile, the Persian king Cyrus ordered the return of the exiles to Jerusalem where they would restore the land and rebuild the city and its temple.  As recorded in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, their enemies proposed to help with the rebuilding of the temple since they – according to their claim – worshipped the same God.  (See Ezra 4:1-5)  When Zerubbabel, the leader of the returned exiles, refused their help, they became incensed.  Nehemiah informs further that one man, Sanballat, became angry and ridiculed the Jews “in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria.” (Nehemiah 4:2)  This same Samaritan leader is seen a few verses later to be allied with the Arabs and the Ammonites.  Unable to dominate the Jewish enterprise, the Samaritans built a temple of their own on Mount Gerizim in Samaria at which were offered sacrifices similar to those offered at the temple in Jerusalem.  It has been proposed that this same Sanballat was responsible for its construction. 

But the road leading to the hostility found between Jews and Samaritans five centuries later in the New Testament does not end there.   Sometime about 332 B.C., when the Samaritans saw Alexander the Great’s disposition as favorable toward the Jews in Jerusalem, they claimed themselves to be of Hebrew descent.[1]  However, shortly thereafter, the Samaritans assassinated the governor of Coelesyria who had been appointed by Alexander.[2]  Alexander in turn conquered the city of Samaria and settled Macedonians there who would further intermarry with the already mixed race and accomplish the Hellenization of the people.   

Upon Alexander’s death when his empire was divided among among his generals, Jewish-type worship continued at temple on Mount Gerizim.  Josephus reports that anyone in Jerusalem who was accused of breaking with kosher laws or breaking the Sabbath or any similar crime against the religion would flee to Samaria where he could continue his traditional form of worship in the conterfeit temple.[3] 

During the next century, while subject to the Ptolemies of Egypt, the Jews were looked upon with favor by the governing authorities.  As before with Alexander, the Samaritans claimed kinship with the Jews.  However, when power over the region passed to the Seleucids of Syria, and more specifically to Antiochus IV (195 B.C.) who determined to eradictate Judaism, the Samaritans sent a letter to the king denying any kinship with the Jews and presented evidence that they were in fact Sidonians.  In the letter, they purported that the temple on Mount Gerizim had been built by their forefathers who had followed certain Jewish superstitions in an effort to avert plagues that had come upon them.  Now, they said, since the king was bringing just treatment upon “these wicked Jews,”[4] they wanted to dedicate their temple to Zeus.[5]  Thus, Samaria entered into full league with the archenemy of the Jews. 

About 108 B.C., after the wars during which the Jews procured their independence from Syria, John Hyrcanus, the Hasmonean who came to power at the death of his father Simon, one of the five brothers involved in the Maccabean revolt, besieged the city of Samaria for over a year.  Unable to withstand the siege, Samaria eventually surrendered, at which time Hyrcanus utterly destroyed the city and its temple to the extent that no marks of a city having ever existed in that location remained.[6] 

After the Roman general Pompey defeated the Seleucid monarchy in 64 B.C., he annexed the region of Samaria to Syria.  Shortly thereafter, another Roman general, Gabinius, saw to the rebuilding of the city of Samaria.  Finally, Herod the Great renamed the city Sebaste and determined to make it a powerful fortress which “would be a stronghold against the country.”[7] 

Concluding Remarks 

By the time Jesus Christ traveled the roads from Jerusalem to Galilee, the most despised people in the Jewish mind were the Samaritans.  History gave them every reason to hate this mongrel race who had adhered to a corrupted, syncretized Judaism when convenient but had abandoned it altogether when expedient.  The Samaritans were quite conscious of the things that divided the two peoples.  A Samaritan woman once said to Jesus, “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain (a reference to Mount Gerizim), but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” (John 4:20) 

Jesus’ response cut through the division that had come as the result of almost a thousand years of history:  “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth, for they are the worshipers the Father seeks.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:21-24) 

Jesus turned the woman’s focus from the outward to the inward very much as God turned Samuel’s focus in the anointing of David as the future king of Israel.  “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at.  Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7) 

One can only imagine what must have gone through the minds of the original listeners as Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan as recorded in Luke 10.  A severely beaten Jewish man is lying half dead in the road.  A priest who ministers in the daily worship in the temple, revered by his countrymen as holding a special status with God, sees the man but passes by and does nothing.  Likewise, a Levite, a member of the tribe set apart by God for His special service, hastens his pace and ignores the bleeding man.  Finally, a Samaritan – an ignorant half-breed with a messed-up theology and a history that allows him no bragging rights – stops and looks down at the man who would not hesitate to spit in his face if he were in good health.  The Samaritan’s heart breaks over the condition of this his sworn enemy, so he cleans and bandages the man’s wounds and takes him to a place where he can be nursed back to health. 

Jesus could have chosen anyone to be the character of the good neighbor in his parable.  But He didn’t.  He chose a Samaritan.  He reached to the very bottom of the barrel in the Jewish way of thinking.  He chose the most despised to make the point that God is not impressed by what race you were born to or who your parents are.  As the Sovereign of the universe, He is less than impressed by your position or status, secular or religious.  And it must be downright humorous to the angels looking down from the splendor of heaven to hear human beings talking about the rich and the famous of this world.  God is impressed when He sees His own character demonstrated in the life of one of His creatures. 

“. . . when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son . . .” (Romans 5:10)