NOTES for Joh 4:14
The need for water is one of the most basic needs for the functioning of the human body. People who live in hot and dry places like Israel know this especially well. There, for example, in our day it is part of police officers' duties to check whether tourists visiting local sights have a supply of drinking water with them. And today we read how Jesus appears to promise to solve this problem once and for all: the water He can give is able to multiply in a person, like the loaves that fed thousands of people. More than that, this water turns human life into eternal life. The Samaritan woman who heard this promise of Jesus takes it completely literally and asks for such water (later Jesus will address similar words to the Israelites, and their reaction will be somewhat different - John 7:37-43).
But is Jesus speaking about water? In the seventh chapter John explains: "He said this about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive," because it is precisely the Spirit who creates genuine life and joins it to eternity. Do we understand what we truly need for our life, and not merely for the "functioning of the body"? Do we seek this, do we ask for it?