"The Well is Deep"

This Sunday's reading is from John 4:5-42 in which Jesus encounters the Samaritan woman at the well and many Samaritans from the town of Sychar became believers.

So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’
  Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’
  Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ They left the city and were on their way to him.
   Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’
   Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’

Where was Sychar and how deep was that well? Well, according to G. E. Wright in "Shechem, the Biography of a Biblical City" (1965) (h/t BibleGateway),

SYCHAR sī’ kär (Συχάρ, G5373). The one Biblical allusion to it describes it as “a city of Samaria,” near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave his son Joseph (John 4:5; cf. Gen 33:19). Jerome in his Onomasticon distinguishes Sychar from Shechem, though in his other works he identifies them as the same place, arguing that the form of spelling Sychar is a scribal error. The Old Syriac VS also reads Shechem. In the Itinerary of Jerusalem of a.d. 33 a Sechar is located one m. E of Nablus.

Recent debate still leaves the identity of Sychar open to question. W. F. Albright identified it with an ancient site near Shechem. There is an ancient site “askar” nearby, meaning in Arab. a military camp, and Dr. Albright argued that “askar” is a corruption for Sychar. This village of El-Askar is on the eastern slope of Mount Ebal about half a m. N of Jacob’s Well and just E of Shechem. There is confusion in such identity. First, it is unlikely that Sychar is to be identified with “askar,” as a textual corruption. Moreover, El-Askar is much further away from Jacob’s well than ancient Shechem. There is also the objection that at El-Askar there is a copious spring more than adequate to supply the water needs of the village. The narrative of John 4:15 suggests the woman of Sychar was in the habit of going to Jacob’s well for water. It seems therefore unlikely to identify Sychar with El-Askar.

Others have argued that Shechem is Sychar. But the recent excavations of G. E. Wright have revealed that the end of Shechem as a city occurred in 107 b.c. when Jews from Jerusalem under John Hyrcanus (134-104 b.c.) destroyed the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim in 128 b.c. and finally destroyed the city of Shechem in 107 b.c. However, at the site of these ruins, Tell Balatah, there is evidence of occupation from the period of the Samaritans to Rom. times. Jacob’s well, according to an unbroken tradition, lies about half a m. to the E of the village of Balatah. Historically, the well is one of the best attested sites in Pal., at least since NT times. It stands on the eastern edge of the valley which forms the pass between Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim. The watertable that feeds the well rests upon an impermeable layer of basalt some twenty meters below the valley floor. With the accumulation of town debris and older sites since Hyksos times, Shechem is twelve to twenty-five meters above the surrounding valley floor. The woman of Samaria was correct in asserting “the well is deep,” possibly thirty-two to fifty-five meters in depth (cf. John 4:11). The sacred associations of the well, and its quality of water, in contrast to the harder water from neighboring springs on the slopes of Mt. Gerizim, would form attractions for the popularity of the well throughout its history.