History Globe
town or village
Sychar
- Today Askar
- Location disputed
History
Sychar is the "city of Samaria" of John's Gospel, "near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph", where Jacob's well was. The well is still shown at the eastern foot of Mount Gerizim, where the pass between Gerizim and Ebal opens onto the plain, east of Nablus. Which town John meant is disputed. Many identify Sychar with the village of Askar on the lower slope of Mount Ebal, about a kilometre north of the well, where the map point stands; others hold that it is Shechem itself, the mound of Tell Balata, a few hundred metres from the well.
The case for Askar rests on early witnesses that keep the two places apart. Eusebius lists Sychar separately from Shechem, placing it before Neapolis by the field Jacob gave to Joseph. The Pilgrim of Bordeaux in 333 was shown Sichem at the foot of Gerizim, with the tomb of Joseph, and a mile from it a place called Sechar, from which the Samaritan woman came down to the well. The Mishnah names a valley of Ein Sokher, which some link with the same name. The case for Shechem rests on its nearness to the well and on Jerome, who held that the name should be read Shechem, not Sychar as many read it; against it, the old city at Tell Balata had been destroyed by John Hyrcanus about 107 BC.
In John's account Jesus, wearied with the journey from Judaea to Galilee through Samaria, sat on the well about the sixth hour and asked a Samaritan woman for a drink. They spoke of living water and of worship; she said "Our fathers worshipped in this mountain", meaning Gerizim, where the Samaritan temple had stood. She went into the city, many Samaritans of that city believed, and at their request Jesus abode there two days.
In AD 72 Vespasian founded the city of Flavia Neapolis, today Nablus, a little to the west; Josephus says the local people called the place Mabartha. Eusebius notes that the place of Sychar was still shown. In 333 the Pilgrim of Bordeaux saw plane trees said to have been planted by Jacob and a bath fed from the well, and by the 380s a church had been built around the well on the side of Gerizim, where Paula stopped on her pilgrimage. That church was probably destroyed in one of the Samaritan revolts, of 484 or 529.
Scripture: John 4:3–9; John 4:20; John 4:28–30; John 4:39–42; Gen 33:18–19; Josh 24:32
Sources
- Eusebius, Onomasticon, s.v. Suchar and Suchem (C. U. Wolf's translation, nos. 902, 807)
- Itinerary of the Bordeaux Pilgrim (AD 333), tr. A. Stewart (Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, vol. 1, 1896)
- Jerome, Letter 108.13
- Mishnah, Menahot 10.2 (the valley of Ein Sokher)
- Josephus, Jewish War 4.449 (Neapolis, called Mabartha by the local people); Flavia Neapolis founded AD 72/73 (era of its coins)
- E. F. Campbell, Shechem III: The Stratigraphy and Architecture of Shechem/Tell Balatah (2002)
- D. Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, vol. 1 (1993), no. 108 (Jacob's Well)
Checked against its sources; not yet read by a historian.
Verses (1)
- John 4:5
- Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
King James Version