Jacob's Well by Charles W. Barclay

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 22, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 20.

Jacob's Well.

By Charles W. Barclay

THE site of Jacob's Well is, doubtless, well known to the majority of your readers, even to those who have not themselves visited the Holy Land. It has again and again been described by the many writers on Palestine, and all have mentioned their disappointment that instead of finding any semblance to a well or anything which could recall the interview of our Lord with the woman of Samaria, they have merely found a dark, irregular hole amid a mass of ruins, in a vaulted chamber beneath the surface of the ground. I have shared this disappointment on many previous visits to Nablous, and again as, a fortnight ago, we stood beside the spot, it was with great regret that we were so utterly unable to picture before us the scene so graphically described by the evangelist. We had clambered down into the vault and were vainly attempting to peer into the dark hole amid the heaps of stones and rubbish, when we chanced to notice, a few feet from the opening, a dark crack between the stones. Fancing that possibly it might be another opening of the well, we removed some stones and earth, and soon were able to trace part of a carved aperture in a large slab of stone. Deeply interested at finding this, we cleared away more earth and stone, and soon distinguished the circular mouth of the well, though it was blocked by an immense mass of stone. Calling to aid two men who were looking on, with considerable labor we at length managed to remove it, and the opening of the well was clear. It is impossible to describe our feelings as we gazed down the open well, and sat on that ledge on which, doubtless, the Saviour rested, and felt with our fingers the grooves in the stone caused by ropes by which the water pots were drawn up.—Rev. C. W. Barclay, in Bible Banner.