<p>4:12 <i>Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his cattle?</i>- She is alluding to Jewish ideas of how Messiah would be greater than Jacob but not greater than Abraham or David. Not only was this man not Messiah, but Jacob was &quot;our Samaritan father&quot;, she had a right to drink of this well, so she reasoned, because she unlike Jesus the Jew as a Samaritan was the legitimate descendant of Jacob. But the Lord didn't rise to her provocations; just as we need to ignore the petty aggression, subtexts and barbs of others in order to bring them to the greater truth. So much religious and doctrinal controversy is hampered by this desire to correct the mistaken other on peripheral issues, and the essential issues are thereby overlooked and not engaged with.</p>