The great difference between the Jews and the Samaritans was a difference in religious belief, a question as to what constitutes true worship. The Pharisees would say nothing good of the Samaritans, but poured their bitterest curses upon them. So strong was the antipathy between the Jews and the Samaritans that to the Samaritan woman it seemed a strange thing for Christ to ask her for a drink. "How is it," she said, "that Thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?" "For," adds the evangelist, "the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans." 381 John 4:9. And when the Jews were so filled with murderous hatred against Christ that they rose up in the temple to stone Him, they could find no better words by which to express their hatred than, "Say we not well that Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?" John 8:48. Yet the priest and Levite neglected the very work the Lord had enjoined on them, leaving a hated and despised Samaritan to minister to one of their own countrymen.

Den store forskel mellem jøderne og samaritanerne drejede sig om deres religiøse tro; det var et spørgsmål angående sand tilbedelse. Farisæerne ville ikke sige noget godt om samaritanerne, men udtalte deres bitreste forbandelser over dem. Modviljen mellem jøderne og samaritanerne var så stærk, at det syntes mærkeligt for den samaritanske kvinde, at Kristus ville bede hende om noget at drikke. "Hvordan kan dog du, som er jøde, bede mig, som er en samaritansk kvinde, om noget at drikke?" sagde hun. Og evangelisten tilføjede: "Jøderne omgås nemlig ikke med samaritanerne." Og da jøderne var så opfyldt af morderisk had til Kristus, at de stod op imod ham i templet for at stene ham, kunne de ikke finde bedre ord til at udtrykke deres had end: "Er det ikke med rette, vi siger at du er en samaritaner og besat af en ond ånd?" Men præsten og levitten forsømte alligevel at udføre netop den gerning, som Gud havde pålagt dem, og overlod det til en hadet og foragtet samaritaner at hjælpe en af deres egne landsmænd.