What is…
Jacob's Well

This well is mentioned in connection with an eye-opening, life-changing conversation between Jesus Christ and a Samaritan woman.

So He came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.”

…Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?”

Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst—ever; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come back here to draw.”

…The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when He comes, He will declare all things to us.”

Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” —John 4:5-42 LSB excerpt

This is a well site in Israel about which there is no dispute. It was dug by Jacob, and hence its name, in the “parcel of ground” which he purchased from the sons of Hamor (Genesis 33:19).

It still exists. It is at the entrance to the valley between Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim, about 2 miles southeast of Shechem.

It is about 9 feet in diameter and about 151 feet in depth, though in ancient times it may have been deeper. The digging of such a well must have been a very laborious and costly undertaking.