"Give me a drink," asks Jesus. The demand would appear to be double. Seated wearily at a well whose water is beyond reach, Jesus desires a drink. But he has another desire that well water cannot satisfy, as [John] 4:10 suggests "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would shave asked him, and he would shave given you living water." What Jesus longs for from this woman, even more than refreshing spring water, is that she long for the living water that he longs to give her. Jesus thirsts to arouse her thirst. His desire is to arouse her desire, to be himself desired. His desire is to be the desire of this woman, to have her recognize in him that which she lacks in herself. His desire is to fill up her lack. Only thus can his own deeper thirst be assured, his own lack be filled.
- Stephen D. Moore, "Are There Impurities in the Living Water That the Johannine Jesus Dispenses? Deconstruction, Feminism, and the Samaritan Woman." The Interpretation of John John Ashton, ed. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1997), 83.
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