Bible Strands
John 4:18
In fact, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. You have spoken truthfully.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman immediately after she declares she has no current husband. He addresses her marital history in the direct exchange recorded in John 4:17–19.
The words — πέντε (pente) translates literally to “five,” and ἔσχες (esches) means “you have had.” These terms quantify the woman’s past marriages and ground Jesus’ statement in factual observation.
The thread — The passage aligns with Jeremiah 3:20’s metaphor of marital betrayal applied to covenant unfaithfulness. It also intersects with Romans 7:3 and 1 Corinthians 7:10 regarding the biblical parameters of marriage and remarriage.
Why it lands — The text requires the reader to acknowledge their own history without evasion or moral negotiation. It demands honest confrontation with personal reality before any spiritual claim is addressed.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 3:20 But as a woman may betray her husband, so you have betrayed Me, O house of Israel,” declares the LORD.
- Romans 7:3 So then, if she is joined to another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.
- 1 Corinthians 7:10 To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband.
- Mark 10:12 And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”
- Genesis 20:3 One night, however, God came to Abimelech in a dream and told him, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken, for she is a married woman.”
- Genesis 34:2 When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the region, saw her, he took her and lay with her by force.
- Genesis 34:7 When Jacob’s sons heard what had happened, they returned from the field. They were filled with grief and fury, because Shechem had committed an outrage in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter—a thing that should not be done.
- Genesis 34:31 But they replied, “Should he have treated our sister like a prostitute?”
- Numbers 5:29 This is the law of jealousy when a wife goes astray and defiles herself while under her husband’s authority,
- Ruth 4:10 Moreover, I have acquired Ruth the Moabitess, Mahlon’s widow, as my wife, to raise up the name of the deceased through his inheritance, so that his name will not disappear from among his brothers or from the gate of his home. You are witnesses today.”