The Good Samaritan

The Samaritan hummed a lilting, ancient tune, as he trudged along the well-worn, dusty road beside his donkey. Lifting a hand, he covered his eyes, shielding them as he squinted into the distance. The searing heat of the midday sun that was baking the earth bone dry was almost unbearable.

Although he could make out the hazy outline of a city on the horizon, there was still a ways to go before he reached Jericho.

He fanned himself, sweat trickling from beneath his headdress and down his face as he took a swig of water from the skin pouch hanging from his side. Patting his faithful old donkey reassuringly, they continued to trudge on together.

He had climbed off his beast in order to relieve her burden. Now he paused to give her a swig of water also.

The Samaritans, his people, were descended from diverse conquered peoples from throughout the Eastern regions brought in by the Assyrian empire. They had mixed with the survivors of the tribes of Israel and those from Judah and Benjamin that had escaped the forced exile into Assyria and Babylon.

The king of Assyria had placed these diverse people in the region of Samaria, and in the city of Samaria, which had been the capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, just as Jerusalem had been the capital of Judah, the Southern Kingdom.

At first, these nations had served their own gods, but the Lord God of Israel had sent lions among them to kill them. They pleaded with the Assyrian king, who brought them an exiled Jewish priest to teach them the ways of the Lord God of Israel, that they might live in the land.

They learnt to fear the Lord God, and yet continued to cling to their own gods. After the manner of their own nations did they continue to live - both they, and their children, and their children's children.

When the Jews under the leadership of Ezra returned to the land of Israel from Babylon after the completion of seventy full years of exile– this was the result of Israel's continual transgression and rebellion against the word of the Lord their God, until they angered God to remove them out of His sight for a time– after they returned, according to the fulfilment of the word of the Lord through Jeremias the prophet, they found these ‘Samaritan people’ in the land.

Some of them were viewed as part of the people of Israel, because they could prove, despite their mixed heritage, that their mothers were Jewish Israelites.

However, some could not.

Ezra demanded that they go through conversion if they wanted to be part of the returning nation of Israeli people.

Some accepted, some did not. Some converted, and then reneged.

Eventually, these Samaritans– now permanently so called, because of the area in which they lived, the mixed heritage from which they were seeded, and their mixed religion– continued with the traditions that they had started during the seventy year period of Israel's exile.

Pre-exile Israel had mixed true worship of Jehovah God with worship of numerous pagan deities, so angering the Lord until He caused them to fall before their enemies.

As the generations had passed during the exile, the Samaritan traditions had become heavily mixed with these same religious traditions of the defunct Northern Kingdom of Israel that had so backslidden.

But now, seeing the purity of worship in the Jewish camp, they purged their religious system, and became purist followers of the first five books of Moses. These did they cling to, and these only. No other prophetic book or Jewish prophet would they accept. 

These Samaritans were their own people, with their own beliefs, and they didn't care what anyone said.

To the returned Jews, they were viewed as a thorn in the side during the time of the Second Temple, and eventually the two groups, thoroughly growing to despise and hate each other, had no further dealings with one another.

The Samaritans would throw stones and dust at the Jews, spitting upon them, and cursing them whenever they met.

To the Jews, there was no such thing as a “good” Samaritan.

The Jews looked upon the Samaritans' historical origin and foundation as mixed, and their worship as mixed also, despite its being purged of paganism.

The Samaritan man trudging towards Jericho in the midday sun wasn't thinking of this division though, as he watched the outline of the city drawing nearer. His mind was on his wares and how he would trade them, and how he longed to see his old friends again.

He paused again to wipe sweat out of his eyes.

It was then that he saw him.

A man. Or maybe, a corpse…

He was lying on his face in the deep ditch by the side of the road in a pool of blood.

The Samaritan started in surprise, then hurriedly drew his donkey with him as he approached the fallen body.

The man was so dusty and battered, his clothes so torn, that he couldn't tell his nationality. Gently he rolled the body into its back.

The groan that escaped the parched lips told him that this was a living man.

And now he could see that this man– was a Jew. 

It looked like he had been set upon while on the road by bandits. This road was notorious for highway robbery. They'd left him in a sorry state, and his open wounds now attracted the attention of flies.

The Samaritan vaguely wondered if the bandits had been Samaritans like himself.

He wondered if every stroke they had given him had been motivated by racial hatred, and generations of anger. This battered man, whose race were the enemies of his own.

He could turn him back over, wipe the blood off his hands, and leave the fellow here to die…

It would be so easy to pretend never to have seen him.

Dust marks in the sand beside him showed that others passing along the road had seen the man, and had left him.

He could do likewise, and turn a blind eye. He could lift his heel, and grind him further into the dust. He could make him suffer, torture him, finish him off. After all, why should he help such a bitter enemy of his people?

The Samaritan didn't hesitate.

No such thought even passed through his mind. Pity had welled up in his heart at the sight of the man, robbed, beaten, and left to die in the dust by the side of the road. 

This Samaritan didn't see an enemy. His heart wasn't given over to hatred of his fellow man.

Here was a man, like himself.

A human being, left to die in the dust.

Right now, he was alive, and saveable.

But only if he acted now.

The Samaritan stood and rummaged amongst the wares he was going to sell in Jericho for his best oil and wine.

Carefully, he tended to the wounds of the battered man, binding them up in clean linen bandages with infinite care.

He gave him water from his own canteen, which he guzzled thirstily.

His eyes finally flickered open. Deep brown met deep brown.

The Jew didn't shudder at finding himself tended by a Samaritan. There was no trace of repulsion in his eyes. Only deep gratitude. The deep brown eyes filled with tears.

“Thank you,” the man whispered.

“It's what I can do, my friend,” the Samaritan nodded with a kind smile.

He helped the beaten man to stand and mount his patient donkey. He walked beside the man, holding him carefully as the journey towards Jericho began again, so that he wouldn't slide off.

The Samaritan's thoughts turned toward the city and his new destination. Thoughts of trade had been driven from his mind.

He would take the man to his favourite innkeeper, and pay for him to stay and be taken care of for as long as he needed to be made well again.

The Samaritan almost laughed when he thought about how they didn't even know one another's names.

That didn't matter.

What mattered was the care of his fellow man.

In those first five books of Moses, what had always stood out to him was Cain's reply to God when asked where his brother Abel was.

“Am I my brother's keeper?”

The man beside him sighed heavily and nodded off, lulled to sleep by the rhythmic plodding of the donkey.

Help had come. He was safe.

The Samaritan tightened his grip on the man's waist, keeping him in place, then smiled and picked up his lilting tune again, turning his eyes again towards Jericho.