Who are the Samaritans?

Follow us on the web

Subscribe to the Diocese's Email List

Join to receive messages from His Grace and event reminders or update your information.

home › resources › Interesting Facts › Who are the Samaritans?

Interesting Holy Bible Facts

It is clear from the Holy Bible that there was great enmity between the Jews and the Samaritans. We first hear of this in the book of Ezra 4:1-3 when the Samaritans wanted to participate in re-building the temple after the return of the Jews from exile. Their request was denied by Zerubabbel, Jeshua and the heads of the tribes of Israel. The result was a complaint by the Samaritans to the kings of Persia and their constant harassment of the Jews in rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem. This enmity grew over the centuries to the extent that the Jews told our Lord Jesus Christ, “Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?” (John 8:48).

To fully understand this deep enmity between these two peoples, we must first understand who the Samaritans really are. In the final stage of the fulfilling of Isaiah’s prophecy, “Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be broken, so that it will not be a people” (Isaiah 7:8), Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, in the year 670 B.C., removed the Israelites living in what was the Northern Kingdom. In their place he transplanted peoples from several other nations that they had previously conquered as described in 2 Kings 17:24: “Then the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its cities.” This passage continues on: “And it was so, at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they did not fear the Lord; therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them. So they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, ‘The nations whom you have removed and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the rituals of the God of the land; therefore He has sent lions among them, and indeed, they are killing them because they do not know the rituals of the God of the land.’ Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, ‘Send there one of the priests whom you brought from there; let him go and dwell there, and let him teach them the rituals of the God of the land.’ Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear the Lord. However every nation continued to make gods of its own, and put them in the shrines on the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities where they dwelt. The men of Babylon made Succoth Benoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima, and the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites burned their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. So they feared the Lord, and from every class they appointed for themselves priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places. They feared the Lord, yet served their own gods—according to the rituals of the nations from among whom they were carried away. To this day they continue practicing the former rituals; they do not fear the Lord, nor do they follow their statutes or their ordinances, or the law and commandment which the Lord had commanded the children of Jacob, whom He named Israel, with whom the Lord had made a covenant and charged them, saying: ‘You shall not fear other gods, nor bow down to them nor serve them nor sacrifice to them; but the Lord, who brought you up from the land of Egypt with great power and an outstretched arm, Him you shall fear, Him you shall worship, and to Him you shall offer sacrifice. And the statutes, the ordinances, the law, and the commandment which He wrote for you, you shall be careful to observe forever; you shall not fear other gods. And the covenant that I have made with you, you shall not forget, nor shall you fear other gods. But the Lord your God you shall fear; and He will deliver you from the hand of all your enemies.’ However they did not obey, but they followed their former rituals. So these nations feared the Lord, yet served their carved images; also their children and their children’s children have continued doing as their fathers did, even to this day” (2 Kings 17:25-41).

Thus, the Samaritans are not a Jewish people, but rather a mix of several different peoples that worshipped multiple gods. Over time, their worship had taken on a Jewish character but with their own peculiarities. Their primary religious text became the Torah (the Pentateuch) only, but with some variation, and excluded the other Holy Scriptures. They ended up building their own temple on Mt. Gerizim which they considered their own holy mountain instead of where Jerusalem was at the time of Alexander the Great in 322 B.C. They were also involved in persecuting the Jews at the time of Antiochus Epiphanes.

« previous fact | next fact »