The following article is part of the "Biblical Obscurities" blog series by Mike Velthouse, author of Journey Through the Psalms. For years, Mike has been writing articles for his church's monthly newsletter on a number of "obscurities" within the Bible. We will be reprinting many of those articles here on the RFPA blog. Join our email list here to receive a notification in your inbox for new additions to this blog series! PC: Mt Gerizim, from Wikimedia Commons.

As the sun goes down on the fourteenth day of the first month of the current Jewish calendar, Israel’s smallest religious minority gathers together on a mountain they consider to be the holiest ground on earth. Even in the disappearing light, the scene near the summit of Mount Gerizim dazzles the eyes, with hundreds of Samaritans dressed in all-white apparel from neck to feet. Male representatives from each family stand together on one side, each with the family lamb leashed tightly with a short rope and straddled between their legs. The rest of the men, women, and children watch from the opposite end of a broad grassy plateau. Those in attendance have been encamped here for six days. After celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles all week, it’s on Passover night, as the sun begins to set over the Mediterranean Sea in the distant west, that this climactic event is set to begin.

In the middle of the crowds, elevated on a tall rock, stands the Samaritan high priest. He quotes verse after verse of the Samaritan Torah, their own Aramaic version of the first five books of the Old Testament. After the last verse has been spoken aloud, he gives a signal. All at once, the men lay their animals on the ground and slay the Passover lambs simultaneously.

With shouts, the onlookers rush to their family lambs, and all smear the lamb's blood on their foreheads. By midnight, the festivities become a mass family feast, with all the lambs cooked over fires and then eaten in a shared community meal.

So, who are these Samaritans, the only group of Jewish lineage in the world that still celebrates the Passover with the actual slaying of lambs? Well, the answer depends on who you ask.

Although their history dates back almost 2,600 years and 127 generations, only about 850 Samaritans still exist in Israel. Nearly half of them reside in two small villages near Mount Gerizim in northern Israel, Kiryat Luza and Nablus (the biblical Shechem); the other half hail from Solon to the southwest, near Tel-Aviv.

As mentioned before, the Samaritans consider Mount Gerizim to be holy ground. Refusing to recognize the temple in Jerusalem as the true center of the Jewish religion, they have worshipped on Mount Gerizim ever since becoming a nation of ten tribes. The Bible calls Mount Gerizim the mount of blessing (Duet. 11:29). Samaritans believe Noah's ark rested on Mount Gerizim. They also believe Mount Moriah, where Abraham planned to offer Isaac to God, was really Mount Gerizim.

But their view of Mount Gerizim is not all that sets the Samaritans apart from the Jews. They reject the idea of a promised Messiah coming from the line of David, instead teaching their children to expect one to eventually come as a prophet like Moses, bringing spiritual revival. Samaritans also reject the wisdom of all the biblical books of the prophets, only holding to the Pentateuch as God’s word.

The Samaritans say their line goes back to the Israelites who were delivered by Moses out of the land of Egypt, specifically from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. However, Israeli Jews consider the Samaritans’ existence to have begun only after the northern ten tribes of Israel were taken into captivity by Assyria in 722 B.C. (2 Kings 17:23). In the aftermath of the captivity, very few Jews remained around the capital city of Samaria. Then, in order to eliminate Israelite identity and culture, Assyria directed a multitude of refugees from five other nations whom they had conquered to live in Samaria (v. 24). This resulted in the remaining Jews and pagan Gentile refugees intermingling via marriage. From then until today, Israeli Jews have considered the Samaritans to be unclean.

Do you now understand the animosity and hatred we read of in the Bible that Jews had for Samaritans? Think of how hard the parable of the Good Samaritan would have hit the Jews, right between the eyes, as Jesus spoke it to them. 

Despite the animosity between these two groups, no one is beyond the grace of God. Not even the Samaritans. Consider the following Bible references of how Jesus, the light of the world, broke through the darkness of unbelief and ritualistic idolatry to save Samaritans to himself.

In John 4, we read the account of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar. Sychar is located at the base of Mount Ebal, the mount of cursing, across the valley from Mount Gerizim. After the woman told the town of her encounter with Jesus, we read that the Samaritans there believed in Jesus and asked him to stay with them for a couple more days. They said, "Now we believe…for we have heard him ourselves and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world" (John 4:42).

Although the disciples wanted Jesus to call fire down from heaven and consume the Samaritans (Luke 9:54), Jesus not only ministered to them but also healed them, as with the one thankful leper (Luke 17).

Before Jesus ascended to heaven, his last marching orders to his disciples called them to be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth (Acts 1:8).

In Acts 8, we read of the preaching and healing that Philip the evangelist did in Samaria. The same chapter ends with Peter and John preaching to and healing the Samaritans and the Holy Spirit falling upon the believers there.

Today, amid the Israel-Hamas war, the Samaritans consider themselves apolitical. They would call themselves ethnic Palestinians with their own Samaritan religion: that is, the bridge between Arabs and Jews. They consider themselves enlightened. But this people has never really left the darkness of unbelief, the rejection of Jesus as Messiah, and ritualistic idolatry. Are they beyond the grace of God today? We know the answer to that: no! But the gospel commands are the same for all, whether Christian or Jew, Muslim, or Buddhist. Even the Samaritan.

“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” (Acts 16:31) 

“Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” (Acts 2:38)

Will light cut through the Samaritan darkness again? Nothing is impossible with God. “It shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory” (Is. 66:18).

Like what you've read? Click the image below to read more from author Mike Velthouse in the thirty-day devotional Journey Through the Psalms, available now on rfpa.org and in Christian bookstores near you!