Women at the well in the Bible

This article examines biblical scenes of encounter at a well, a recurring motif in the Old and New Testaments. Through an exegetical and typological approach, Sandrine Caneri analyzes several episodes featuring women beside a well, identifying the common narrative structures that run through them. The central idea is that these encounters do not constitute mere isolated pericopes, but form a coherent network of theological meanings. The author highlights the consistency of an underlying nuptial metaphor, in which the face-to-face meeting between a man and a woman at the water's edge figures the relationship between God and the human being. The contribution of the article lies in shedding light on the typological coherence of this motif throughout the biblical corpus as a whole, thereby enriching the theological reading of these texts.