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The woman in John 4 had five husbands and was living with someone who was not her husband. When Jesus met her at the well in Samaria, he asked her for a drink — the opening of a conversation, not an accusation. He spoke to her about living water, about worship, about the nature of God. He told her more about himself in that conversation than he told almost anyone. And at the end, she left her water pot at the well and ran back into the city saying "Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did." She was not ashamed to be seen. Jesus had met her shame and given her a story instead.
Get These Verses Daily — Free“For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.”
The Greek word 'ashamed' — kataischuno — means to have the ground give way beneath you, to be exposed and found wanting at the identity level. Paul quotes Isaiah to say: this is what does not happen to the believer. The shame at the center of the past does not stand.
“For your shame ye shall have double; and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their land they shall possess the double: everlasting joy shall be unto them.”
The Hebrew word 'double' — mishneh — means twice as much. God's response to the territory where shame has lived is not to minimize it but to return double from it. The shame is not the last word. Double restoration is.
“Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Jesus 'despising the shame' uses a Greek word meaning to treat as negligible, to look past. He did not pretend the shame of crucifixion was painless. He endured it while looking past it. He broke shame's claim by walking through it, not around it.
“Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?”
The woman at the well had reason for social shame. Jesus met her, named her history without condemnation, and told her more about himself than almost anyone. She left her water pot and ran back into the city — not hiding, but inviting. Jesus had given her a story instead of shame.
“Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more.”
God addresses specific historical shame — 'the shame of thy youth' — with a future that overwrites it: 'shalt not remember.' This is not denial of the past but a promise about where the memory of shame ends up. God speaks the end of it.
Hebrews 12:2 describes Jesus' crucifixion in terms of shame: he "endured the cross, despising the shame." The Greek word for "despising" — kataphroneo — means to think nothing of, to treat as negligible. Jesus treated the shame of public crucifixion — the nakedness, the exposure, the social death — as something beneath his attention. He endured it not by pretending it did not exist but by looking past it at "the joy that was set before him." The shame did not define the cross. The cross broke shame's power.
Isaiah 61:7 speaks a direct reversal over the shamed: "for your shame ye shall have double; and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion." The Hebrew word for "double" — mishneh — means twice as much, a full restoration plus. The shame you carry is not the last word God speaks over that territory of your life. He speaks restoration — not minimization of the shame, but double return where the shame has been.
Commentary is from a charismatic Protestant perspective, drawing on KJV text and public-domain sources including Spurgeon, Andrew Murray, and Matthew Henry.
Romans 10:11 quotes Isaiah 28:16: "whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed." The Greek word for "ashamed" — kataischuno — means to be put to shame, to have the ground give way beneath you socially and existentially. Paul says this is what does not happen to the one who believes. The specific shame of past failure — the identity wound, not just the guilt — is addressed in this promise.
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