Matthew Poole and continuators on John 4:16

16 Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither .

Not that Christ did not know what she afterward confest, that she lived in Whoredom, and had no Legitimate Husband: But he said this probably, to check her petulancy, and mocking, at what he spake about the living water, and to bring her to a sense of her sin, that she might be more fit to receive the glad tidings of a Saviour, which he was about to publish to her; and this seems rather to be our Saviours design, in bidding her go call her Husband, than (as some of the Ancients thought) that he might better instruct her, or avoid any scandal to himself, by a longer private discourse with a woman alone, who was of no better Reputation.