The Healing at the Pool
5 Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda [Some manuscripts Bethzatha; other manuscripts Bethsaida ] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. [4] [Some manuscripts include here, wholly or in part, paralyzed—and they waited for the moving of the waters. 4 From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had.] 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
11 But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
12 So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”
13 The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
14 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.
The Authority of the Son
16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. 17 In his defense, Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” 18 For this reason, they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these so that you will be amazed. 21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so, the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. 22 Moreover, the Father judges no one but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.
24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. 25 Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.
28 “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. 30 By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.
Testimonies About Jesus
31 “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. 32 There is another who testifies in my favor, and I know that his testimony about me is true.
33 “You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. 34 Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved. 35 John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.
36 “I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me. 37 And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, 38 nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. 39 You study [Or 39 Study] the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
41 “I do not accept glory from human beings, 42 but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. 43 I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. 44 How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God [Some early manuscripts the Only One]?
45 “But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. 46 If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. 47 But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”
NOTES:
BACK TO:
5:1–47 The self-revelation of Jesus continues in Jerusalem
at a feast. The third sign (cf. Jn 2:11; 4:54) is performed, the cure of a
paralytic by Jesus’ life-giving word. The water of the pool fails to bring
life; Jesus’ word does.
5:1 The reference in Jn 5:45–46 to Moses suggests that the
feast was Pentecost. The connection of that feast with the giving of the law to
Moses on Sinai, attested in later Judaism, may already have been made in the
first century. The feast could also be Passover (cf. Jn 6:4). John stresses
that the day was a sabbath (Jn 5:9).
5:2 There is no noun with Sheep. “Gate” is supplied on the
grounds that there must have been a gate in the NE wall of the temple area
where animals for sacrifice were brought in; cf. Neh 3:1, 32; 12:39. Hebrew:
more precisely, Aramaic. Bethesda: preferred to variants “Be(th)zatha” and
“Bethsaida”; bêt-’ešdatayīn is given as the name of a double pool northeast of
the temple area in the Qumran Copper Roll. Five porticoes: a pool excavated in
Jerusalem actually has five porticoes.
5:3 The Caesarean and Western recensions, followed by the
Vulgate, add “waiting for the movement of the water.” Apparently an
intermittent spring in the pool bubbled up occasionally (see Jn 5:7). This
turbulence was believed to cure.
5:4 Toward the end of the second century in the West and
among the fourth-century Greek Fathers, an additional verse was known: “For
[from time to time] an angel of the Lord used to come down into the pool; and
the water was stirred up, so the first one to get in [after the stirring of the
water] was healed of whatever disease afflicted him.” The angel was a popular
explanation of the turbulence and the healing powers attributed to it. This
verse is missing from all early Greek manuscripts and the earliest versions,
including the original Vulgate. Its vocabulary is markedly non-Johannine.
5:14 While the cure of the paralytic in Mk 2:1–12 is
associated with the forgiveness of sins, Jesus never drew a one-to-one
connection between sin and suffering (cf. Jn 9:3; Lk 12:1–5), as did Ez 18:20.
5:17 Sabbath observance (Jn 5:10) was based on God’s resting
on the seventh day (cf. Gn 2:2–3; Ex 20:11). Philo and some rabbis insisted
that God’s providence remains active on the sabbath, keeping all things in
existence, giving life in birth and taking it away in death. Other rabbis
taught that God rested from creating, but not from judging (= ruling,
governing). Jesus here claims the same authority to work as the Father, and, in
the discourse that follows, the same divine prerogatives: power over life and
death (Jn 5:21, 24–26) and judgment (Jn 5:22, 27).
5:19 This proverb or parable is taken from apprenticeship in
a trade: the activity of a son is modeled on that of his father. Jesus’
dependence on the Father is justification for doing what the Father does.
5:21 Gives life: in the Old Testament, a divine prerogative
(Dt 32:39; 1 Sm 2:6; 2 Kgs 5:7; Tb 13:2; Is 26:19; Dn 12:2).
5:22 Judgment: another divine prerogative, often expressed
as acquittal or condemnation (Dt 32:36; Ps 43:1).
5:28–29 While Jn 5:19–27 present realized eschatology, Jn
5:28–29 are future eschatology; cf. Dn 12:2.
5:32 Another: likely the Father, who in four different ways
gives testimony to Jesus, as indicated in the verse groupings Jn 5:33–34, 36,
37–38, 39–40.
5:35 Lamp: cf. Ps 132:17—“I will place a lamp for my
anointed (= David),” and possibly the description of Elijah in Sir 48:1. But
only for a while, indicating the temporary and subordinate nature of John’s
mission.
5:39 You search: this may be an imperative: “Search the
scriptures, because you think that you have eternal life through them.”
5:41 Praise: the same Greek word means “praise” or “honor”
(from others) and “glory” (from God). There is a play on this in Jn 5:44.
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