John 5:4-5

E.W. Bullinger's Companion Bible Notes - John 5:4

For an angel. The water was intermittent from the upper springs of the waters of Gihon (see App-68 , and 2 Chronicles 32:33 , Revised Version) The common belief of the man expressed in John 5:7 is hereby described. All will be clear, if we insert a parenthesis, thus: "For [it was said that] an angel", &c. at a certain season = from time to time. Greek. kata ( App-104 . kairon . into. Greek. en. App-104 . troubled . Greek. tarasso. Compare John 11:33 ; John 12:27 ; John 13:21 ; John... read more

E.W. Bullinger

E.W. Bullinger's Companion Bible Notes - John 5:5

And, &c. See App-176 . man. Greek anthropos. App-123 . thirty and eight years . The period of the wanderings. Compare "from birth", John 9:1 . read more

James Burton Coffman

Coffman Commentaries on the Bible - John 5:5

And a certain man was there, who had been thirty and eight years in his infirmity.The text does not say that he had been at the pool so long, but that his disease was of such lengthy duration. The Lord's attribution of his condition to the man's sin suggests that he had acquired the malady in his youth. read more

Thomas Coke

Thomas Coke Commentary on the Holy Bible - John 5:4

John 5:4. For an angel went down, &c.— Some imagine that this was a proper officer or messenger, as the word αγγελος primarily signifies; yet as it is most commonly used by the inspired writers to signify a celestial being, employed by God, either for the service or punishment of men, and as the circumstances of this narrative import that the virtue communicated by the agitation of the waters, was not a natural quality inherent in them; our translators seem very justly to have retained the... read more

Thomas Coke

Thomas Coke Commentary on the Holy Bible - John 5:5

John 5:5. And a certain man was there,— Among the crowds who lay in the porticos of Bethesda, there was one, who had an infirmity,— ασθενεια,— most probably a paralytic disorder, which hardly ever gives way to medicine, though recently contracted: how much less curable must it have been, after having continued 38 years! The inveteracy of this man's disorder must have been known to many in the course of so long a time; and the reality of his indisposition, which was even prior to the birth of... read more

Robert Jamieson; A. R. Fausset; David Brown

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible - John 5:4

4. an angel, c.—This miracle differed in two points from all other miracles recorded in Scripture: (1) It was not one, but a succession of miracles periodically wrought: (2) As it was only wrought "when the waters were troubled," so only upon one patient at a time, and that the patient "who first stepped in after the troubling of the waters." But this only the more undeniably fixed its miraculous character. We have heard of many waters having a medicinal virtue but what water was ever known to... read more

Robert Jamieson; A. R. Fausset; David Brown

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible - John 5:5

5-9. thirty and eight years—but not all that time at the pool. This was probably the most pitiable of all the cases, and therefore selected. read more

Thomas Constable

Expository Notes of Dr. Thomas Constable - John 5:1-9

1. The third sign: healing the paralytic 5:1-9This third sign in John’s Gospel signaled Jesus’ identity and created controversy that followed. Particularly it testified to Jesus’ authority over time. [Note: Tenney, John: The Gospel. . ., p. 312.] read more

Thomas Constable

Expository Notes of Dr. Thomas Constable - John 5:3-4

This section of the text has doubtful authenticity. No Greek manuscript before A.D. 400 contains these words. [Note: Blum, p. 289; Tenney, "John," p. 62.] Evidently scribes added these statements later to explain the troubling of the waters that occurred periodically (John 5:7). [Note: For defense of the authenticity of John 5:4, see Zane C. Hodges, "The Angel at Bethesda-John 5:4," Bibliotheca Sacra 136:541 (January-March 1979):25-39.] However these scribal explanations seem superstitious.... read more

Thomas Constable

Expository Notes of Dr. Thomas Constable - John 5:5

This man’s sickness appears to have been paralysis resulting in inability to walk at least (John 5:7) that seems to have been a result of sin (John 5:14). Perhaps a severe arthritic condition complicated his ailment. John’s reference to the length of his illness seems to be just to document its seriousness and the man’s hopeless condition. Some commentators tried to find symbolic significance in the 38 years, but that seems unwarranted to me. For example, 38 years recalls the period during... read more

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