John 5:1

A feast - This is generally supposed, by the best critics, to have been the feast of the passover, which was the most eminent feast among the Jews. In several excellent MSS. the article is added, ἡ ἑορτη , The feast, the grand, the principal festival. Petavius supposes that the feast of Purim, or lots, is here meant; and one MS. reads ἡ σκηνοπηγια , the feast of Tabernacles. Several of the primitive fathers believe Pentecost to be intended; and they are followed by many of the moderns, because, in John 7:2 , mention is made of the feast of Tabernacles, which followed Pentecost, and was about the latter end of our September; and, in John 10:22 , mention is made of the feast of Dedication, which was held about the latter end of November. See Bp. Pearce. See John 10:22 .

Calmet, however, argues that there is no other feast with which all the circumstances marked here so well agree as with the passover; and Bp. Newcome, who is of Calmet's opinion, thinks Bp. Pearce's argument concerning the succession of the feasts to be inconclusive; because it is assumed, not proved, that the three feasts which he mentions above must have happened in the same year. See much on the same subject in Bp. Newcome's notes to his Harmony, p. 15, etc.

Lightfoot has observed, that the other evangelists speak very sparingly of our Lord's acts in Judea. They mention nothing of the passovers, from our Lord's baptism till his death, excepting the very last: but John points at them all. The first he speaks of, John 2:13 ; the third, John 6:4 ; the fourth, John 13:1 ; and the second in this place: for although he does not call it the passover, but a feast in general, yet the circumstances agree best with this feast; and our Lord's words, John 4:35 , seem to cast light on this subject. See the note there.