John 5:5
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One man there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
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.
Open source ↗We have in the gospels a faithful record of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach, Act 1:1. These two are interwoven, because what he taught explained what he did, and what he did confirmed what he taught. Accordingly, we have in this chapter a miracle and a sermon. I. The miracle was the cure of an impotent man that had been diseased thirty-eight years, with the circumstances of that cure (v. 1-16). II. The sermon was Christ's vindication of himself before the sanhedrim, when he was prosecuted as a criminal for healing the man on the sabbath day, in which, 1. He asserts his authority as Messiah, and Mediator between God and man (Joh 5:17-29). 2. He proves it by the testimony of his Father, of John Baptist, of his miracles, and of the scriptures of the Old Testament, and condemns the Jews for their unbelief (v. 30-47).
Open source ↗5:5 No social program helped this man, who had been ill for thirty-eight years. Hygiene and mobility were impossible, and he likely begged for a living from people who came to use the pool (see 5:7). His situation seemed hopeless.
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
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And a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those entering the temple courts.
including a woman who had suffered from bleeding for twelve years. She had spent all her money on physicians, but no one was able to heal her.
Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has this been with him?” “From childhood,” he said.
Then should not this daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be released from her bondage on the Sabbath day?”
In Lystra there sat a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked.
Now as Jesus was passing by, He saw a man blind from birth,
Afterward, Jesus found the man at the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you.”
There he found a man named Aeneas, who had been paralyzed and bedridden for eight years.
For the man who was miraculously healed was over forty years old.
But how he can now see or who opened his eyes, we do not know. Ask him. He is old enough to speak for himself.”