“For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.”
[One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.] — the variant manuscripts suggest this verse may be a later addition, but the thirty-eight years is theologically significant: long enough that recovery seems impossible, long enough that the man has internalized his condition as permanent.
Church Fathers on John 5:4
After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
The feast of Pentecost. Jesus always went up to Jerusalem at the time of the feasts, that it might be seen that He was not an enemy to, but an observer of, the Law. And it gave Him the opportunity of impressing the simple multitude by miracles and teaching: as great numbers used then to collect from the neighboring towns.
The pool by the sheep-market, is the place where the priest washed the animals that were going to be sacrificed.
Read all 19 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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