“And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath.”
So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, 'It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.' — the Jewish objection is not to the healing per se but to the carrying of the mat, which constitutes work. The law (Torah) permits carrying on the Sabbath only in specific contexts; the authorities challenge whether healing justifies this exception.
Church Fathers on John 5:9
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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