736
a Neh.iii.1. εἲς “Ἱεροσόλυμα.
2. Ἔστι δὲ ἐν τοῖς Ἱεροσολύμοις ἐπὶ τῇ
eV.
* 1po-
βατικῇ κολυµβήθρα, ἡ ἐπιλεγομένη “EBpaioti Βηθεσδὰ,ὶ πέντε
b Μι. i, 30. στοὰς ἔχουσα.
3. ἐν ταύταις
Ῥκατέκειτο πλῆθος πολὺ τῶν ἆσθε-
33. νούντων, τυφλῶν, χωλῶν, ξηρῶν, ἐκδεχομένων τὴν τοῦ ὕδατος κίνησιν.2
4. ἄγγελος γὰρ κατὰ καιρὸν κατέβαινεν ἐν τῇ κολυµβήθρα, καὶ
ἐτάρασσε τὸ ὕδωρ" 6 οὖν πρῶτος ἐμβὰς μετὰ τὴν ταραχὴν τοῦ
δδ « AS Peet? 9 / κά , 8 voaTos, uytys ΕΥΙΥΕΤΟ; ® δήποτε κατειχετο νοσηµατι.
ς ili. 1. d viii. 57; xi. 17.
1 Βηθεσδα ACI Syr. Cur. Pesh. Orig. Chrys. σαιδα B vulg. Memph. Theb. Syr. Harcl.
5. "Hy δέ
ο ” > “~ 9 ” dado. 2 ~ ld τις ἄνθρωπος ἐκεῖ τριακονταοκτὼ ἔτη “exwv ἐν TH ἀσθενεία. 6. τοῦτον ἰδὼν ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς κατακείµενον, καὶ γνοὺς ὅτι πολὺν ἤδη
Βηθζαθα (or Βηζαθα) NL 33. Bye»
Σ εκδεχοµενον την του νδατος κινησιν in ΑΣ0ΣΕΙ vet. Lat. codd. plur. syrr. (Ρε5Η.. Harcl. Hier.); omitted from ΝΑ3ΒΟΤ, and by recent editors. 5 Ver. 4 found in AC7EFGHIKL vet. Lat., etc., but omitted from $¥BC*D vulg,
Memph. Theb. Arm. and by recent editors.
But Oscar Holtzmann pronounces it
necessary for the understanding of the narrative ; and it is quite in keeping with the Jewish conception of the ministry of angels.
Godet, Farrar, Weiss, and others strongly favour Purim; while Liicke seems to prove that no sure conclusion can be reached. [For a full and fair presentation of opinions and data see Andrew’s Life of our Lord, p. 189 sqq.] The feast, what- ever it was, is mentioned here to account for Jesus being again in Jerusalem.— Ver. 2. ἔστι δὲ ἐν τοῖς “Ἱεροσολύμοις. From the use of the present tense Bengel concludes that this was written before the destruction of Jerusalem [‘* Scripsit Johannes ante vastationem urbis’’]. But quite probably John considered the pool one of the permanent features of the city. Its position is more precisely defined in the words ἐπὶ τῇ προβατικῇ, rendered in A.V. ‘by the sheep market” and in R.V. ‘“‘ by the sheep gate”. Others read κολυµβήθρᾳ, and render “‘by the sheep- pool a pool”; Weiss,’ adopting this reading, supplies οἰκία or some such word: ‘there is by the sheep-pool a building”. But this does some violence to the sentence; and as the “sheep gate” is mentioned in Neh. iii. 32, xii. 39, the reading, construction, and render- ing of R.V. are to be preferred.—7* ém- λεγομένη Ἑβραϊστὶ Βηθεσδά. The pool has recently been identified. M. Clermont Ganneau pointed out that its site should not be far from the church of St. Anne, and in 1888 Herr Shick found in that locality two sister pools, one fifty-five and the other sixty feet long. The former was arched in by five arches, while five corresponding porches ran alongside the pool. By the crusaders a church had
been bwilt over this pool, with a crypt framed in imitation of the five porches and with an opening in the floor to get down to the water. That they regarded this pool as that mentioned here is shown by their having represented on the wall of the crypt the angel troubling the water. [Herr Shick’s papers are con- tained in the Palestine Quarterly, 1888, ΡΡ. 115-134, and 1890, p. 19. See also St. Clair’'s Buried Cities, Henderson’s- Palestine, p. 180.) The pool had five porches. Bovet describes the bath of Ibrahim near Tiberias: ‘The hall :n which the spring is found is surrounded by several porticoes in which we see 2: multitude of people crowded one upon another, laid on couches -or rolled in blankets, with lamentable expressions of misery and suffering”. Here lay πλῆθος τῶν ἀσθενούντων, and these were of three kinds, τυφλῶν, χωλῶν, Eqpav.—Ver. 3. ἐκδεχομένων . . . νοσήµατι. See critical note.—Ver. 5. ἦν δέτις ἄνθρωπος... ἀσθενείᾳ. ‘ And there was a certain man there who had spent thirty-eight years in his infirmity: ” ἔτη ἔχων, of. ν. 6 and viii. 57; and Achil. Tat.,24. How-long he had lain by the water is not said. To find in the man’s thirty-eight years’ imbecility a. symbol of Israel’s thirty-eight years in the wilderness is itself an imbecility.—Ver. 6. Jesus when He saw the man lying and had ascertained (γνοὺς, having learned from the man or his friends) that already he had passed a long time (in that in- firmity) says: θέλεις ὑγιὴς γενέσθαι; “Do you wish to become whole