A lame man healed at the pool of Bethesda
At a feast in Jerusalem, Jesus healed a man who had been disabled for thirty-eight years as he lay by the pool of Bethesda. Because it was the Sabbath, the leaders began to seek to kill him.
Jesus said to him, “Arise, take up your mat, and walk.”
John 5:8 (World English Bible)
Jesus told the man to get up, take up his mat, and walk, and he did. When challenged for working on the Sabbath, Jesus said that his Father was working and so was he, which his opponents understood as a claim to equality with God (John 5:17–18).
The pool, with its five porches (John 5:2), was long doubted by critics; archaeologists have since uncovered two large pools with colonnades just north of the temple mount.
Places
Dating notes
Ussher: AD 31. John doesn't name the feast (John 5:1); Ussher, following Richardson's harmony, takes it as the second Passover of the ministry. Others suggest Purim, Pentecost, or Tabernacles.