Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary: John
Chapter 5
Ver. 1. Observe here the malice of the Pharisees; they were more hurt at the cure of the sick man, than at the violation of the sabbath. Therefore, they ask not, Who healed you; but, as if they wished to keep that out of sight, Who told you to take up your bed? (St. Chrysostom) --- But he answers: The same who healed me: Why should I not receive orders from him from whom I have received my health? (St. Augustine) --- By the festival, mentioned in ver. 1, is generally understood the Passover; and this was the second from the commencement of Christ's ministry. St. Matthew calls it by this name, chap. xxvi. 5; St. Mark, Chap. xiv. 2. and xv. 6; and St. Luke, Chap. xxiii. 17. For the first Passover, see above, John ii. 13; for the third, John vi. 4; for the fourth and last, Matthew xxvi. 17. The first three are only mentioned by St. John, the fourth by all the evangelists.
Ver. 2. Now there is at Jerusalem a pond, called Probatica.[1] Some translate, the sheep-pond. It is true the Greek word signifies something belonging to sheep. But because the ancient Latin interpreter thought fit to retain the Greek, probatica, and also because of the different expositions, I have not changed the word. Some think it was so called, as being near the gate called the sheep-gate: others, as being near the sheep-market: others, because the sheep that were brought to be sacrificed, were washed in it; or, at least, that the blood and entrails of sheep and beast sacrificed, were thrown into it, or washed there. In the ordinary Greek copies we read thus: there is at, or near, the Probatica, a pond or fish-pond. In Hebrew it was called Bethsaida, a house for fishing: and in most Greek copies, Bethchesda, a house of mercy, (perhaps because of the cures done there) having five porches, covered and arched, for the convenience of the infirm that lay there, waiting for the motion of the water. (Witham) --- The word probaton, signifies a sheep. This pond is therefore called Probatica, because there the priests washed the sacrifices. (St. Augustine) --- In imitation of this sick man, if we wish to return God thanks for his favours, or to enjoy the pleasure of his company, we must fly the crowd of vain and wicked thoughts that continually tempt us; we must avoid the company of the wicked, and fly to the sanctuary, that we may render our hearts worthy temples of that God who vouchsafes to visit us. (Alcuin)
Ver. 4. And an angel of the Lord.[2] In many Greek copies is now wanting, of the Lord; but at least the ancient Fathers, and interpreters, expound it of a true angel, and of a miraculous cure: so that I cannot but wonder that so learned a man as Dr. Hammond, should rather judge these cures to have been natural. By the angel, he would have us to understand a messenger sent from the temple, who was to stir up the blood, and the grosser and thicker parts from the bottom of the pond, and that these cures were made much after the same manner, as, in some cases, persons find a cure by being put into the belly of a beast newly opened. Into what extravagant interpretations are men of learning sometimes led by their private judgment! What scholar of Galen or Hippocrates, ever pretended that this was a certain and infallible cure for all manner of diseases? Yet here we read: that he who got first into this pond, after the motion of the water, was healed, whatsoever distemper he was seized with. The blind are particularly named: Is this a certain remedy that restores sight to the blind? (Witham) --- The effect produced could not be natural, as only one was cured at each motion of the waters. The longing expectation of the suffering patients, is a mark of the persevering prayer with which poor sinners should solicit the cure of their spiritual infirmities. (Haydock)
Ver. 5. Infirmity. The Greek, astheneia, signifies in its radical interpretation, a loss of strength: in this place it seems to denote a confirmed palsy.
Ver. 6. Wilt thou be made whole? No doubt but the poor man desired nothing more. Christ put this question, to raise him to a lively faith and hope. (Witham)
Ver. 8. Arise, take up thy bed, and walk. The man found himself healed at that very moment, and did as he was ordered, though it was the sabbath-day. The Jews blamed him for it: he told them, that he who had healed him, bade him do so. And who it was he knew not, till Jesus finding him in the temple, said to him: (ver. 14.) Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee. Upon this he went, not out of malice, but out of gratitude, and told the Jews that Jesus had cured him. (Witham)
Ver. 14. Sin no more, &c. By these words our Saviour shews, that his infirmity was sent in punishment of his sins. When our souls are covered with the leprosy of sin, we are frequently insensible of our misfortune; whereas, as soon as the body is attacked with sickness, though ever so inconsiderable, we are not to be pacified till the physician has been consulted, and some remedy applied to remove, if possible, the complaint. (St. Chrysostom, hom. xxxvii. in Joan.) --- Men are astonished that God, for so short a pleasure as is found in the perpetration of sin, should have decreed an everlasting punishment in the fire of hell; for they say, Shall I be punished for ever, for having indulged a sinful thought for a single moment? But their astonishment will cease, when they consider that punishments are not inflicted on sins in proportion to the length of time that was spent in their perpetration, but that they are proportioned to their malice. Now the malice of sin being infinite, aimed against the infinite majesty and infinite sanctity of God, the punishment, to be any ways commensurate, must be infinite. If, therefore, the sinner dies charged with the infinite debt of mortal sin unrepented of, as the time of mercy and repentance finishes with the present life, the sin must necessarily remain, God's hatred for sin must necessarily remain, and the punishment justly inflicted must necessarily continue. (Haydock) --- These words are applicable to every penitent sinner, when he returns from the tribunal of confession, and shew how careful he ought to be not to relapse into his former sins. "For he who after pardon sins again, is unworthy of mercy; who being cured, makes himself sick again, and who being cleansed, defiles himself again." (Tom. ii. St. Chrysostom, de lapsu prim. hom.)
Ver. 17. My father worketh until now:[3] and I work. The Jews looked upon it of obligation to do nothing on the sabbath, because God is said to have rested the seventh day; on which account the rest on the seventh day was commanded. Christ puts them in mind, that though it be said he rested the seventh day, (that is, produced no more new kinds of creatures) yet that God may be said to work always, by preserving and continually governing the world: and I, saith he, do all things that he doth, I work with him, being one and the same in nature and substance with him: nay, even as man, I do nothing but what is conformable to his will; and so you need not fear that I break the sabbath. --- The Christian faith teacheth us, that Jesus Christ was both God and Man. The objections of the ancient and modern Arians, only shew that Christ was also truly a man, and that divers things which he speaks of himself, or which are said of him in the holy Scriptures, apply to him as man. Nothing is more certain, and agreed on by all. But at the same time we ought to take notice, that Christ has affirmed many things of himself, and many things are asserted of him in the Scriptures, which by no means could be applied to him unless he were also truly and properly one and the same God with his eternal Father. And these are the passages by which the Arians and Socinians might be convinced of their errors and blasphemies. (Witham) --- If Christ had not been the natural Son of God, these words, which he says in excuse of his seeming breach of the sabbath, would rather have increased the strength of their accusation. For no governor, when accused of any crime, excuses himself by saying the king does the same. But as the Son is equal to the Father, his excuse is a true one. (St. Chrysostom, hom. xxxvii. in Joan.) --- The rest God entered into after the creation, and which he was pleased to honour by that of the sabbath, is no hinderance to the operations of his power in the preservation of his works, nor to the operations of his grace in the sanctification of souls.
Ver. 18. That God was his Father,[4] making himself equal to God. In divers places of the Old Testament, God is called the Father of the Israelites, and they his children: but here, and on several other occasions, the Jews very well saw, that he called God his Father in a quite different sense from that in which he could be said to be their Father; that his words made him equal to God, and that he made himself God. See John x. 33; John xix. 7; Luke xxii. 70; &c. And therefore St. Augustine says on this verse: (Trac. xvii. in Joan.) Behold the Jews understand what the Arians do not. (Witham)