5:1
So far there have been hints at Jewish opposition to Jesus. They investigated John the Baptist, Jesus had left Judea for Galilee. Now the opposition starts to intensify. In the midst of the opposition Jesus continues to do miracles, and His teaching becomes even clearer and more in-depth. There is no retreat, in fact His teaching often antagonies the opponents. There was a feast in Jerusalem and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. There is lots of speculation about which feast it was, as it is simply called the “Feast of the Jews” here. The truth is that no one knows which feast it was. The fact that John does not name the feast, unlike in other cases, indicates that the feast is not relevant to the incident, nor to John’s comments on the incident.
5:2-6
John does name the precise location where the miracle occurred, and there have been archaeological finds related to this. The pool was a place which was associated with healings, and there was a man there who had been an invalid for thirty eight years. This man was just one of many, but for some reason Jesus picked this man out. We are not actually given hint as to why Jesus chose this man. Jesus knew he had been there a long time. He went up to him and asked him if he wanted to be healed.
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