THE KING’S BUSINESS
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Jesus at the Pool of Bethesda FEBRUARY 25, 1917. LESSON VIII. John 5:1-15. (Memorize vs. 8 , 9.) G olden T e x t : “It was Jesus which had made him whole.”—John 5:15. DAILY BIBLE READINGS
Mon., Feb. 19—John 5 :l-9. Tues,, Feb. 20—John 5 :10-18. Wed., Feb. 21—John 5:19-29. Thurs., Feb. 22—John 5 :30-47. Fri., Feb. 23—Mark 5 :25-34. Sat., Feb. 24—Mark 5 :21-24, 35-43. Sun., Feb. 25—Luke 5 :17-26. EXPOSITION AND PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
vs. 1-3. “A fter this (these things ) , there was a feast of the Jews, ( ; ) and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is at (in) Jerusalem by the sheep market (gate) a pool, which is called in the ('omit, the) Hebrew tongue (omit, tongue) Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great (omit, great) multitude of impotent folk (them that were sick), of (omit, of) blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water (omit, waiting for the moving of the water).’’ An occasion of great rejoic 1 ing,. “a feast” or festival, took Jesus, up to Jerusalem at this time. There was joy and mirth on every hand, but there was no joy in it for the wretched company so graph ically pictured. How deeply engraven it was upon the memory of John, who here tells the story. There is not much real joy in any feast without Christ in it, and in this case the coming of Christ brought joy to at least one miserable man. Jesus went up to the feast because this was the require ment of the Jewish law (Ex. 34:23; cf. Gal. 4:4). It was indeed, a wretched com pany that was gathered around this pool, this “multitude, of them that were sick, blind, halt, withered.” It is a picture of the multitudes of the world. What a sight any crowd is. Any ordinary crowd has “a multitude of them that are sick, blind, halt, withered,” perhaps not physically,- but none the less spiritually. Men soon found out that the best place to bring these afflicted ones was to Jesus Himself (Matt. 15:30), not to some pool. Wretched men sought
the pool, but Jesus seeks the men. The expression, “After these things,” with which the chapter begins, is one of the characteristic expressions of John, found over and over again, not only in his Gospel, but also in the Revelation, one, of the many indications that the Gospel of John and the Revelation were written by the same per son. This is not as clear either in the A.V. or R. V. as it is in the Greek, for the same Greek words are translated in a variety of ways. v. 4. “For an angel went down at a certain season unto the pool, and troubled the water: 'whosoever then first after the troub ling of ,the water stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.’’ The fourth verse is omitted entirely in the Revised Version, and in thi^ the R.V. fol lows the best manuscripts. Evidently the fourth verse was a gloss that some copyist of thé manuscripts put on the margin as his own explanation of how people -were healed at the moving of the waters of this intermittent spring, and afterwards the gloss crept into the body of the text in some manuscripts. Many people have had difficulties with this verse, but their difficul ties do not arise from what God really said,, but from a corrupted text. This is true of not a few difficulties that men have with the Bible. v. 5. “And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years (been thirty and eight years tn his infirmity).” Apparently the most miser-
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