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Joh_5:2-3. Ἔστι ] is all the less opposed to the composition of the Gospel after the destruction of Jerusalem, as what is mentioned is a bath, whose surroundings might very naturally be represented as still existing. According to Ewald, the charitable uses for which the building served might have saved it from destruction. Comp. Tobler, Denkblätt. p. 53 ff., who says that the porches were still pointed out in the fifth century.
ἐπὶ τῇ προβατικῇ ] is usually explained by πύλῃ supplied: hard by the sheep-gate; see on Joh_4:6. Concerning the ùÑÇòÇø äÇöÌÉàï , Neh_3:1; Neh_3:32; Neh_12:39, so called perhaps because sheep for sacrifice were sold there, or brought in there at the Passover, nothing further is known. It lay north-east of the city, and near the temple. Still the word supplied, “gate,” cannot he shown to have been in use; nor could it have been self-evident, especially to Gentile Christian readers, not minutely acquainted with the localities. I prefer, therefore, following Theodore of Mopsuestia, Ammonius, Nonnus, to join κολυμβ . with προβατικῇ , and, with Elz. 1633 and Wetstein, to read κολυμβῆθρᾳ , as a dative (comp. already Castalio): “Now there is in Jerusalem, at the sheep-pool, [a place called] Bethesda, so called in the Hebrew tongue.” According to Ammonius, the sheep used for sacrifice were washed in the sheep-pool.
ἐπιλεγ .] “this additional name being given to it.” On ἐπιλέγειν , elsewhere usually in the sense of selecting, see Plat. Legg. iii. p. 700 B. The pool was called Bethesda, a characteristic surname which had supplanted some other original name.
Βηθεσδά ] áÌÅéú çÆñÀãÌÈà , locus benignitatis, variously written in Codd. (Tisch., following à . 33, Βεθζαθά ), not occurring elsewhere, not even in Josephus; not “house of pillars,” as Delitzsch supposes. It is impossible to decide with certainty which of the present pools may have been that of Bethesda.[204] See Robinson, II 136 f., 158 f. To derive the healing virtue of the (according to Eusebius) red-coloured water, which perhaps was mineral, as Eusebius does, from the blood of the sacrifices flowing down from the temple, and the name from àÇùÑÈãÈà , effusio (Calvin, Aretius, Bochart, Michaelis), is unwarranted, and contrary to Joh_5:7. The five porches served as a shelter for the sick, who are specially described as τυφλῶν , etc., and those afflicted with diseases of the nerves and muscles. On ξηρῶν , “persons with withered and emaciated limbs,” comp. Mat_12:10; Mar_3:1; Luk_6:6; Luk_6:8. Whether the sick man of Joh_5:5 was one of them or of the χωλοῖς is not stated.
[204] Probably it was the present ebbing and flowing “Fountain of the Virgin Mary,” an intermittent spring called by the inhabitants “Mother of Steps.” See Robinson, II. 148 f. According to Wieseler, Synopse, p. 260, it may have been the pool Ἀμύγδαλον mentioned in Josephus, Antt. v. 11. 4, as was already supposed by Lampe and several others, against which, however, the difference of name is a difficulty; it has no claim to be received on the ground of etymology, but only of similarity of sound. Ritter, Erdk. XVI. pp. 329, 443 ff., describes the pool as now choked up, while Krafft, in his Topogr. p. 176, thinks it was the Struthion of Josephus. It certainly was not the ditch, now pointed out by tradition as Bethesda, at the north of the temple wall. See also Tobler as before, who doubts the possibility of discovering the pool. As to the meaning of the name (House of Mercy), it is possible that the arrangement for the purposes of a bath together with the porches was intended as a charitable foundation (Olshausen, Ewald), or that the divine favour, whose effects were here manifested, gave rise to the name. This latter is the more probable, and perhaps gave occasion to the legend of the Angel in the Received Text.